Local media and political practices: notes for addressing mediatization.

Abstract

The primary issue underpinning this research paper is how to address the fundamental question concerning media: To what extent and how does media permeate contemporary society and culture? In this context, we propose a methodological proposal on accounting for mediatization. This concept emphasizes the networks connecting media actors with actors in the most diverse social spheres. These networks are essential because they comprise the arena in which meaning is constructed. Although, in recent years, this concept has been beneficial to understand theoretically the critical role played by media in the process of social and cultural change, there are not many methodological proposals based on it, and some of the existent ones are defined from deterministic macro-approaches, indifferent to the developments of the constructivist paradigm. Based on a methodological qualitative design that seeks to reconstruct and analyze the interactions linking media actors (mainly journalists) with politicians and neighborhood associations, we examine the resulting networks and their different levels of communication. Therefore, the paper addresses four main topics: first, a theoretical overview of the category of mediatization. Second, the presentation of an interactional approach is grounded in some important categories of the constructivist paradigm. Third, a proposal based on qualitative research covering the mediatization of political practices in a middle-sized city in Argentina. Finally, an epistemological question regarding the general level of media interaction, i.e., the mediatization of the public sphere.