Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

63 Generational analysis & mediatized social change Göran Bolin Abstract : In this paper I will suggest that a generational per- spective is fruitful for analysing the mediatization process, and thus for analysing social change. I will first discuss briefly what I mean with ‘mediatization’. I will then discuss the possibilities for analysing mediatization through the lens of generations. In the subsequent section I will suggest a model for how the media landscape can be accounted for, and why the landscape meta- phor is more fitting than competing concepts for this type of analysis. In the section following that, I will discuss how one can locate different generations in this landscape, and then how one can analyze social change as a result of the ways in which gen- erational narratives are produced. In a last section I will sum- marise my arguments for why a generational analysis is benefi - cial for the understanding of social change. I – Introduction This is a photo from my family album. In the centre of the photo you find a girl in a white cap. This girl is my mother, and when the phot was taken she was 6 years old. Photo taken in the north of Sweden where my grandmother and grandfa- ther came from, and it is was taken in 1939, probably in July. The month of July is the month when most Swedes have their vacation, and during that time my grandparents used to take my mother from Stockholm in the mid-south of Sweden where they then lived, and where my mother was born, to the north – to where they came from and where they returned each summer for a few weeks’ vacation.