In the image and likeness: machine, man, and imaginaries in circulation 233 In our view, hyper-mediatization and deep mediatization are interesting as they point to the need for new and more reading keys to understand this ongoing phenomenon. How- ever, considering that mediatization is an increasingly intense process, to what extent will the addition of expressions like hy- per or deep be sufficient? What new terms will be necessary in the near future? The argument is that society and academia will have to deal more and more with complex processes, typical of the imagined but requiring different approaches. The risk of the neologism presented by Verón back in 1997 was not because the word is a risk but because it prompts us to consider whether the phenomenon is something entirely different or if we are witness- ing its unfolding. Are we talking about another mediatization, or is it the same process? The question is simple, but the answer is not. Theories and words are often insufficient to delineate speci- ficity without losing the whole. Newwords and metaphors seem necessary, not to weaken the central concept but in an attempt to work with it. However, the concept often seems dated in this effort, as if adding hyper, digital, or deep now describes something else, prompting us to question: what does mediatization encompass as a process? Why is it so challenging to characterize and highlight a phenomenon of which we are such an integral part and in which we are so immersed? Perhaps the challenge lies in the struggle to discover words and concepts that capture what eludes us, particularly in mediatization, where the essence is marked by continuous flow. In this sense, the debate surrounding hyper-mediatiza- tion, deep mediatization, and any other emerging forms is nothing more than attempts to observe mediatization in its proces- suality. From our perspective, much like the imaginaries of the human-machine relationship, which undergoes transformation but endures over time, we understand that mediatization already embraces new forms, encompassing those we have not even con- ceived. As a socio-anthropological process, it accompanies human development. Therefore, the notion of stages and waves, though crucial for didactic observation of the phenomenon, merely at- tempts to open the black box of a process that entangles us, blinds us, fascinates us, propelling us to ‘be in mediatization,’ as accu- rately highlighted by Pedro Gilberto Gomes (2022).
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