Three theses on the mediatization of politics: evolutionist, intended, or imagined transformation?

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the mediatization of politics and its theorization as a process of transformation in the making of (political) meaning through three different theses, presented as evolutionist, intended, and imagined transformation. These theses differ from each other not as much on what they describe as meaning-making transformation – the personalization, conversationalization, and dramatization of politics – as on what they consider to be the causes, extent, and consequences of this transformation. By examining their differences, the article argues that mediatization cannot be fully explained with reference either to a single-universal media logic (as in the thesis of evolutionist transformation) or actor-perceived media logics (as in the thesis of intended transformation). It is seen (in the thesis of imagined transformation), instead, as being catalyzed by the imaginary of media omnipresence, the overwhelming sense that media are everywhere, and therefore potential media effects must be anticipated, which intensifies the fusion of public with private spheres of political life. At the same time, this private-public fusion takes place through existing, institutionalized practices of media performativity, such as the performativity of charisma (personalization), ordinariness (conversationalization) and spectacle (dramatization), bearing implications for the exercise of power and democratic practice in our societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Mediatized politics
• transformation
• private-public fusion
• media performativity
• imaginary of media omnipresence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ In his study of communicative action, Habermas (1987) likened the process whereby the bureaucratic imperatives of systems, like government, the economy, etc., encroach on the social lifeworld to a colonial process.

² Strömbäck makes direct reference to Meyer’s analogy in what he terms the “fourth phase’’ in the mediatization of politics, where “the media and their logic can be said to colonize politics’’ (2008, p. 240, emphasis added).

³ Albeit not a conviction or doctrine, utilitarian altruism is still politically and ideologically charged – it draws on the liberal principle of individual self-fulfillment and the neoliberal commodification of the self (Chouliaraki, 2012).

⁴ Some classical relevant studies are Gunther and Mughan (2000); Hallin and Mancini (2004); Plasser and Plasser (2002); Voltmer (2006).

⁵ See, for example, Moffitt (2016) for the affinity between certain performative aspects of mediatized politics and populism; Couldry and Mejias (2019) for big data’s relation to colonial imaginaries; and Chouliaraki & Kissas, (2018) for the imaginaries of death that shape ISIS’ online communicative practices.