VITTORIO CESCHI’S SUMMARY
CM1009-Communication as a Social Force
Book + Lecture Summary
Week 1
Stig Hjardvard
The Mediatization of Society
A Theory of the Media as Agents of Social and Cultural Change
Keywords: mediatisation, media logic, social interaction, modernity, virtualization
Mediatization theory: the duality of media as an independent institution and as interwined
with other institutions. It investigates the complex relations between media and other
institutions
➢ Mediatization allows to investigate changes in society
• Media as an institution with their own rules and practices;
• Media as integrated with other institutions influencing their rules and practices
Field Theory for mediatisation – Bordieau’s field theory - Fields are composed of
autonomous/independent and heteronomous/intervening poles:
• Autonomous poles – Field act according to its own logic – i.e. politic institutions
acting according to their own logic
• Heteronomous poles – Field acts under the influence of other fields – i.e. politics
institutions acting according to media logic
Structuration Theory for mediatisation – Structures/Institutions, formed by rules and
resources, are modified by agents, and agents act within the frame of structures
• Media shares resources and rules with other institutions; Media logic influences
heteronomous poles; the constant action and sharing may result in change in
institutions
This article presents a theory of the influence media exert on society and culture using
mediatization as the key concept;
➢ Mediatisation is to be considered a double-sided process of modernity in which:
• The media on the one hand emerge as an independent institution with a logic
of its own that other social institutions have to accommodate to
• On the other hand, media simultaneously become an integrated part of other
institutions like politics, work, family, and religion as more and more of these
institutional activities are performed through both interactive and mass media
Media have become an integrated part of social institutions … and media have grown
into an (independent) social institution
, ➢ The media logic refers to the institutional and technological modus operandi of the
media, including the ways in which media distribute material and symbolic resources
and make use of formal and informal rules
The article answers the question: What are the consequences of the gradual and increasing
adaptation of central societal institutions, and the culture in which we live to the presence of
intervening media?
Traditionally media was considered as separate from society and culture→researchers tended
to focus on the effect certain mediated messages had on individuals and institutions
- Contemporary society is permeated by the media, which can no longer be conceived
of as being separate from cultural and other social institutions→the task is then to
understand the ways in which social institutions and cultural processes have changed
character, function and structure in response to the omnipresence of media
- Media have become an integral part of other institutions’ operations, achieving a
degree of self-determination and authority that forces other institutions to submit to
their logic; media coordinates the mutual interaction of cultural and social institutions
The Concept of Mediatization – the term has been used in numerous contexts to
characterize the influence media exert on a variety of phenomena
➢ Mediatization was first applied to media’s impact on political communication and
effects on politics;
• Kent Asp was the first to speak of it referring to a process whereby a political
system to a high degree is influenced by and adjusted to the demands of the
mass media in their coverage of politics; i.e. politics adjusting their tone so
that the messages can gain a better chance of media coverage
• The Norwegian sociologist Gudmund Hernes argued, with his expression
media-twisted society, that media had a fundamental impact on all social
institutions and their relations with one another; media challenge both the
authority and ability of schools and political institutions to regulate access to
knowledge and to set political agendas;
• Altheide and Snow want to show how the logic of the media forms the fund
of knowledge that is generated and circulated in society; they posit the
primacy of form over content, where media logic consist of a formatting logic
that determines how material is categorized, the choice of mode of
presentation, and the selection and portrayal of social experience in the
media→essentially how media logic works
• Mazzoleni and Schulz demonstrate the increasing influence of mass media on
the exercise of political power; mediatized politics is politics that has lost its
autonomy, has become dependent in its central functions on mass media, and
is continuously shaped by interactions with mass media
• Mediatization’s concept has also been used to highlight the role played by
marketing and consumer culture; media today occupy a dominant position as
, providers of cultural products and beliefs, compared to traditional culture
either imbued with the hierarchy of taste or local ways of life
➢ In other cases, mediatisation has been used to describe media’s influence over
research; media plays an important role in the production and circulation of
knowledge and interpretation of science
➢ Mediatisation has been related also to a broader theory of modernity; Sociologist
Thompson sees media’s development as an integral part of the development of
modern society→the society develops as media do so
• Schulz identifies four kinds of processes whereby media change human
communication and interaction:
1. They extend human communication in both time and space
2. They substitute social activities once taking place face-to-face
3. Media instigate an amalgamation of activities
4. Actors in many sectors have to adapt their behaviour to accommodate
media’s valuations, formats and routines
• Krotz writes “mediatisation is always bound in time and to cultural context”;
media changes human relations and thus change society and culture
• Mass communication: sender retain control over the content of the message
but have little influence over how the receiver makes use of it
➢ The mediatisation concept shares several of Shulz’ and Krotz’ perspectives, but it also
deviates from these in two principal respects:
• The theory applies an institutional perspective to the media and their
interaction with culture and society; such perspective precludes a
consideration of culture, technology or psychology, but provides a framework
within which the interplay between these aspects can be studied
• The mediatisation concept is applied exclusively to the historical situation in
which the media at once have attained autonomy as a social institutions and
crucially influenced other institutions; mediatisation doesn’t refer to each
process by which the media exert influence on society and culture
Mediatization in Postmodern Theory – some see mediatisation as an expression of the
postmodern condition, in which media give rise to a new consciousness and cultural order
➢ Fredric Jameson in his analysis indicates that the expansion of the media system has
had some very impacts on artistic institutions forms of expression and has made the
media a significant element in the arts
➢ Baudrillard perceives the symbols or signs of media culture to form semblances of
reality that not only seem more real than the physical and social reality, but also
replace it→media constitute a hyperreality; media representations of reality have
assumed such dominance in our society that our perception and construction of reality
take their point of departure in mediated representations and are steered by the media
• Sheila Brown argues that mediatisation in the contemporary sense refers to a
universe in which the meaning of ontological divisions/distinctions is
, collapsing: divisions between fact and fiction, nature and culture, global and
local, science and art, technology and humanity
➢ The concept of mediatisation proposed in the article doesn’t embrace hyperreality; the
prime characteristic of this concept is rather an expansion of the opportunities for
interaction in virtual spaces and a differentiation of what people perceive to be real
➢ On the whole, hyperreality and the disappearance of reality seem exaggerated; in a
sociological perspective, mediated forms of interaction are neither more nor less real
than non-mediated interaction; they still exist, but mediatisation means that they too
are affected by the presence of media
Definition – mediatisation, here, is used as the central concept in a theory of the both
intensified and changing importance of the media in culture and society
➢ By the mediatisation of society, we understand the process whereby society to an
increasing degree is submitted to, or becomes dependent on, the media and their logic;
this process is characterized by the media becoming both integrated into the
operations of other social institutions, while also acquiring the status of social
institutions in their own right → as a result, social interaction within, between the
respective institutions, and in society at large, takes place via the media
➢ The logic of media influence the form communication takes, as well as the nature and
function of social relations, the sender, receivers and content of the communication
➢ Mediatization is no universal process that characterize all societies; it is primarily a
recent development accelerated particularly in modern, highly industrialized and
chiefly western societies; as globalization progresses, more regions and cultures will
be affected by mediatization
➢ Mediatization is a non-normative process
➢ It is not to be confused with the broader concept of mediation, which refers to
communication via a medium, which intervention can affect both the message and the
relationship between the sender and the receiver; mediation describes the concrete act
of communication by means of a medium in a specific social context, while
mediatisation refers to a more long-lasting process whereby social interaction changes
as a consequence of the growth of media’s influence
➢ We may distinguish between a direct (strong) and an indirect (weak) form of
mediatisation:
• Direct: refers to situations where formerly non-mediated activity converts to a
mediated form; it makes visible how a given social activity is substituted; i.e.
online banking
• Indirect: is when a given activity is increasingly influenced with respect to
form, content, or organization by mediagenic symbols or mechanisms; more of
a subtle character and more reliant in communication resources; i.e.
McDonald’s is no more a eating experience but now entails the cultural
context surrounding the burger, having to do with the presence of media
