Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Ada C. Machado da Silveira 168 spaces, notably the international frontier when taken beyond the geopolitical aspect or the primacy of the State, allows us to bring elements that aid in the understanding of the singularity and the interactions that exist there, genuinely affected by glo- balization. The aim is to highlight the multiple interests and im- plications of the mediatization of the polis and the newsworthi- ness in the periphery when studying the so-called Trans-frontier Urban Complexes (CUT). In the situation under study, emerging from a research project, I consider the CUT as constituted by the conurbation of three different cities, gathered in the same urban fabric, although members of three distinct nation-States, namely Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina – a strong populational density of nearly one million inhabitants and high intensity of human and economic flows 2 . Considering the issue of what is mediatized in the com- munication process that the news activity promotes, this text considers four moments of reflection. Initially, I investigate the possibility of a mediatization approach in the analysis of the newsworthiness in the periphery. It is about verifying the pres- ent understanding of the mediatization approach to study how events that took place in peripheral spaces in Brazil, notably in its international borders, are likely to become news material and submitted to the logics of journalism as practiced in the ref - erence parameters of the Brazilian commercial media. In a sec- ond section, I seek to advance on the repercussions of the news of the periphery when it is understood since its condition of mediatized polis, especially considering the globalized environ- ment of a Brazilian international frontier. Such considerations advance to, in the end, debate the mediatization of the polis in the conditions in which the CUT BRA-PY-AR is understood and projected by the news action of the institutional journalism ac - tivity taken as an empirical object of reflection. 2 This refers to the research project funded by a PQ scholarship by CNPq (2018- 2020) entitled Mediatization, social identity, and public security in Trans-fron- tier Urban Complexes. The empirical notes registered in the text come from a set of research activities carried out by GruPesq CIFront, led by the author, and activities with undergraduate students (IC and TCC), master’s and doctoral students, in addition to post-doctoral professionals (HARTMANN; SILVEIRA, 2018, 2019; SILVEIRA, 2007, 2012, 2016; SILVEIRA et al., 2017; SILVEIRA; GUI - MARÃES, 2016; SILVEIRA et al., 2017a).