This book is one of the results of the III International Seminar on Research on Mediatization and Social Processes held in 2019. The III International Seminar on Research on Mediatization and Social Processes had a program developed on two levels: Debate Tables, with invited researchers (five discussion tables, with the participation of researchers from France (3), Argentina (2), Germany (1), and Brazil (5). The schedule of the III Seminar and its structure can be seen at https://www. midiaticom.org/seminario-midiatizacao/ grade-de-programacao-2019/. In total, there were 15 hours of debates at the five Discussion Tables. Methodologically, the Seminar takes place in the artic- ulation of Debate Tables with internation- al guests and Working Groups with the presence of researchers, doctors, doctoral students, masters, and masters' degree students. We point out that, even in the scope of training processes, master's and doctoral students, masters and doctors, post-doctors and post-doctoral graduates, and members of the organizing Research Group take part as reviewers, in a blind evaluation process, of the expanded ab- stracts submitted by graduates with a low- er title - under the coordination of the research professors from the Mediatization and Social Processes Group. They evaluat- ed (in a group of more than three dozen reviewers) each of the works submitted by colleagues with a lower instructional level, with classificatory notes, which resulted in the approved works. They were then grouped by the Organizing Commit- tee, successively, until they reached the event's working groups.
MEDIATIZATION, POLARIZATION, AND INTOLERANCE (BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTS, MEDIA, AND CIRCULATION)
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA MARIA Rector Vice Rector CCSH Director Head of the Department of Communication Sciences Paulo Afonso Burmann Luciano Schuch Mauri Leodir Löbler Rodrigo Stefani Correa Title Mediatization, polarization, and intolerance (between environments, media, and circulation) Editors Jairo Ferreira Antônio Fausto Neto Pedro Gilberto Gomes José Luiz Braga Ana Paula da Rosa Translation Andrea da Rosa Revision Andrea da Rosa Diagramming Casa Leiria Cover Image Created by this book Technical Committee from the modification, with the use of edition software, of the image Strange attractor Lorenz, under public domain, available at http:// www.astronoo.com/en/articles/chaos-theory. html
FACOS-UFSM Ada Cristina Machado Silveira (UFSM) Eduardo Andres Vizer (UBA) Eugenia Maria M. da Rocha Barrichelo (UFSM) Flavi Ferreira Lisboa Filho (UFSM) Gisela Cramer (UNAL) Maria Ivete Trevisan Fossá (UFSM) Marina Poggi (UNQ) Monica Marona (UDELAR) Paulo Cesar Castro (UFRJ) Sonia Rosa Tedeschi (UEL) Suzana Bleil de Souza (UFRGS) Valdir José Morigi (UFRGS) Valentina Ayrolo (UNMDP) Veneza Mayora Ronsini (UFSM) Editorial Board Scientific Committee Anne Kaun (Södertörn University) Heike Graf (Södertörn University) Isabel Löfgren (Södertörn University) Michael Forsman (Södertörn University) Mihaela Tudor (Montpellier III) Natalia Raimondo Anselmino (UNR) Stefan Bratosin (Montpellier III) Tiago Quiroga (UnB) Technical Committee Prof. Dr. Sandra Depexe (UFSM) Ph.D. Student Camila Hartmann (UFSM) Ph.D. Student João Damásio (UNISINOS) Ph.D. Student Luisa Schenato Staldoni (UNISINOS) Ph.D. Student Angelo Neckel (UNISINOS) Ph.D. Student Dinis Ferreira Cortes (UNISINOS) Ph.D. Student Mauricio Fanfa (UFSM) Undergraduate Student Sofia Roratto Ms. Degree Student Alexandra Martins Vieira (UFSM) Ms. Degree Student Jean Silveira Rossi (UFSM) Ms. Degree Student João Vitor da Silva Bitencourt (UFSM) Ms. Degree Student Guilherme Martins Batista (UNISINOS) UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA MARIA
Jairo Ferreira Antônio Fausto Neto Pedro Gilberto Gomes José Luiz Braga Ana Paula da Rosa (Editors) MEDIATIZATION, POLARIZATION, AND INTOLERANCE (BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTS, MEDIA, AND CIRCULATION) FACOS-UFSM SANTA MARIA-RS 2020
Mediatization, polarization, and intolerance (between environments, media, and circulation) The present work was accomplished with the support of: Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) Funding code 001 CNPq – Notice ARC no. 06/2018 – Processo403952/2018-2 This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives 4.0 International INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON RESEARCH ON MEDIATIZATION AND SOCIAL PROCESSES International Data Publishing Cataloguing Librarian: Carla Inês Costa dos Santos CRB-10/973
TABLE OF CONTENTS 11 PRESENTATION The Editors 15 MEDIATION AND MEDIATIZATION Juremir Machado da Silva PART I: EPISTEMOLOGIES 23 FROM MEDIATIZATION TO DEEP MEDIATIZATION Andreas Hepp 37 MEDIATIZATION, INTERACTIONS AND EDUCATION: A CLASSROOM-GROUNDED SKETCH Luís Mauro Sá Martino 51 MEDIATIZATION AND VIRTUALITY IN HUMAN SCIENCES: AN ANNOUNCED CROSSROADS Tiago Quiroga 73 MEDIATIZATION, SOCIETY, AND MEANING: TRANSVERSAL CONCEPTS Pedro Gilberto Gomes 85 EPISTEMOLOGY OF COMMUNICATION, NEOMATERIALISM, AND DIGITAL CULTURE André Lemos 103 MEDIATIZATION OF COLLECTIVE EMOTIONS Jacques A. Wainberg PART II: EVENTS 117 COLLECTIVES, CIRCULATION OF SOCIAL DISCOURSES, AND CITIZEN MOBILIZATION: THE CASE OF #ROSARIOSANGRA Natalia Raimondo Anselmino 141 LA MÉDIATISATION DU MOUVEMENT DES « GILETS JAUNES » : RELIGION ET POLITIQUE Stefan Bratosin Mihaela Alexandra Tudor
159 SURVEILLANCE OF THE WATCHMEN: ANALYTICS OF MEDIATIZATION AND NEWSWORTHINESS Ada C. Machado da Silveira 177 IMAGE IN CIRCULATION: SHATTERING OF THE GAZE AND MEMORY Ana Paula da Rosa 199 TRAJECTORIES OF CORONAVIRUS AND INTERPENETRATIONS OF SOCIAL DISCOURSES Antônio Fausto Neto PART III: POLARIZATIONS 223 COMPLEMENTARY CONTRIBUTION TO THE DISCUSSION BEGUN AT THE SEMINARY ON MEDIATIZATION Bernard Miège 239 INDIVIDUALS, COLLECTIVES, AND POLARIZATION IN THE UNSTABLE SITUATION CAUSED BY MEDIATIZATION AND THE CONTEMPORARY CIRCULATION OF MEANING Mario Carlón 263 AMONG MEDIA: THE PLACE OF MEDIATIZATION Lucrécia D´Alessio Ferrara 283 POLARIZATION AS A STRUCTURE OF INTOLERANCE (A COMMUNICATIONAL ISSUE) José Luiz Braga 301 HYPOTHESES ABOUT POLARIZATION, MEDIATIZATION, AND ALGORITHMS Jairo G. Ferreira 321 AUTHORS 331 INDEX
11 Presentation The Editors This book is one of the results of the III International Seminar on Research onMediatization and Social Processes held in 2019. The III International Seminar on Research onMediatiza- tion and Social Processes had a programdeveloped on two levels: Debate Tables, with invited researchers (five discussion tables, with the participation of researchers from France (3), Argentina (2), Germany (1), and Brazil (5). The schedule of the III Seminar and its structure can be seen at https://www.midiaticom.org/ seminario-midiatizacao/grade-de-programacao-2019/. In total, there were 15 hours of debates at the five Dis- cussion Tables. Methodologically, the Seminar takes place in the articulation of Debate Tables with international guests and Working Groups with the presence of researchers, doctors, doc- toral students, masters, and masters’ degree students. We point out that, even in the scope of training process- es, master’s and doctoral students, masters and doctors, post- doctors and post-doctoral graduates, and members of the organizing Research Group take part as reviewers, in a blind evalua- tion process, of the expanded abstracts submitted by graduates with a lower title - under the coordination of the research professors from the Mediatization and Social Processes Group. They evaluated (in a group of more than three dozen reviewers) each of the works submitted by colleagues with a lower instructional level, with classificatory notes, which resulted in the approved works. They were then grouped by the Organizing Committee, successively, until they reached the event’s working groups. The average number of submissions to the Working Groups, in the three events held, is 200 expanded abstracts, dis- tributed among professors, researchers (around 20%), doctors and doctoral students (around 30%), masters professors, and
The Editors 12 masters’ degree students (idem, 30%), and graduate and undergraduate students (20%). More than 50% of the participants are from states outside Rio Grande do Sul and the overwhelming majority (about 80%) from outside UNISINOS. Among its results, in addition to the training processes during its realization, we emphasize the consolidation of a library of reflections, in the formof complete articles of the presentations in WGs and books published in e-book format (with chapters produced by the participants of the Conference Tables). This III Seminar extended abstracts are available at https://midiaticom. org/anais/index.php/seminario-midiatizacao-resumos/issue/ view/12. Full articles are available at https://midiaticom.org/ anais/index.php/seminario-midiatizacao-artigos/issue/view/5. This book of the Debating Tables of the III Seminar, in this e-book edition, is available not only in the project collection (https://www.midiaticom.org/e-books/) but also from FACOS UFSM (https://www.ufsm.br/editoras/facos/publicacoes/). We reiterateour thanks toCAPESandCNPqfor the financial assistance, essential for making this conversation proposal via research, both theoretical and empirical, carried out by its participants. ** In this III Seminar, the theme of the Discussion Pan- els was “Polarization, Intolerance, Homophilia, and Incivility.” These themes have been referencing part of the research on the processes of interaction on digital networks that accentuate the processes of political, economic, and cultural polarization. In this perspective, the debate took place based on the inferences produced by researchers from Southern and Northern lineages, and, also, other epistemological perspectives (according to na- tional guests: mediation, semiotics, cyberculture, communication and politics, and epistemology of communication). It was intended, in these triangulations, to add more productive per- ceptions and reflections for the understanding of the empirical phenomena related to the theme, straining the research carried out from the epistemologies of mediatization. The book presents this in three parts (not corresponding to the panels but privileging the presented angles): a) epis-
13 temological approaches; b) media events; c) and, precisely, polarization. In each part, there are national and foreign authors (from Germany, France, and Argentina). The Editors
15 Mediation and mediatization Juremir Machado da Silva A seminar that turns into a book. A book that comes into existence as the realization of an idea. Theme: mediatiza- tion. In his famous thesis 4, the French Guy Debord denounced: “The spectacle is not a collection of images but a social rela- tion among people mediated by images” (1992, p. 4). Before Debord, this topic sparked debate. Then, even more. Everything is mediated, mediatized, resized, manipulated; everything is a spectacle, nothing is experienced directly. As always, two major currents of interpretation, roughly speaking, are formed for astonishment or boredom: one denounces the excessive power of the media; the other, relativizes. A speech about losses, the colo- nization of consciences, the trivialization of things, entertainment transformed into the main article of the emptied existence. The other scoffs at this permanent fear of new technologies and shows progress, achievements, advantages, advances, and positive civilizational changes. Two years ago, walking through the streets of Porto Alegre with my friend Pierre Lévy, an enthusiast of technological changes and a specialist in “cyberculture,” he spoke of water transporters who were once eliminated by piped water. Does anyone remember them? Would anyone refuse the plumbing to save so many professionals from unemployment? In mediatiza- tion, there is more than mediation, information, entertainment, training, and opinion. What? Perhaps induction, conditioning, domination, control, the definition of a model of behavior. The media is not only an instrument of information and entertain- ment but also, or mainly, a system of social hierarchy and production of meanings. New technologies emerge. With them, old fears, new anxieties, unprecedented aspects of controversy:
16 should the objects have the same status as humans? The skeptic replies: if humans want to. Of course, it is more complicated than that, more sophisticated, denser, richer. There was a time when the big question was this: what does the media do with us? So many gave answers. Each answer convinced us for some time. Then it was abandoned. Then the question changed: what do we do with the media? Everything seemed to be resolved with this inversion. It was a happy time. The reception was stronger than the broadcast. The tiredness came, doubt returned. A third, more complex, and sinuous ques- tion was attempted: what do we do with what the media do with us? It’s already gone. Other formulations are possible: what do we do with mediation? What do we do with mediatization? Who’s in charge? One possible answer is this: everyone. Or no- body. The butterfly gives way to the virus. Before, in good times, it was said that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in China rever- berated anywhere in the world. The thesis is confirmed. Without the butterfly. And without blaming the Chinese for the tragedies that history offers us. Each time with its tragedy and agony. Does anyone win with mediatization? Or is it a zero- sum game? Or, as market optimists like, a win-win? When the spectacle stops being a set of images to be a way of life, a “social relationship between people”, something has already broken. We will never live without a screen in between. We will never leave representation again, which can be, at the same time, del- egation, and staging. Would life have become an immense and permanent fake news, positive, praiseworthy, acceptable, comfortable, smooth, in short, a sincere lie to sleep? A classic way to eliminate these uncomfortable provocations is to say that it has always been this way, that there has never been this “golden age” of life without mediation, practiced directly, without representa- tion or theatricalization. Without forgery. It works as an argument. For a week. Then someone applies the antidote of equal proportion and effectiveness: there is never anything new on the front. The articles in this book or- ganized by Jairo Ferreira awaken instincts, awaken thoughts, generate impasse. There are so many important names, national and international, reflecting without strings attached. I read, re- read, observed different aspects. One of them, quite secondary
17 in relation to the wealth of positions and the bibliographic refer- ence, called my attention: the number of citations from academ- ic journals. Once again, I stubbornly concluded: we do not quote journals. We quote books. More than that, we quote renowned authors published in books. What is wrong with it? In principle, nothing. But it seems that science, the so-called “true science”, only believes in journals. At most, it tolerates books, while it can- not get rid of them. We need the mediation of the editors and the prior legitimation of peers as blind as justice. What if this is a confession of scientific impotence, the claim that we have no instruments to measure the value of a text? We cannot present the degree of effectiveness and safety of our product. Our vaccine is open. Otherwise, it would be enough for each one to hang their article on a personal or institutional website and wait for the safe, slow, or hasty, fair, or reckless judgment of their peers. There could not be many variations in judgment. After all, they all master the same tools and the same parameters. But we are an argumentative and consequentialist science. Our truths depend on many unstable factors. We do not know why one brother became a liberal and the other a Marxist, having both been mediated by the same educational process, under the same conditions of formation. Adhering to a discourse, a matrix, a narrative, however, has consequences: the world of those who choose is affected. The person will live in one way and not in another. Mediatization is still an offer of meaning capable of functioning. The problem lies in so many variations. Hence, perhaps, when it comes to the academic world, the possibility of a “toll theory”. Better said, more modestly, a “toll hypothesis”. And if it were the case, as the toll concessionaires in Brazil want, to close all escape routes: books, international journals, publications on Amazon, etcetera. To block everything that is beyond the control of authorized mediation. Hypothesis, as Jean Bau- drillard might say, pataphysics. A curious system based on publication without objec- tive points for those who pay for publications. A system that devalues b ooks and essays to some extent but is legitimized by quoting essayists (almost every philosopher is an essayist, or not?). What does this have to do with the book on mediatiza- tion on-screen? The screen. And the book. To read André Lemos,
Juremir Machado da Silva 18 Fausto Neto, José Luiz Braga, my colleague Jacques Wainberg, Luís Mauro Martino, Lucrécia Ferrara, Tiago Quiroga, Ada Mach- ado Silveira, Pedro Gilberto Gomes, Ana Paula Rosa, Stefan Bra- tosin, Bernard Miège, and many other researchers, all revolving the topic of mediatization, produces a convulsion: are we scien- tists or intellectuals? What does that change? Social science is not a set of theses and demonstrations, but a social relationship between people [scientists? intellectuals?] mediated (media- tized?) by subjective ideas and evaluations? How do we know that when we say “consistent” there is consistency, in fact, in the object classified as such? Or our tranquility is statistical: nine out of ten, in appearing blind, would classify as consistent what I also saw as such? Talking about these things, pataphysics, should not offend anyone. At most, amaze. Or, more useful, make them laugh. But there is a soft hypothesis, without pretending to hurt or produce controversy: what if it was time to strongly value all texts, especially books, like this one, in an ode to expression, to the crossing of ideas, giving time for the best to stay, the worst to pass, the useless to fall into oblivion, and the wheat be separated from the chaff, pardon me the cliché, including the cliché of this request for forgiveness? Mediatization is a social relationship. I ended up thinking about how the mediating social relationship is founded, or what gives it prominence and meaning, mediating it in the quali- fied spaces of scientific objectivity. We work in classroom with the ideas of authors such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu. Are we, however, able to apply them to our do- ing? Or in our mediations (I keep jumping from mediatization to mediation) is there never surveillance and an attempt to con- trol the “field?” For the rest, one will only gain by reading this book on mediatization. It makes one think. There is no result without simulation. There is no simulation without a result. The book is a technology of the imaginary. It is part of technological imagination. It has a history. Finally, its publication is available to everyo I n n e. thesis 66, Debord was a poet, radical, and prophet, which, according to some, goes the same way: “The spectacle does not sing the praises of men and their weapons, but of com- modities and their passions” (1992, p. 43).
19 What do we sing? I hope that the tolerance and pluralism, treated by José Luiz Braga in his article of this work, come from a meeting of voices and dissonances. Mediatization can be more relevant than mediation. References DEBORD, Guy. La société du spectacle. Paris: Gallimard, 1992.
PART I: EPISTEMOLOGIES
23 Frommediatization to deep mediatization Andreas Hepp1 Abstract: Mediatization refers to the relationship between the transformation of media and communication on the one hand and culture and society, on the other. Starting from this initial approach to the concept of mediatization, this article has a threefold objective. First, it begins by outlining a more detailed explanation of mediatization. Second, it goes on to describe its current stage as one of deep mediatization, and, finally, it dis- cusses the necessity of extending the perspective of mediatiza- tion research to that of the making of a deep mediatization. This is necessary because, with deep mediatization, new kinds of col- lectivities have become driving forces for change. Actors within pioneer communities such as the Quantified Self Movement, the Maker Movement, and the Hacks/Hacker Movement are har- nessed as examples. Keywords: Mediatization. Transformation. Media environment. Datafication. Social movements. Pioneer communities. 1. Introduction Mediatization refers to an experience everybody knows from his or her everyday life: (digital) media saturate more and more domains of society and they are changing with this. More specifically, mediatization refers to the relationship 1 Andreas Hepp is Professor of Media and Communication and Director of ZeMKI, Center for Research in Media, Communication, and Information at the University of Bremen, Germany. Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7292-4147, E-mail: ahepp@uni-bremen.de
Andreas Hepp 24 between the transformation of media and communication on the one hand and culture and society on the other (COULDRY; HEPP, 2013, p. 197). With reference to everyday experience it can be said that mediatization has quantitative as well as qualitative effects. Quantitative observations are concerned with media’s proliferation through society. This can be measured temporally (media were once only available at certain times of day, they can now be accessed twenty-four hours a day), spatially (media in the past were often static, they are now ac- cessible in more places), and socially (our social practices are increasingly entangled with and augmented by a variety of me- dia). Some media scholars have argued that these transforma- tions permeate every social domain, that media have become so pervasive, we can speak of the mediation of everything (LIV- INGSTONE, 2009, p. 1). A qualitative analysis of mediatization focuses its attention, both empirically and theoretically, on the specific consequences of the saturation of everyday life by me- dia and to what extent this affects social and cultural change (for a general introduction, see LUNDBY, 2014). Crucially, mediatization research does not deal with the effects of individual media content, rather, it is concerned with the ways in which society and human practices are transformed by media’s everincreasing ubiquity. Taking this definition as a starting point, I want to out- line in the following a more detailed explanation of mediatization. Based on this, I will explain why we should consider the current stage of mediatization as one of deep mediatization. Fi- nally, I discuss the necessity of extending the perspective of mediatization research to that of the making of deep mediatization. This is necessary because, with deep mediatization, new kinds of collectivities have become driving forces for change, actors from pioneer communities such as the Quantified Self Move- ment, the Maker Movement or the Hacks/Hacker Movement of pioneer journalism are uses as examples.2 2 This article is based on arguments from my book “Deep Mediatization” (Rout- ledge 2020). An earlier version was presented at the III International Seminar on mediatization and social processes at UNISINOS, São Leopoldo - RS, in May 2019.
From mediatization to deep mediatization 25 2. A more detailed description of mediatization Mediatization can be understood as a sensitizing concept (JENSEN, 2013, p. 206). A sensitizing concept gives the user a general sense of reference and guidance in approaching em- pirical instances (BLUMER, 1954, p. 7) and draws our attention to (present) changes in culture and society. In these terms, me- diatization sensitizes us to the fundamental changes we experi- ence in the context of our media environment (cf. HEPP; HASEBRINK, 2017). First, we are confronted with media’s increasing differentiation as the amount of media we encounter rapidly increases and more and more artifacts become media devices. The infrastructure of the internet brings with it the increased connectivity of media and the advent of mobile communications has encouraged media’s omnipresence. The contemporary media environment is characterized by a growing pace of innovation, as the sequence of key innovations in the field of media technol- ogy has significantly hastened over the past thirty years. As a consequence of their digitalization, media are no longer solely means of communication but are also generators of abundant amounts of data leading to the intensifying datafication of media use. The terminology of mediatization complements the more general language of mediation and sensitizes us to the ongoing transformation of the fundamental trends of our everyday media environment. However, sensitizing concepts that are used to empha- size certain phenomena have to be complemented by other analytical tools to ensure that grasping them more rigorously is a straightforward process. The essential analytical principles of mediatization research can be found in both the institutionalist and the socio-constructivist traditions (COULDRY; HEPP, 2013, p. 195-198), yet the manner in which the conceptual work of mediatization is done differs between the two. Put simply, the institutionalist tradition finds its roots in mass communication research that understood media as an independent institution with its own set of rules; so, with this in mind, mediatization for the institutionalists refers to how different social fields may adapt to these institutionalized rules. The social-constructivist
Andreas Hepp 26 tradition, on the other hand, highlights the role various media play in the communicative construction of social reality and ap- proaches the idea of mediatization to analyze the ways media may operate across that process. Research carried out in the institutionalist tradition focuses on the role media (understood as a social institution) plays in influencing other areas of culture and society that apparently are external to it, a process often referred to as media logic. Originally coined by David Altheide and Robert Snow in 1979, media logic describes the influence discrete mass-media formats have on other areas of society, politics, or religion, for example. More recently, media logic has been utilized more broadly and is often pluralized to take into consideration the existence of many media logics (for an overview see STRÖMBÄCK; ESSER, 2014; THIMM; ANASTASIADIS; EINSPÄNNER-PFLOCK, 2018). Mediatization can be seen as having been responsible for introducing a certain media logic as a way of staging, pre- senting, and selecting into other areas of society leading to the language of media logic(s) acting as a metaphor and shorthand for the various modi operandi that characterize the workings of the media (HJARVARD, 2017, p. 11). Typically, media logic links to more specific analytical concepts such as media’s forms of interaction and their organizational rules and how they shape communication in other social institutions as well as how their technological affordances mold media use. Media’s influence is not conceptualized as a (more-or-less direct) effect, non-media actors bring with them their own logic(s) which in turn have the potential to work against media logic(s) resulting in inertia and resistance despite transformations in the media environment. By contrast, the social-constructivist tradition empha- sizes the role media play in the communicative construction of social and cultural reality and predominantly explores media- tization from the perspective of everyday actors (KNOBLAUCH, 2013; KROTZ, 2014). Researchers in this tradition question how our cultural and societal practices are altered, when they are en- tangled with media. Here, we can see one more way of theoriz- ing the influence media may have, that is, by considering them as means of communication that shape our practices through processes of institutionalization and materialization (COULDRY;
From mediatization to deep mediatization 27 HEPP, 2017, p. 32). Institutionalization can be explained as fol- lows: everyday practices, talking, working, playing are, to some degree, stabilized in their social form by media’s (ever-increasing) presence in our lives, and it is through this altering of ev- eryday life that media influence our construction of society. It goes hand in hand with materialization, which means that social practices are, themselves, inscribed in the media technologies we use and the infrastructures that accommodate them. Mes- senger software, for example, materializes a certain way of talking through its software-based user interface. These influences do not, however, travel in one direction but instead move cycli- cally. Within each social domain there exists an orientation in everyday practice which may or may not be altered by media. Take the family, for example, or school; within these social realms are constructed certain practices that allow these institutions to more or less function appropriately. However, these practices are enduring and to some degree obstinate; media pervasive- ness is, indeed, able to affect or change these practices but, ultimately, it is unlikely that it will ever transform them completely. This inertia, this to-and-fro of constructing practice, means that orientations in everyday practice have the potential to resist and even alter media themselves. Despite coming from divergent disciplinary origins and applying different approaches to the conceptualization of mediatization, researchers from both traditions have come closer together in their understanding and application of the term (HEPP; HJARVARD; LUNDBY, 2015). First, they both see mediatization as a long-term process of transformation that is accom- panied by other long-term processes of change such as individu- alization, globalization, and commercialization. It contrasts, as already emphasized, with the term mediation, which grasps a very general communicative moment, namely, how communica- tion mediates, or intervenes, between multiple actors (cf. SILVERSTONE, 2005). Second, both traditions share the position that mediatization does not operate in the same way across so- cial domains (communities, organizations etc.). In contrast, the specific way mediatization occurs differs significantly from one social domain to another (LUNT; LIVINGSTONE, 2016, p. 465). It is for this reason that empirical research on mediatization is
Andreas Hepp 28 always a contextualized form of research with the aim of describing (and critiquing) specific forms of mediatization. Third, both traditions focus on how media as means of communication change or transform culture and society. Therefore, their interests are not the effects of media content and other more direct manifestations of media’s influence (HJARVARD, 2017, p. 1-3) but fundamental phenomena that stimulate change in individual areas of society, parallel to the transformation of media and communication itself. Fourth and finally, it is common practice to consider perception as one facet of these transformations: As long as people orient their practices to what they expect to be media influence, media will have an, albeit indirect, influence on changing practices (NÖLLEKE; SCHEU, 2018). 3. The challenges of deep mediatization A more recent focus within mediatization research is media’s increasingly digital character and the challenges it pres- ents when we are faced with the necessity to rethink mediatiza- tion. While initial contributions on the matter were fairly general in tone (FINNEMANN, 2014; MILLER, 2014), the discussion has intensified and has become more specific as digitalization has advanced mediatization processes. The reasons for this are multifaceted. Mediatization re- search became increasingly aware that the present characteris- tic of the media is less about the dominance of one (digital) medium but the differentiation of highly connected digital forms. The focus has shifted, therefore, to the polymedia (MADIANOU, 2014, p. 323) or the media-manifold (COULDRY; HEPP, 2013, p. 34) character of today’s media environment. From this point of view, in order to understand how media shape and mold each area of society, it is necessary to consider digital media in terms of their intimacy with each other; that is, to reflect on the cross- media character of mediatization. Furthermore, mediatization research has become increasingly aware of how media are not just means of communication. As digital media, they are at one and the same time means of generating data while they are used for communication functions. This data is used as a source for
From mediatization to deep mediatization 29 various forms of automated analysis which has become a fundamental part of the construction of the social world (see, for example, in relation to journalism, LOOSEN, 2018). Through this shift into the digital, mediatization research has developed various connections with more general research on the influ- ence data has on society (see, for example, BEER ,2016 and GIL- LESPIE; BOCZKOWSKI; FOOT, 2014). Digitalization has seen us emerge into a new stage of mediatization, which we can identify as deep mediatization. Deep mediatization is an advanced stage of mediatization in which all elements of our social world are intricately related to media and their overarching infrastructures (COULDRY; HEPP, 2013, p. 7, 34). Researching deep mediatization presents a challenge to mediatization research as it must incorporate the analy- sis of algorithms and digital infrastructure into the way it ap- proaches its objects of analysis. The investigation of algorithms becomes necessary because, in a state of deep mediatization, facets of the mediated construction of the social world occur through automated data analyses (GILLESPIE, 2014). Classification into certain interest groups when shopping online and per- sonal recommendations based on this technology are made pos- sible and are automated through the use of algorithmic systems, as are suggestions of new friends or users to follow on online platforms. More attention needs to be paid to the digital infra- structures that underpin contemporary media (MOSCO, 2017). As the current connectivity we are experiencing will increase, it can only be approached from a cross-media and global perspec- tive. Understanding mediatization as a concept that sensitizes us to media change means that we must rethink the relevance of specific research paths once more and forces us to further integrate more detailed analytical concepts into the field. 4. The making of deep mediatization As my previous statements in this article have made clear, mediatization is not a “natural” process, but a form of so- cial transformation “made” by human beings: By “making” digital media and their infrastructures the basis of more and more social
Andreas Hepp 30 processes, by considering digital media and their infrastructures as the central instrument for “solving” societal problems, the pro- cess of deep mediatization is promoted in all its dynamics. Based on its institutionalist and social-constructivist traditions, previous mediatization research has been interested above all in two types of actors when it has discussed such questions of “making”. These were, on the one hand, the different actors operating inmedia environments themselves – media professionals, journalists – and on the other hand, people acting in different social domains (political institutions, religious institutions, educational institutions etcetera) who are confronted with the increasing influence of digital media and their infrastructures. But it is precisely the far-reaching character of the deep mediatization that makes a broader perspective on its “making” necessary. As digital media and their infrastructures have be- come a basis for economic practices and production practices in general, one argument at this point is to consider a new way of understanding the political economy of digital capitalism (MUR- DOCH, 2017). Another important point is to focus on the fact that new “intermediaries” have to be included in our considerations if we truly want to grasp the “making” of deep mediatization (HEPP, 2020, p. 30-40): Various collectives – social movements, think tanks, pioneer communities – are oriented towards “acting on media” and thus become a fundamental part of the “making” of deep mediatization. In essence, the phrase “acting on media” emphasizes the fact that “awide range of actors [...] take an active part in the moulding of media organizations, infrastructures and technologies that are part of the fabric of everyday life” (KANNENGIEßER; KUBITSCHKO, 2017, p. 1). It leans toward thinking about ‘media as practice’ more broadly than originally intended. In his original intervention on the issue of practice, Nick Couldry (2004, p. 117) was concerned with describing media practice “as the open set of practices relating to, or oriented around, me- dia.” His focus was mainly on understanding communication with media as a practice. The expression “acting on media” now travels alternative avenues, thus broadening its scope as media become so fundamental in today’s deeply mediatized societies – as institutions and as materialities – and as they increasingly come to represent an object of social struggle.
From mediatization to deep mediatization 31 In times of deep mediatization, diverse collectivities consider that media and media infrastructures can be identified, themselves, as an object of engagement with the expectation that they might influence on processes of societal transformation. Examples of these collectivities for media change (COULDRY; HEPP, 2017, p. 180) can be seen in social movements such as the Open Data movement (BAACK, 2015), think tanks such as the Inter-American Dialogue (NEUBAUER, 2012), and pioneer com- munities such as the Maker Movement (DAVIS, 2017). As diverse as these collectivities may be, they share the conviction that media are fundamental to contemporary societal formations, and much like actors from the worlds of politics and economics, they consider media and media infrastructures as an object within which political engagement can thrive. It is often the case that a change in the present gives us a different view of the past. This is the case with the idea of acting on media. While deep mediatization has directed our attention to this broader form of media-related practice, we find that once we adopt this point of view this has been a general phenomenon throughout media history and, in particular, a key characteristic of more recent digital media. We can even go so far as to write the history of digital media and their infrastructures as that of acting on media. Fred Turner (2006) presented an important draft for just such a perspective in his historical account of the history of Silicon Valley in, From Counterculture to Cyberculture. Through a detailed historical analysis, he demonstrated how the network that developed around theWhole Earth Catalogue, curated by Stu- art Brand, had a significant influence on the development of digital technologies long before economists or politicians even gave them a moment’s thought. Examining it with the benefit of hind- sight, as a hybrid of social movement and think tank, the Whole Earth Network could be described as an early pioneer commu- nity (and later as a network of various pioneer communities). The point is that the Whole Earth Network was able to define itself by acting on media. After the countercultural utopias had failed, the network turned to digital media technology as a means of shaping society according to its ideas and values. Remarkably, we can attribute many media-related social movements, such as the hacker movement, directly to the Whole Earth Network (LEVY, 1984),
Andreas Hepp 32 that the early technology designs of MIT Media Lab cannot in any way be detached from the network’s broader discourse (BRAND, 1987), and that today’s pioneer communities, such as the Quanti- fied Self movement, can be attributed directly to Stuart Brands legacy (KELLY, 2016, p. 237-252). In other words, we can under- stand the making of deep mediatization not only by starting from a political economy of prominent media corporations (MURDOCK, 2017) but by considering the making of deep mediatization as a much lengthier historical process. We can only fully grasp it if we understand it historically and as a process of acting on media. 5. Conclusion Altogether, the arguments made so far in this article stand for the fact that a movement towards deep mediatization is associated with the necessity of fundamentally broadening the perspective of mediatization research. First of all, this concerns the area of phenomena that we are dealing with. With digi- talization as the final wave pushing us toward deep mediatiza- tion, media are generally software-based and thus no longer just means of communication, but also means of data processing. On these terms, mediatization research is confronted with the chal- lenge to incorporate the analysis of algorithms and digital infrastructure into its approach. The discussion about the making of deep mediatization has also shown that the view of the relevant actors to be investigated must be broadened: Since “acting on media” no longer only concerns classical actors from the media themselves or media policy and regulation, but increasingly a multitude of other collectivities, a broader perspective appears necessary than has, hitherto, been characteristic of mediatiza- tion research. In addition, digital methods themselves are gain- ing in importance for mediatization research with the general increase in the relevance of the digital. In this sense, speaking of deep mediatization not only refers – empirically speaking – to a particular stage of mediatization. Applied self-reflexively, it means that the self-under- standing of mediatization research changes: regarding its sub- ject area, its theories, and its methods. The past few years of me-
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37 Mediatization, interactions and education: a classroomgrounded sketch1 Luís Mauro Sá Martino2 Abstract: The mediatization of society has brought new chal- lenges for education, from elementary schooling to higher edu- cation. The presence of media devices, like mobile phones and tablets, as much as the content available on platforms such as YouTube and streaming services have provided a new learn- ing environment. At the same time, the interaction via social media has brought socialization to a new level, for the best and the worst. This article outlines some aspects of learning in a mediatized environment based on three main arguments: (1) it is necessary to think about the ‘technique’ as a human creative skill prior to technology; (2) the media environment articulates with cognitive habits; (3) technology is not a device to be ‘employed,’ but an environment that involves education as a whole. Keywords: Mediatization. Communication. Education. Media Environment. 1 The first version of this text was born from a proposal for dialogue and reflection on the presence of technologies in the classroom at Faculdade Cásper Líbero, in 2015/2016. I am grateful to all several colleagues who discussed the text at that time, offering valuable suggestions. Reworked, it was part of the basis for an oral presentation, in 2019, at the III International Seminar on Mediatization and Social Processes, at UNISINOS. Some of the oral marks resulting from the dialogic origin of the work were maintained. The text, in this version, is unprecedented. 2 Professor of the Graduate Program in Communication at Faculdade Cásper Líbero. CNPq researcher. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5099-1741. E-mail: lmsamartino@gmail.com
Luís Mauro Sá Martino 38 1. Introduction I usually say something that I am fully responsible for, although I understand that it can be controver- sial: in recent years I have learned more didactics by watching television series than by reading spe- cific books (Mariana MAGGIO, 2018, p. 57). In a provocative text written in 1969, “Mutations 1990”, about how the education would be in the “future”, or the distant year of 1989, McLuhan (1969) attracted various criticisms for indicating the various problems of the traditional teaching mod- el, based, above all, on print culture. He indicated the necessity of changes in the teaching concept to deal with people born and raised in a media environment of a completely different nature, characterized, above all, by audiovisual media - “electronic” in the time’s terms. The Canadian author was not only referring to television, cinema, or radio. In Mutations 1990, McLuhan (1969, p. 49) states literally: “A worldwide network of computers will, in a few minutes, make accessible to the students all kinds of knowledge of the entire world. The problem was not the media itself, but the way culture, the human uses of these media, were distant from the school as if the school model was refractory to the aesthetic- cognitive conditions resulting from the appropriation of these means, says Lima (1989). Thinking about the relations between media and teaching indicates, among other things, the need to understand them in their articulations, strains, and complexities, avoiding reducing or binary interpretations that sometimes come up when the subject is discussed. This essay outlines some aspects of the relationship between the digital media environment and the teaching-learning spaces, in the perspective of a mediatiza- tion theory (MARTINO, 2019a; 2019b), from three points: (1) thinking, beyond the “technology”, the tool, but the “technique”, human capacity to do and create; (2) the learning processes are, in their multiplicity, linked to the cognitive habits of the learner; (3) learning is articulated, in many ways, with the contemporary
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