Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Debating mediatization 55 Another dimension, mainly linked to the Argentine group 4 and its Brazilian partners, seeks to see mediatization as the construction of a different environment that is changing the way we are in the world. That is what we will now discuss. Researchers from England, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (with branches in France and Portugal) have con- siderable intellectual production on the subject 5 . However, for some of them, the concept is coming to an end, its semantic bur- den having exhausted its ability to explain reality. We would be at the end of mediatization. In a conference given at the International Symposium “Political communication at a crossroads,” in Milan, on March 17, 2017 6 , Winfried Schulz discusses the possibility of the end of mediatization, because of the emergence of social networks that permeate all social life. His reflection is based on the importance of mass media in contemporary society. He anchors his positions in the studies of Gianpietro Mazzoleni on the relationship between the logic of the media and the party logic, visualized in the research on the coverage of the Italian 1983-campaign for general elections. The focus was on changing the relationship between political parties and the mass media in Italy, identifying two logics: the logic of the media and the logic of politics. The background is the media theory of David Altheide 7 , an American sociologist, who centers his theory on the concept of media format. Each and any means of communication, including modern mass media, organizes its messages using specific formats, which, above all, are a means of social control. However, Schulz underlines, Mazzoleni introduced the concept of mediatization but did not invent it. Swedish politi- cal scientist Kent Asp, emphasizes Schulz, claims for himself the 4 Developed at CIMI, Universidade de Rosario, Argentina. 5 See mainly the work: LUNDBY, Knut et al. Mediatization of Communication. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2014. (Handbooks of Communication Science Col- lection, n. 21). 6 SCHULZ, Winfried. The End of Mediatization. The International Symposium “ Po- litical Communication at a Crossroads: An International Encyclopedia” , Milano, March 17, 2017. 7 ALTHEIDE, D. L.; SNOW, R. P. Media Logic . Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979.