Mediatization

Definition: The action (or

process) whereby the
media comes to control
and affect something
• In contemporary societies, social relations and interactions are
extensively mediated, and all the phenomena turn out as media affected,
i.e., mediatized.

• It is too simple to think that media just connect; they mediate and
mediatize:
• Mediatization is an ongoing historical development and
accelerating process which is reshaping our society (politics,
schooling, culture, sports, …) and everyday lives by making the
media ever more powerful and integral.

• Socio-cultural change (as effects of mediatization) is ‘path

dependent’:
• While arising norms and values can and do change, they continue to
reflect a society’s historical heritage.
• How deeply mediatized is your life: (a) your daily routines, habits and
emotions (your free time), (b) professional life and practices, (c)
academic performance, (d) community (dis)engagement, (e) political
and civic (non)participation, …?
– Can you bring concrete examples of how each of those spheres has
changed (new habits emerged, new values and norms developed)
according to the rules and logics of the media that is being used?

– Which one of those areas is affected by the presence of the media and
communication the most?

– How do you adapt to new (media, platform) business rules? For example,
when on Facebook (or another social networking platform), how does
your 'front stage' presentation of yourself differ with the 'back stage'
aspects of your life? Is there anything that you strategically omit from
posting, and why?
• How (a) our current social condition has changed (due to globalization of
media business and culture, of intensified consumption, of movement
and migration, of intensified populist communication), and (b) what
role does media and platforms play in accelerated growth and spread of
individualist selections, the rise of populism and growing feelings of
uncertainty and discontent (changed news values and frames,
orientation to market needs and rankings)?

• How useful is the concept of mediatization to understand the

identified developments and social change?
• Can you think of some other concepts to define trends of social change
that you are observing?
• Mediatization is an outcome of modernity:
• Mediatization denotes qualitative shift. It can be seen as a long-
term process (a social force that can act in combination with other
forces) of social change, grounded in the ongoing adaptation among
social actors and institutions to altered forms of mediation
(mediatization).

• It is a process that extends human capacities for communication

through time and space, substitutes prior or direct social activities or
experiences with mediated ones, amalgamates primary and secondary
(or interpersonal and mass-mediated) activities, and accommodates
social interactions and institutional structures to the media logic.

• In communication and media studies, mediatization is a theory that

argues that the media shapes and frames the processes and discourse
(conversation) of communication as well as the society in which
that communication takes place.
• Stig Hjarvard, DK
• Sonja Livingstone, Peter Lunt, Nick Couldry, UK
• Knut Lundby, NO
• Andreas Hepp, Friedrich Krotz, DE
• Jesper Stromback, Anne Kaun, SE
• Frank Esser, CH
• … … ….
• Mediatization is conceived of as a high-level societal meta-process
that concerns with the historical adjustment to or appropriation of
media logics by institutions and cultural practices across diverse
domains of society (Peter Lunt)
• Stickiness and spreadability: aspects of media
texts which engender deep audience
engagement and motivate them to share what
they learned with others.

• If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead: content

circulates today from top down to bottom up,
from grassroots to commercial:
– Within commodity culture, sharing content may
be viewed as economically damaging; in the
informal gift economy, by contrast, the failure to
share material is socially damaging.
– This shift from distribution to circulation
signals a movement toward a more ‘participatory
model of culture’.
• Conditions for content spreadability:
– Available when and where audiences want it
– Portable (always on the move)
– Easily re-usable in a variety of ways
– Relevant to multiple audiences

• Lightness: we know from practice that the lighter we travel the easier and faster we move
(Zygmunt Bauman).

• Affective impact: As a medium gets faster, it gets more emotional (we feel faster than we
think):
– Economic reasons. Digital bio-technologies. Neurology (biology and attachments: humans like to talk
about themselves to others—it is good for us and it helps imitate ‘shared communities’).

• Fastness can strengthen the fixation on clashes, accidents or sensationalism: A real

news story has to be angled on a conflict, a drama, a victim. And in order for it not to be
boring, it has to be short, square and without too many shades.
• Three streams of
mediatization
research:
– Institutionalist

– Social-
constructivist

– Materialist
• Mediatization as observed in institutional functioning
and transformations:
– Mediatization can be assessed as reactions to media centrality and its
impact on the institutional level (i.e. systemic shifts and
transformations as social changes) causing changes in the selected
field:
• For example, these might be related to changed strategic focuses and new
managerial decisions applied within established institutional functioning
practices.
• As shown in an earlier example on mediatization of fashion, institutional
change would designate to strategic decision making within the fashion
industry to design textiles that look good on podium (and in photos on
social media) rather than the ones that would be functional and
comfortable to wear.
• Mediatization as studied through
representations’ analysis:
– Mediatization might be assessed as a way of looking at popular
socio-cultural notions and understandings that refer to media
infused representations and popular interpretations of selected
issues (be it an issue linked with politics and culture, or migration,
risk/fear, climate change, memory, friendship, …).
– Briefly, such a view predominantly looks at popular social and
cultural changes as public reactions to changed media illustrations.
• Mediatization as detected via technological affordances
analysis:
– Mediatization might be looked as a process infused by media’s
(technological) affordances that contribute to identified societal
changes.
– Among those new affordances additionally to technical characteristics
and features such as interactivity and multimediality of the new
medium, also other features might be identified, namely greater
degree of responsiveness, accelerated reaction, also generic and style
transformations affecting participatory behavior of those
communicating.
• Three ways of thinking about media effects and mediatization:
1. Mediatization … as changes in the selected institution/field and
reactions to media logics’ (this refers to relational changes within the
field determining power/position shifts and institutional/industrial change
… of politics, religion, fashion).
2. Mediatization … as referring to changed perceptions as reactions to
media representations and popular interpretations and understanding
(of migration, risk/fear, memory, friendship): social and cultural change as
reactions to changes in media.
3. Mediatization … as a process infused by media’s (technological)
affordances and affecting further changes (of …).
• Mediatization as analyzed through different levels:
– Macro level change is the most abstract level of analysis. It predominantly looks
at broad societal transformations and systemic change.
• Such a view focuses on broad changes in the selected societal field. It starts, for example, by
observing and stating that contemporary politics has become increasingly polarized and conflict
driven. It then looks at reasons and factors that lie behind these observations and questions
whether changes in the media have anyhow affected these observations.

– Mezo level changes are studied on the level of organizations and institutions.
• It looks at changes on organizational level. For example, as observed, party communication has
become personalities’ centered and personal issues focused. There is also a new tendency
indicating that political parties are born on social media platforms.

– Micro level changes are studied on the level of individual actors. Political
participation might be studied as online protest and self-expressionism.
• Macro level changes (systemic institutional change: e.g., politics becomes more
polarized and conflict driven, institutional trust decreases, …)

• Mezo level changes (organizational change: e.g., party communication becomes

more personality issues focused, parties are born on FB platforms, …)

• Micro level changes (new behaviors, individual choices: e.g., political

participation as online protest and self-expressionism, …)
• Mediatization is a way of thinking about media enthused
changes identified in our closest social surroundings.

• Mediatization as a process cannot be decontextualized.

• A differentiated and formalized definition of mediatization can and

should not be presented here, because mediatization in a given form is
always specific to particular time and culture, so that any definition has
to be based upon historical investigation.
• ‘Why do I write books? Why do I think? Why should I be
passionate? Because things could be different. My role is to
alert people to the dangers, to do something’ (Zygmunt
Bauman).