Three tasks for mediatization research: contributions to an open agenda

Mediatization research as an approach

In the literature, ‘mediatization research’ is frequently referred to as a particular approach within media research, in marked contrast to a research focusing on more specific and limited instances of mediated communication (Couldry and Hepp, 2013: 197; Lundby, 2009). For instance, Couldry and Hepp (2013) argue that mediatization captures

the broad consequences for everyday life and practical organization (social, political, cultural, economic) of media […] that cannot be reached simply by accumulating more and more specific studies that analyze this newspaper, describe how that program was produced, or trace how particular audiences make sense of that film on a particular occasion. (p. 191)

It is easy to agree that such research has limited possibilities to contribute knowledge of broader consequences and transformations. However, such lines of argumentation seem to rely on a caricature of mainstream media research. Research simply analysing how a programme was produced without relating to general questions and theoretical ideas would hardly qualify as good research at all. What is more, much media research is affiliated to joint efforts of theory development aiming to understand how media (re)shape and transform everyday practices, social relationships, selves and identities, orientations in time and space, relations between private and public, political power and so on. This is true not least in relation to the extensive research on social media. The orientation to ‘broader consequences’ and ‘social and cultural transformations’ is hardly unique to ‘mediatization research’ although this umbrella concept may help to describe common interests, efforts and achievements. However, if agreed that the concept of mediatization refers to the various ways in which media shape social and cultural transformations, it has to be recognized that a large group of scholars do research on mediatization without making use of the concept.

The discussions on mediatization draw attention to the importance of developing large-scale historical studies to analyse the role of changing media environments in long-term processes of social change. However, questions about how sociocultural practices transform in relation to media technologies and cultural forms, in different historical context, are (and have been) a general interest in media research, investigated in the context of different disciplines, theories and methodological approaches. The agenda of mediatization research, we argue, should be open to these influences, which can contribute to the consolidation of a pluralistic research field where different positions are to be found.

A meta-theory and a grand theory

Based on the idea of mediatization as a meta-process, it may seem consequentially and almost natural to propose a general theory of the long-term processes of media-related social and cultural transformations. Hepp (2012: 10, referring to Krotz) argues that meta-processes such as individualization and mediatization ‘correspond’ to meta-theory, defined as ‘theoretical narratives that cross various areas of phenomena’ (Hepp, 2012: 10). Such narratives are assumed to explain what Krotz describes as ‘long-term and cultural-crossing changes’ (Hepp, 2012: 9). In social science, the concept of meta-theory commonly refers to theories about – and the study of – the criteria of scientific theories and their ontological and epistemological assumptions (Morrow and Brown, 1994: 118; Ritzer, 1991). In the above referred to discussion on mediatization, where meta-theory and meta-process are associated, however, ‘meta’ rather refers to a level of theoretical generalization. Theories can be general in at least two different ways: (1) in claiming to capture all-encompassing systems and processes, aiming to totalize in this case the diverse forms of mediatization into a single theory (i.e. Grand theories) or (2) in identifying abstract (and distinct) social processes, structures, relationships and mechanisms (cf. Danermark et al., 2002: 138).

Based on the understanding of mediatization as long-term processes of social transformation, it is perhaps tempting to aim for a general theory that integrates and explains processes of mediatization across time and sociocultural contexts – a grand theory of mediatization that incorporates most other social theories of relevance. We, however, believe such attempts are at odds with the idea of complex meta-processes and should therefore be abandoned, together with the idea of mediatization as a constant, steady and linear process of growth from the start of human communication until today. Grand or totalizing (meta-)theoretical claims are not advisable (cf. Rakow, 2013: 194), and they hardly stimulate the multidisciplinary research required to understand and explain diverse processes and manifestations of mediatization in different contexts.

The latter form of generalization, referring to abstract relations and processes, presents a more adequate rationale for research on mediatization. As Krotz (2014) emphasizes, we should also be attentive to various sub-processes of mediatization, through which the complexity and internal contradictions of mediatization can be unveiled. As examples, Krotz refers to Schulz’s (2004) notions of extension, accommodation, substitution and amalgamation, which represent different facets of mediatization. We agree with what we understand as an argument for conceptualizations and analyses on different levels of abstraction. Suggestions along these lines have also been advanced by others. For example, Deacon and Stanyer (2014: 1040) suggest that one way to develop the theorizing of mediatization is to combine general conceptualizations with ‘concepts at lower levels of abstractions’. Jensen (2013) argues that mediatization ‘is best understood as a broad and inclusive concept’ and advocates a plurality of ‘sensitizing conceptualizations’ as guidance in analysing the implications of changing media environments (p. 218). Similarly, we believe such conceptualizations are advisable in analyzing mediatization processes (and sub-processes) as potentially constituted by general conditions on high levels of abstraction and situated in concrete social, cultural and historical contexts. This view is congruent with a view of mediatization as meta-process, potentially multidimensional and nonlinear, operating in different ways in different media environments.

A paradigmatic shift?

The ground-breaking distinctiveness of mediatization research is most clearly articulated in the idea of this research representing a paradigmatic shift in media and communication research (Hepp et al., 2015: 315, 321; Livingstone and Lunt, 2014). There might well be an increase in empirical research focusing on long-term media-related sociocultural transformations, and there are many initiatives to constitute a community for such research, through conferences, networks, special issues and edited volumes. Still, the idea of a paradigm is disputable.

Livingstone and Lunt (2014: 720) describe mediatization as an ‘emergent paradigm’, referring to Kuhn’s (1962) seminal work and suggesting that mediatization seems to answer ‘unresolved puzzles’. They add that ‘more research is needed before concluding that mediatization improves on the explanatory power of its rivals’. Among these rivals, they mention media ecology, actor-network theory and critical theory of technology, and they thus assume that mediatization represents a coherent theoretical approach or paradigm.

There is obviously no simple definition of what constitutes a paradigm. Kuhn himself provided multiple definitions (Kuhn, 1962; Masterman, 1970). To what extent paradigms at all exist in social science is also intensively discussed. However, according to a common interpretation (relevant also for social science), paradigms comprise ontological assumptions (in practice almost taken for granted), basic conceptualizations of the objects of research, norms, models and exemplars of appropriate methods and practices. This is what researchers more or less share and are socialized into. In media and communication research, there are such differences between, for example, the behaviourist and quantitative research on media effects versus social constructivist approaches favouring qualitative methods. A reading of the theoretical and methodological approaches suggested by the researchers most affiliated to ‘mediatization research’, however, indicates that they do not share what is reasonably required to constitute a coherent paradigm or a coherent research programme (cf. Jensen, 2013: 218). And what is more, there are no reasons to expect that they should or will in the future. What is often described as the main approaches developed in research on mediatization – institutional and cultural constructivist approaches – refer to different and competing theoretical traditions (and thus paradigms) in social science. This is what makes the research field so dynamic. To assume that, for example, Strömbäck’s (2011; also Shehata and Strömbäck, 2014; Strömbäck and Dimitrova, 2011) work on the mediatization of politics and Hepp’s (2011/2013, 2013) research on communicative figurations are part of one paradigmatic shift is more confusing than clarifying.

An open concept and an open research agenda

Critics argue that the concept of mediatization in its present shape lacks clear ‘discriminatory power’ and that we ‘need to know what it is not’ (Deacon and Stanyer, 2014: 1039). What differentiates instances of mediatization? What is required for a media-related social transformation to be an example of mediatization is obviously not easy to decide. Couldry and Hepp (2013) argue that mediatization ‘refers to the role of particular media in emergent processes of social and cultural change’ (p. 197). They find significant differences in how this role of the media has been conceptualized in terms of ‘media logics’, ‘media specificity’, ‘institutionalization’ or ‘moulding forces’. This illustrates a prolific diversity in the theory development (see also Hepp, 2012; Lundby, 2014). However, the various conceptualizations of how mediatization works do not reduce the vagueness of the concept.

We can see at least two possible solutions to the lack of a detailed and unified definition: either by arguing for a general theory with clear demarcations of the particular transformations accounted for as mediatization or by keeping the concept broad and open and delegate the responsibilities for clear definitions to the various theories developed within the research on media-related transformations of society, culture and everyday life. We ourselves lean towards the latter alternative. We also think that this is the direction in which research on mediatization currently develops. The various research activities and debates that have taken place during the last decade have led to the establishment of a vital research field in spite of the ambiguities surrounding the concept. The fact that mediatization is now also institutionalized as a permanent section of ECREA will certainly not close these debates, but rather legitimize their prolongation and expansion into previously unaffected areas. Controversies pertaining to the field’s foundational concept, mediatization, should then be seen as a sign of the field’s gradual maturation, which by definition means that there will be different positions and continuous competition as to the definition of the field’s key concepts and of the field itself (cf. Bourdieu, 1980/1990).

So far, we have discussed some conceptual claims, confusions and challenges in contemporary research on mediatization processes and proposed an open multidisciplinary theoretical agenda. In the second part of this article, we wish to identify some areas and approaches where new theoretical development and empirical research seem particularly called for and also potentially rewarding. Our suggestions are based on the research reviews conducted and symposia hosted by our sector committee and can thus be seen as the outcome of a relatively inductive process. As such, in line with our call for an open research agenda, the three tasks outlined below also transcend different research approaches, disciplines and paradigms.

Historicity

As a concept for certain kinds of long-term social transformations, mediatization invites historical approaches. In relation to much other media and communication research, it should – and has the potential to – focus on how media processes interact with other forms of social change. With this in mind, it is striking and so far slightly disappointing how little such actual research there is in the field. Too much of existing research has hypostasized the existence of mediatization and then focused on analyzing the contemporary effects of this taken-for-granted process. We can also discern unfortunate gaps or lines of division between some leading proponents of mediatization theory and other schools of thought focusing on media history, often based on Canadian media theory, from Harold Innis, Walter J. Ong and Marshall McLuhan up to John Durham Peters in the United States or Friedrich Kittler and Wolfgang Ernst in Germany, among many others. We find this hostility unfortunate since it prevents productive dialogues that may refine the understanding of media temporalities.

Hence, mediatization needs to be historicized. Many have pointed out that there is too little research on the temporal aspects of mediatization. Several mediatization scholars (see, for example, Hepp, 2013) have emphasized this time dimension, arguing for longitudinal studies or comparisons over longer time spans, but also for analyzing generational shifts as a way of approaching long-term transformations (see also Hepp, 2011/2013, 2013; Hepp et al., 2015; Hepp and Krotz, 2014). Critics such as Deacon and Stanyer (2014) have likewise argued for empirical studies of change over time. They would also like to know how individual and institutional actors sometimes in various ways counteract the effects of mediatization, implying that it may not necessarily always run in the same direction. The possibility of phases of demediatization has also been acknowledged by proponents such as Hjarvard (2013). Lunt and Livingstone (2016) recently regarded a ‘heightened historical awareness’ as a key benefit of the mediatization concept, with types and scales of transformation being central issues.

These issues have been approached by several of the Swedish networks in this field. One on ‘Mediatization Times’ examines how liveness and historical processes are shaped by technical infrastructures of temporality (see also Fornäs, in press). Another on ‘Media and Everyday Life’ scrutinizes how new media affect daily life while in reverse vernacular routines domesticate new communicative technologies, partly neutralizing their transformative effects (Löfgren, 2009). These series of workshops, seminars, networks and reports have given ample evidence on the vitality of new research that historicizes different media fields within culture and everyday life, but also the need for interdisciplinary historical research that more systematically analyses and compares developments in, for example, publishing, music media and social media (Fornäs and Kaun, 2011; Kaun and Fast, 2014).

How to compare levels and kinds of mediatization between different historical periods is a very complicated matter. Virtually all elements of a social and communicative situation changes over time, and it becomes extremely difficult to decide which differences are the main driving factors and which are mere side effects. It may be quite easy to compare the number of media or average hours of media use between two different years, but how to measure the role or power of media between two radically different situations some years, decades or centuries apart? There may well plausibly be fundamental processes of transformation, but how to decide precisely what is transformed by which forces? How does mediatization in this respect interact with other processes of social change, such as individualization, globalization or commercialization? (Lunt and Livingstone, 2016).

These are general problems with all historical comparisons and may explain the apparent scarcity of this type of research. Yet, if the talk of mediatization as a process of social transformation is to be qualified, such problems must be dealt with. This calls for larger and more ambitious research projects where scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds collaborate to critically assess different ways of understanding what mediatization may mean and to test those alternative models that have been proposed, for instance, concerning the balances between breaks and continuities or between linearity and reversibility. To attain this, one option is to strategically select a set of points in time and then make systematic comparisons of how different media were used in and had an impact on selected aspects or areas of culture and everyday life. This requires interdisciplinary collaboration and methods for contextualizing the findings to sort out media changes and estimate their weight in relation to other kinds of technical, political, economic, social and cultural processes. Another model that has been tested is to map the history of a particular form of mediation in order to identify and date key transitions. This again demands a focused attention to how meanings and implications of given forms of communication may subtly change as their contextual coordinates mutate due to non–media-specific social transformations. A third possibility that has also been used is to interpret generational data in order to trace the effects of shifting life course–bound media experiences. In such studies, care is needed to distinguish temporal effects of generational shifts from those bound to age, as, for instance, some media habits are since long common to young people of a certain age while others follow specific generational cohorts up through the ages.

Specificity

The term ‘mediatization’ thus designates ways media have transformed from specific technologies of mediation into general ‘moulding forces’ (Hepp, 2013), with an increased influence on culture and society, as a result of both qualitative and quantitative historical changes (Lundby, 2009). The unifying term ‘mediatization’ thus encourages a heightened reflexivity to such processes.

However, the term actually covers a variety of processes of transformation, which are studied across media and communication science as well as in other fields within the humanities and social science. Hence, the term encourages, even demands, cross-disciplinary studies concerned with broader societal and cultural processes and changes but also studies of the influence of particular media on particular fields and domains. Lunt and Livingstone (2016: 463) thus call for comparative studies of the ways mediatization works ‘across domains and over time’. Besides pointing out that mediatization deals with changes over time, Lunt and Livingstone imply that processes of mediatization unfold differently in different domains and may influence each other across domains in different, uneven and asymmetric ways. Needless to say, understood as cross-disciplinary studies, mediatization puts emphasis on media in context: the different interactions and effects of different types of media in different cultural or institutional settings.

Besides the need for historicization, there is therefore a need for specification of various forms, types and settings of mediatization. There are several dimensions to distinguish. One concerns the issue of media specificity: how processes of mediatization may differ depending on precisely which media types, genres, technologies or institutions are discussed. Another specifying dimension concerns context specificity: studying in which social (schools, politics, literature etc.) and which geographical (e.g. different countries) contexts mediatization develops.

Whereas mediatization studies call for meta-level theorizations of the influence of media on society and culture over time, there is an additional need to pay attention to the heterogeneity and uneven pace (Couldry, 2008) in these processes and study concrete examples of nonlinearity and asymmetry within particular fields as well as across fields. As discussed above, mediatization is at once all encompassing and diverse, constituting at once a historical meta-process and a range of more concrete and context-specific sub-processes. Accordingly, a composite understanding of mediatization can only be reached through different approaches focusing on different configurations of media, contexts and sub-processes.

Hjarvard (2014) has recently called for mid-level institutional analyses of mediatization processes and mid-level analyses of ways media intervene and construct patterns of social interaction. He understands ‘institution’ very broadly as covering concrete institutions (like particular media institutions and media systems), fields like politics or sports, as well as less demarcated institutions like the home. Hjarvard points out that mid-level studies are empirically grounded and hereby argues in favour of a non–media-centric approach to mediatization, which studies the ways several ‘logics’ from different institutions are at work simultaneously and coalesce and interfere with each other: media logics (in the plural) and institutional logics (in the plural).

How these modi operandi work together or against each other can be unpacked through cross-disciplinary studies and specific empirical analyses on middle and micro level. Analyses of processes of mediatization on these levels should therefore illustrate how ‘there are different specificities of different media’ (Hepp, 2009: 144); accordingly, how mediatization means different things and is expressed differently in different contexts. Moreover, micro-level and middle level analyses should of course take into consideration in what ways or whether changing modes of communication and social interaction related to different media partake of mediatization and hence may contribute to improve our theoretical understanding of processes of mediatization (Livingstone, 2008).

One could argue that different media’s different technological affordances, institutional structure and different production logics contribute differently to changes in culture and society. But how then call attention to differentiation? One solution could be to clearly situate the research by limiting the investigation to one single medium in one particular social context, for instance through studies of the changed relationship between television and the family, mapping the when, where, what and how (Fornäs, 2014a and b) of the mediatization of social interaction in the family. Another solution could be to comparatively study relations between different media, while limiting the study to one particular focus or approach. A third approach to differentiation would be to map more broadly how a range of different media mediate but also mediatize a particular area of life or social practice, for example, everyday life.

For example, from Craig Gilbert’s 10 episode documentary ‘An American Family’, broadcast on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1973, through the Big Brother reality game show and up to the early 21st century rise of social network media and many-to-many communication, everyday life and subjectivity enactment in the private sphere have been increasingly mediated and largely mediatized. Meyrowitz (1985) argued that television profoundly changed the relationship between the public and the private, and this trend accelerated when the 1973 observational film camera was first substituted with Big Brother’s surveillance cameras and when social network media then made social interaction comprehensively and continuously communicated to an open-ended and in turn interacting audience (Jerslev, in press). Contextualizing these changes of the mediation of everyday life in relation to the heated public debates surrounding these specific mediations of everyday life may add nuances to the often assumed linearity of this process and call attention to discontinuities and dynamics that go against and modify the dominant trend towards mediatization.

Measurability

A significant critique against mediatization theory is that it refers to a meta-process that is so complex that it eventually tends to incorporate anything. Deacon and Stanyer (2014, 2015) hold that mediatization runs the risk of becoming a ‘concept of no difference’ that ‘encompasses and conflates a vast range of media and communication structures, processes and practices’ (Deacon and Stanyer, 2015: 657). This is an important point that should be taken as a key challenge for research on mediatization, especially within the area of culture and everyday life. Great care should be taken as to when the term mediatization is attributed, ensuring that mediatization refers to changes of a certain magnitude and that these changes involve media as an indispensable part.

As noted above, historicizing approaches constitute one antidote to slack terminology, since the dynamics of structural transformation, and thus the broader contours of a meta-process are often easier to detail in retrospect (revealing for instance the interplay between mediatization and other meta-processes). Another way of granting the validity of the term would be to develop ways of measuring mediatization, meaning that the degree to which various actors and individuals adapt their practices and mindsets to media and mediation processes is quantified and thus directly comparable across time and space.

The idea of measuring mediatization is not new. Within the institutionalist strand of mediatization research, quantitative studies have prevailed since the 1980s, focusing above all on the mediatization of politics. In Sweden, for instance, a number of studies have been conducted to detect how political strategies and practices have become increasingly adapted to the ‘logics’ of the media (e.g. Asp, 1986; Strömbäck and Dimitrova, 2011). There have also been studies on how politicians and news journalists perceive the political influence of media (e.g. Strömbäck, 2011) and on the significance of (news) media for gaining political knowledge (e.g. Shehata and Strömbäck, 2014). However, these studies are not concerned with the sociocultural processes through which media themselves (i.e. as technologies and cultural properties) become indispensable to various social actors. Furthermore, if we overview mediatization research that address the broader terrain of culture and everyday life, there is a general lack of quantitative research (for exceptions see, for example, Lindell, 2014; Jansson, 2015b).

In relation to certain aspects of institutionally organized culture, such as book publishing or music production and distribution, approaches like those applied in relation to politics and other institutional settings could be valid. To some extent, it would even be possible to work retrospectively through quantitative analyses of documents like newspapers, magazines, advertising, even autobiographies in order to see to what extent and how (different) media have affected the conditions of different cultural institutions and their key actors during different periods and in different sociocultural contexts. Such quantifying overviews could be an integral part of historicizing analyses of mediatization. However, when it comes to mediatization processes pertaining to everyday life, where institutional logics are not applicable, things get more complicated. How can we achieve valid measures of media’s governing role within different realms of everyday life?

It should first be noted that there already is a great body of quantitative research within audience studies that maps out patterns of everyday media use, sometimes incorporating a longitudinal component. However, these studies have a tendency to measure only the degree to which people are using different media and for what purposes. This type of information tells us something about the saturation of media within different areas of life and in different social groups, but it is not sufficient for assessing the more qualitative significance of media within processes of social and cultural change. We should also note that the outcomes of this type of quantitative studies have not yet been systematically incorporated within the more institutionalized field of mediatization studies. A first step towards measurability is thus to overview and organize the quantitative results that have been generated in various audience-oriented projects in different parts of the world since the mid-20th century. Such an endeavour would be a powerful way of substantiating the historical claims of mediatization theory, while at the same time making justice to all the research that has already been carried out. It would also be a way of discussing and gaining insights into what kinds of indicators could say something important about mediatization in future analyses.

The second step, accordingly, would be to establish a ‘point zero’ and to develop a coherent analytical framework for measuring the mediatization of everyday life in ways that could be repeated in different places and at different times. It would ensure that we could achieve a more nuanced and historicized understanding of mediatization in the future. This is not the place for delineating such a framework in detail, but we would like to raise three principal points as to how such measurements are to resonate with the nature of mediatization.

First, what can be directly measured is not mediatization as a meta-process, but what we have referred to above as sub-processes (see Krotz, 2014; Mazzoleni and Schulz, 1999; Schulz, 2004). Schulz (2004) has identified four such sub-processes: extension (growing capabilities due to media), substitution (when nonmediated practices become dependent on media or new media take the place of old ones), amalgamation (when media practices become intertwined with other practices) and accommodation (when different actors adapt their modes of thinking and acting to the existence of media). The relevance and implications of these very sub-processes, as well as their applicability within the realm of everyday life, can of course be questioned (see, for example, Hjarvard, 2008). The point, however, is that this type of categorizations are necessary for operationalizing media-related change and ultimately generating results that together can make up a more complex picture of how mediatization unfolds as a meta-process over time and in different realms and strata of society.

Second, measurements of mediatization should not be technology-centric, but rather focus on certain realms of activity. In line with our call for specification and differentiation, as discussed above, one could study, for example, social fields following Bourdieu (1980/1990) or what Giddens (1991) calls lifestyle sectors; ‘a time–space “slice” of an individual’s overall activities, within which a reasonably consistent and ordered set of practices is adopted and enacted’ (p. 83). Whereas the role of particular technologies is clearly an interesting topic to mediatization research, a central task is to grasp complex changes that involve a large variety of media. For example, if people no longer adapt their everyday routines to the schedules of television or no longer feel obliged to have a landline telephone at home, such alterations should not be taken as evidence that mediatization has stopped. Measurements of everyday mediatization processes need to pertain to realms of activity that are relatively stable (as categorical entities) over time and can be found in most parts of society. In order to identify such areas, valuable insights could be gathered from ethnographic accounts of, for example, the domestication of media within households (see Hartmann, 2009) or media-related alterations pertaining to work–life balance (see Gregg, 2011).

Third, as indicated above, mediatization research needs to move beyond measurements of the mere uses of media in order to grasp qualitative changes in terms of how people adapt to media and to what extent media become indispensable to everyday life (Jansson, 2013, 2014). It is not enough to just count the number of broadband subscribers or the amount of time people spend on Facebook. What is important is to account for whether and how these developments imply that different areas of practice become reliant on media and to explore how people feel about such transformations. A number of recent studies have used qualitative methods for grasping, for instance, how people experience moments of disconnection or information overload (see Bengtsson, 2015; Paasonen, 2015). Such complex experiences are of course difficult to measure, but one should not underestimate the possibility of using survey methods for asking individuals about whether media are mandatory parts of their lifestyles, to what extent they think that their activities are governed by media forms and whether such relations have changed over time. The deeper meanings and social dynamics of such changes should of course be detailed through further ethnographically oriented studies.

An objection to these points could be that survey research has become increasingly problematic to carry out in a pluralized and mediatized society, where answering rates are getting lower and lower (especially in certain groups). However, there are various ways of refining survey methods in order to compensate for such problems. Furthermore, quantitative accounts can be achieved by means of experimentally oriented panel data and so-called ‘big data’. In an increasingly interactive and algorithmically steered media environment, we should explore the possibilities of using user-generated data as entry points for studying mediatization processes. One problem with such data, obviously, is that they do not tell us much about actual experiences and modes of handling media-related transformations in social life. What they could provide, however, are statistical representations of how various lifestyle sectors and practices are successively moving away from physical space and into media space, making online technologies indispensable to for example retailing (Turow et al., 2015), and how people’s cultural consumption patterns, ultimately their tastes, are becoming curated by the data mining of so-called ‘infomediaries’ (Morris, 2015). It remains an open question to what extent this type of data sources can be made accessible to academic research and designed in ways that sustain mediatization research in a meaningful way.