ABOUT THIS BOOK

In the last decade, European and Latin American researchers have set a solid theoretical corpus around mediatization. For the first time, this book brings together these two theoretical traditions—the Latin American sociosemiotic matrix consolidated by Eliseo Verón in the 1980s and the institutional and constructivist approaches developed in Europe—to explore the theoretical and applied exchanges between the approaches.

This book presents the work of key authorities on mediatization from Europe and Latin America in one single volume, integrating macro-level theorization with applied observations of mediatization processes from a multidisciplinary perspective. Presented in a handbook format, with comprehensive introductory sections written by the editors and original texts signed by world-renowned researchers, this collection is a vital new resource for researchers and students alike.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Carlos A. Scolari is professor in the Department of Communication at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. José L. Fernández is professor at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Joan R. Rodríguez-Amat is a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK.

REVIEWS

The book achieves its main purpose: to bring the Latin American perspective to the widely known European debates around mediatization. In that regard, any attempt for acknowledging the theoretical contributions to the field of media and communication that have not been widely known – due to language barriers – should always be celebrated.

— Jose Ortega, Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1

1. Conceptualizing Mediatization: Contexts, Traditions, Arguments 14

2. Looking Beyond the Field: Development of the Mediatization

Research Agenda 25

3. Mediation and Reception: Some Theoretical and Methodological

Connections in Latin American Communication Studies 38

4. Mediated Perception and the Mediatization of Seeing:

Perspectives for Researching Visual Communication with

a Mediatization Lens 53

5. Eliseo Verón’s Semio-anthropological Concept of Mediatization:

Its Relevance for an Historic and Systematic Approach in the

Field of Communication Theory 72

6. Beyond the Theoretical Conversations on the Origins of

Mediatizations: A Post-disciplinary Exchange 87

7. Interview with Eliseo Verón: ‘Television, This “Massive”

Phenomenon that We Know Is Condemned to Disappear 104

8. Interview with Friedrich Krotz: ‘Technologies of Communication

Are Becoming Media if People Use Them such that They Are

Institutionalized in Culture and Society 112

9. The Web’s People: Mediatization and Transformation of the

Political Sphere 122

10. “Travel like a Local”: The Mediatization of Alternative

City Tourism, and Its Social Consequences 137

11. Recommender Systems: The Interplay between Asymmetry

Spaces and the Mediatization of Access and Circulation 152

12. Musical Mediatizations: Platforms and Social Spaces 168

13. The Dispute over ‘Gender’ in Current Mediatization: Between

Passion, Empowerment and Disciplined Sexualities 181

14. Conclusion: On the Possibility of Intellectual Trading Zones 198

Index 211