Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Ilya Kiriya 78 society generating abuses of different forms of power” (MOSCO, 2009). From the side of political economy, mediatization of so- cial process could be regarded as progressive industrialization of culture. Such industrialization changes considerably the bal- ance of market power between different actors of the field and especially empowers the so called platforms. In other words, for us mediatization is the inclusion of new sectors into the field of cultural and media industries For the long time the crucial function within any in- dustrial field of culture was the function of the so called “edi- tor” articulating the creative function with reproduction and market distribution of the cultural good (HUET et al., 1978). The central element in such process was the technical reproduc- tion (so making mass availability of the cultural expression in space/ time) which was the driver of the commodification of the cultural goods on the basis of their mass circulation. Technical reproduction was the main element of the critical theory of in- dustrialization of culture coming from times of Benjamin ( BEN - JAMIN, 2008) and Adorno (HORKHEIMER; ADORNO, 2002). The technical notion of the reproducibility for few dozen years de- termined basically non-industrial character of specific domains of culture such as theater and performing arts, education etc., maintaining them outside the industrialization process. All such domains have been considered as non-reproducible and, conse- quently, not considered as cultural industries. Consequently, the industrial weight of such segments within the economy of cul- ture was not so big in comparison with historical branches of it (such as movie industries, phonographic industry, book publish- ing segment, television, and other media). Now with a proliferation of digital technologies we can observe how progressively such non-industrial domains of cul- ture become mass oriented and better mediatized which pushes them toward industrialization. Thus, theatrical performances are increasingly growing their audience through festivals and movie theater demonstration, education becomes online with invention of Mass Open Online Courses (MOOCS) and distant learning technologies, while we can see a raise of new ways of labor division inside such domains and their new strategic alli- ances with other fields of cultural industries and communica-