Mediatization

Even if the term mediatization refers to a broader set of societal phenomena, in the scholarly literature it is commonly associated with the media-driven process that affects politics and political communication patterns.

The mass media have brought about significant changes in several precincts of contemporary society, such as extension, substitution, amalgamation, and accommodation. Television especially has been credited to have deeply shaped today's public and individual life.

Since their diffusion the press and the broadcasting media have molded the way politics is performed in the different political arenas around the world, to different extents and at a different pace.

Conceptually, mediatization means something more extensive than the related concept of mediation. Beside playing the role of “mediator” between political institutions and the citizenry, the media have increasingly become ...