Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Mediatization and journalism 47 of subjectivity” materialized in romance or poetry. The press mentioned by Scottish Thomas Carlyle (exponent of romantic historiography in 19 th -century England) is the space where the “man of letters” moves, understood as a professional writer, but also as an individual invested with an ideological authority simi- lar to that of the wise man. In this perspective, the press would have replaced both the pulpit and the Senate 4 . Karl Marx, who worked considerably as a journalist, for alleged economic problems – both for the German press ( Gazeta Renana, Nova G zeta Renana ) and the English and the American press ( New York Tribune ) – sometimes expressed his perception of journalism now as an inessential practice, now as a tiresome thing that diverted him from his true work. Marx questions the discourse of information when taken only to their logic (which leads to comparisons with the current media): “Even the daily and complete publication can be called complete and public ? Aren’t we summing up by substituting the written word, plans for pensions, paper stocks for real stocks? Or does the publica- tion consist only of reporting the real fact to the public and not of reporting the fact to the real audience – that is, not the imaginary reading public, but the real, living audience?” 5 Marxian critique allows the suspicion that the liberal argument about the civil right of free expression may not entire- ly coincide with the functioning of the press, which is classically linked to the liberal principle of parliamentarianism as “govern- ment by publicity and discussion” but which, today, is insepara- ble from the information system as a whole – the mediatization – ruled by the same logic of speed of movement of goods, which we have called “real-time”. Within this system, the very concept of “event” may depend more on algorithmic modeling than on symbolic negotiations between social actors who traditionally competed for the language game or “agenda” of the noticeable. Despite the criticism and historical detours, the liberal ideas of the bourgeois press maintain freedom of expression and “civil conversation” as a background. And it cannot be oth- 4 SODRÉ, Muniz. A narração do fato – notas para uma teoria do acontecimento. Petrópolis: Ed. Vozes, 2012. 5 MARX, Karl. Liberdade de imprensa . Porto Alegre: L&PM, 2007, p. 12.