Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Generational analysis & mediatized social change 67 tion. Especially the one-to-many character of the mass media is criticized since it does not allow for ‘symbolic exchange’ (BAU - DRILLARD, 1971). This perspective, rooted in structuralist an - thropology, linguistics, and semiotics, rather point to the code as the decisive mechanism (compared with the institutional per- spective where it is the institution of the media that impact on other spheres of society. Also this approach is causal in its view on the relation between the media and society, where the code affect society from its outside. Similar to the institutional per- spective, the view on history is linear, but here it is rather the break in the linear development that is emphasised, rather than the continuity. Jean Baudrillard, who in his 1971 article ‘Requim pour les media’, is an example of early use of the concept of mediatiza- tion, predating the institutional perspective by more than a de- cade. This is a quote from the English translation of Baudrillard’s text, in a context in which he discusses Benjamin and McLuhan: The object today [ …] no longer has anything to do with yesterday’s objects, any more than ‘me - diatized’ information has with the ‘reality’ of facts. Both object and information already result from a selection, an edited sequence of camera angles, they have already tested ‘reality’ and have only asked those questions to which it has responded. Reality has been analyzed into simple elements which have been recomposed into scenarios of stable oppositions, just as the photographer im - poses his own contrasts, lighting and angles onto his object. ( BAUDRILLARD , 1976/1993, p. 63) The cultural approach to mediatization sees the media from a more holistic perspective, as always already integrated into social and cultural processes. This approach is not restrict- ed to the mass media but includes all forms of communication media in its focus on communication as a type of social action shaped in dialogue with wider social processes including tech- nology and institutions. This also means that it is not necessar- ily linear in its conception of history. It is phenomenologically oriented, focusing on the perceptions of the mediated processes