Abstract
Most research on mediatization focuses on media-related actions and structural adaptations that aim to increase media attention. However, social actors may also opt for defensive strategies ...and try to avoid media publicity. In this article, we conceptualize defensive and offensive mediatization strategies as complementary methods that social actors use to deal with media publicity and public attention as well as to proactively shape mediatization processes. We employ an exploratory approach to identify and systematize defensive mediatization strategies. Consequently, we contribute to a more complete understanding of mediatization and provide starting points for further empirical analyses of media-related strategies used by social actors. A secondary analysis of the data from previous research projects suggests establishing three categories of defensive mediatization strategies—persistence, shielding, and immunization—with regard to the levels of individual actors, organizations, and social systems’ routines and norms.
The article is devoted to the analysis of the process of the mediatization of Orthodoxy. The mediatization of Orthodoxy is a new and relevant process that requires a revision of methodology and ...research tools in the humanities, namely in religious studies. Despite the ongoing revision of methodology and change of research focus, the mediatization of Orthodoxy remains a little-studied phenomenon with new trends emerging and the volume of research material is constantly increasing. Whilst more works on the topic are being published, as yet, they have not been systematized and clustered. This study is devoted to filling that gap. The aim of the article is to systematize Russian and foreign studies of the niche of mediatized Orthodoxy, which has formed over the past three decades. The study solves several problems: 1) to identify relevant works and define the current academic thought on theoretical conceptualization of the mediatization of religion; 2) to propose the author’s classification of thematic areas of research on the mediatization of Russian Orthodoxy, substantiate the potential and limitations of such classification; 3) to identify main directions of the interpretation of the process of the mediatization based on the description of the dynamics of the process; 4) specify commonalities and differences in the description of the stages and substantial components of the mediatization of Orthodoxy from the perspective of the existing approaches; 5) to investigate the research field of the mediatization of Orthodoxy using examples of mediatized Orthodox practices. The material used for the study was theoretical and empirical research, by both domestic and foreign authors, devoted to the mediatization of Orthodoxy and were created over the past fifteen years, starting with the appearance of the first work on the topic of digital Orthodoxy in 2009. The research methods included secondary analysis which resulted in the author’s classification of approaches to the interpretation of the mediatization of Orthodoxy; thematic and conceptual analysis, which enabled an attempt to give original theoretical and conceptual understanding of the process of mediatization of Orthodoxy, and to substantiate the identified stages of this process and its components. The author concludes that an independent Orthodox media niche formed fifteen years ago which now sees a quantitative and qualitative increase in the number of publications devoted to the mediatization of Orthodoxy. Research of the phenomenon comprises macro and micro levels: theoretical conceptualization of the process and local mediatization of communicative practices of dioceses, catechists and preachers, respectively. Including research into the study of mediatization of Orthodoxy and the new media, and the study of the mediatization of Orthodox conservatism. The dramatic development of the theory of mediatization of religion demonstrates the inconsistency of the dominant concept of secularization and requires further research.
As almost all aspects of our lives, motherhood in the 21st century also is influenced and transformed by new media. Parents, especially mothers, use the Facebook, Instagram and even Twitter (X) as ...digital diaries, as stages for performing an ideal mother’s role, or even “safe spaces” to gain support and the feeling of empowerment. Recent research of motherhood discourses and mothering practices in social media has mainly focused on the evidence of mediation and mediatization. However, limited attention has been brought to examining Twitter in context of mothering. Therefore, this paper focuses on the narratives of a particular cluster of Latvian-speaking mothers on Twitter who use Twitter as a platform for exchanging informational, emotional and physical support, forming a “portable” community. The case study consists of a narrative analysis of 11 in-depth semi-structured interviews with mothers and a thematic analysis of 1111 tweets, gathered from 9 other public Twitter accounts (covering a period of 2 weeks), that have been identified by interviewees as part of this particular Twitter-bubble. The paper provides an insight into the narratives of women, voicing their motherhood struggles and victories in the “safe space” of Twitter’s “bubble” of new Latvian mothers, illuminating also a unique and unlikely use for an asymmetric and decentralized social media platform.
Owing to their focus solely on media content, most empirical studies on mediatization of politics fail to consider the dynamic relationship between politics and journalism, even though this ...relationship would provide ideal data for assessing the mediatization hypothesis. This study aims to measure the mediatization of politics using a research design that tracks parallel trends in political and media content over several decades, with televised Canadian leaders’ debates and their coverage by newspapers as a case study. Our specific hypotheses target the discursive style of journalists (factual, analytical, judgmental), agenda building (the range of areas of activity), and framing (strategic or governing). Our findings support the hypothesis which states that reports on leaders’ debates have become less factual as journalists have increased the share of analytical and judgmental styles in their stories. Also, use of the strategic frame in news stories has grown, and it has been incorporated by party leaders into their own discourse during debates. Evidence is mixed regarding the impact of mediatization on agenda building.
The work articulates the image-body-technology relationship at the intersection of the fields of Communication and Education. It is part of the historical recency of digital information and ...communication technologies, namely, the emergence of a new relationship context with the use of social media. The objective is to develop and present the egomuseum concept to explain the (self)representation and musealization of the self as a process of (in)formation and authorship through images that are documented, collected, accumulated and exposed in social media. The egomuseum highlights the (self)representation and musealization of the self through visual narratives of the subject – its feelings, emotions, thoughts and actions – based on what it deems to be important and worthy of display. This conceptual article is based on a systematic literature review in a specialized database (Xavier, 2018; Xavier & Oliveira, 2017); and on empirical research developed and under development from social groups with public profiles on Instagram (Xavier & Souza, 2021). It points to the need to reflect on spectacularization, performance, ambivalent patrimonialization and registration, as conceptual components of the egomuseum, considering possible developments and implications, as well as their use in teaching-learning contexts and (in)formative processes of teaching-research-extension.
The long history of mass communication theories is full of metaphors, from Shannon and Weaver’s ‘transmission channel’ to Noelle-Neumann’s ‘spiral of silence’. The objective of the chapter is to give ...an overview of the use of metaphors and models in mediatized communication studies. Special attention is given to the metaphors that support the representations of digital and interactive communication practices; in this context, the chapter deals with the metaphors of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and new platforms and introduces the main metaphors of media change. The chapter concludes with a series of reflections on the risks and benefits of metaphorical reasoning and includes a call for ‘metaphorical experimentation’.
Abstract
For the Habermasian theory of the “public sphere” to make sense in the 2020s, it must be able to address the modern tendency toward global systemic crises. To examine the relevance of the ...Habermasian public sphere to today’s deeply interconnected digital world, this article provides a selective reading of Habermas’ writings on the public sphere, examining how he developed the concept from its conceptual core (1962) through his Legitimation Crisis (LC; 1973) and The Theory of Communicative Action (TCA; vol. 1 1981 1984, vol. 2 1981 1987). Working from the perspective of the “differentiated lifeworld,” we show here that the theory’s background assumptions about reality (truth), solidarity (justice), personality (authenticity) are now being exposed and destabilized by current crisis tendencies and imaginaries. Here, we examine three exemplary (and interconnected) global disruptions that expose these assumptions: the climate crisis, the intensification of financial inequality in the Global North, and the rapid push toward datafication. Through our examination of whether the public sphere as Habermas conceived of it can exist in today’s world, we provide a more expansive form of criticism of the public sphere (which is usually critiqued on the narrow grounds of the rational bias of communicative rationality). Here, we underscore the fundamental importance of addressing the complex system-lifeworld dynamics that are today re-conceptualizing and re-contextualizing the “public sphere” in this era of contemporary global crises.
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