Deep Mediatization: Rethinking a Figurational Approach

The article analyzes the possibilities and limitations of the figurative approach to the deep mediatization study, developed by Andreas Hepp and Nick Couldrie. To what extent is figurative theoretical optics sensitive to the processes of social worlds and practices transformation under the media influence? What are the possible directions of revision and further development of this approach? The figurative approach to deep mediatization is a powerful theoretical tool to explore this complex, non-linear meta-process. Focusing on figurations helps to avoid media centrism and emphasize the social life procedurality. At the same time, the figurations concept (understood as collectives, organizations, and institutions) raises some questions. In particular, the thesis about special media ensembles inherent in different figurations does not always work. This is due to the emergence of multifunctional platforms that can become a single digital infrastructure for many figurations. Such platforms have the potential of the ecosystem for a mediatized social life. Further analysis of the relationship between figurations and platforms is required, which does not reduce platforms only to the technological component of figurations. Bridging the deep divide between human actors and technology would also lead to new readings of medialogics (such as human-machine logics).

Ecology of Communication: the toxicity factors in media

The paper raises the problem of media ecology. The concept of media ecology is considered from the standpoint of post-nonclassical rationality: the object of research is viewed as a system that unifies communicants, their communities and the information environment within the framework of ongoing interactions, which, in turn, affect all elements of the ecosystem. The authors analyze socio-cultural changes caused by media influence and give the interpretation of the manifestations of media toxicity through five components of communication (toxicity factors): (1) subject; (2) sign code; (3) content; (4) method and (5) discourse background. The experimental base of the research is represented by a lexical-semantic analysis of materials from print and electronic media and students' essays (n>300), an associative experiment conducted with students of the direction of training “Advertising and public relations” (Moscow and St. Petersburg, n> 200). At the end the authors share the experience of holding a scientific conference dedicated to the discussed problem as an optimal format for involving students in the problems of the ecology of media communication.

Een schrijver verdwaald in het massamedialand

The mass media are a prominent actor in the current debate on literature. In many ways, they contribute to defining its terms and settings, including what is said, whose voice is deemed valid/legitimate, and how it is all done/expressed. The mass media no longer merely mediate; rather, they produce views on and assessments of writers and their work. In his book De literatuur draait door. De schrijver in het mediatijdperk (2019), Sander Bax discusses selected cases of the media presence of well-known Dutch authors and their books to offer an insightful and accurate exploration of the ways in which the mass media influence the debate on literature and literature itself.