Mediatized Worlds — Understanding Everyday Mediatization

While mediatization as a concept is nothing new in media and communication research, it has recently emerged as an international term: in 2GGS, Sonia Livingstone referred to ‘mediatization’ in her address as president of the International Communications Association (ICA) when she reflected the increasing ‘mediation of everything’ and its relation to changing approaches of media and communication research (Livingstone, 2GG9). Various panels and papers at the recent ICA conferences referred to ‘mediatization’ as a research-guiding concept. And, in 2G11/12, the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) set up a working group on mediatization. In addition to this, various special issues relating to the concept have been published over the past few years. For example, a special issue of Communications: European Journal for Communication Research (2G1G, 35(3)) focused on empirical perspectives on mediatization, an issue of Culture and Religion (2G11, 12(2)) on the mediatization of religion debate, an issue of Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication (2G13, 3(2)) on mediatization as part of more general ‘media processes’, a thematic issue of MedieKultur on mediatization and cultural change (2G13, 29 (54)), and, most recently, an issue of Communication Theory (2G13, 23(3)) on conceptualizing mediatization. In addition, Knut Lundby (2GG9c) edited the book Mediatization: Concepts, Changes, Consequences to present international reflections on mediatization across various research fields.