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MEDIATIZATION AS A RESEARCH CONCEPT: MAIN PREREQUISITES OF THE FORMATION AND POSSIBILITIES FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2021. Issue 2 (28). P. 9-27

The concept “mediatization” captures fundamental changes in society due to the development of modern media. It is actively and widely used in modern research, but the conceptualization of mediatization processes takes different directions and differs in different countries. Meanwhile, clarifying the content of this concept and the research assumptions associated with its use is an important and independent task. The article analyzes the appearance and initial ideas of this concept: the idea of a special media logic, as it was understood by David Altheide, the idea of formatting based on the concept of the medium as the key to the message developed by the followers of Marshall McLuhan. The problematic aspects of this conceptualization are identified and presented. On the one hand, complex forms are analyzed as simple, which leads to incorrect analogies; on the other, they are related to the understanding of the medium outside of the material and organizational conditions necessary for its functioning. At the same time, it is shown that a number of critical arguments against these concepts related, for example, to ignoring the ethical dimension and the awareness of the message in the McLuhan model are invalid. The main views on the dating of mediatization processes are presented. The key premises of the introduction of the “mediatization” concept are identified; they are connected with the separation of reality itself and constructs of this reality, as well as the lack of a single logic for the formation of various mediatized social worlds. The direction of further evolution of studies using this concept is shown. It is associated with ideas of different media logics, not a single media logic, and is represented by three main approaches: (1) a strategy of understanding media as an institution whose influence transforms other actors’ logic; (2) a strategy of analyzing “mediatized social worlds” that is based on the ideas of semiotics, poststructuralist approaches to discourse analysis, and different interpretations of social worlds; (3) a “technological” strategy that demonstrates the connection between “media grammar” and the transformation of thinking habits.

Keywords: media, mediatization, media logic, media format, mediated social world