The Concept of Mediation and Its Historical Development - Case Study Example

Name: Tutor: Title: Convergence-Mediation Course: Date: Introduction Media Convergence is defined as the flow of contents over multiple media platforms. This implies that media audiences determine the contents to be created and distributed, and thus convergence should be examined in the context of social and technological changes in the society. Media convergence is considered an ongoing process that cannot be regarded as a displacement of old media, instead it should be viewed as a process in which different media forms incorporates with other media platforms (Jenkins 2006, p.3). Similarly, Burnett and Marshall as cited in Grant and Wilkinson (2008, p.5) defines convergence as the process of blending the media, computer industries as well as telecommunication which can also mean shaping the boundaries between various media platforms purposely to create a single digital form. Jenkins (2006) notes that the developing convergence culture within the entertainment media will eventually shape different other aspects of society. From the third chapter about “The Matrix” and series of films and the related media or transmedia storytelling, Jenkins examines that Media convergence renders the flow of contents on different media platforms more predictable. For example, this being the era of digital effects as well as high-development of game graphics, it is possible for the game world to imitate the film world because of the capability to reuse similar digital assets (Jenkins 2006, p.104). This essay examines the concept of Mediation and its historical development as a tool for understanding media, analyzes how the concept of Mediation has been applied in current research and assess the value of mediation in explaining about contemporary media and everyday lives. Definition of Mediation and its historical development as a tool for understanding media Mediation has a long history and used in various ways particularly in media research. In his article titled “Genesis of the Media Concept,” Guillory (2010) states an excellent journey towards the development of media in relation to the historical significance placed upon mimesis. Guillory notes that since the time of Aristotle to late nineteenth, little was done to consider issues of media as raised in relation to communication. The term ‘mediation’ refers to the process or act of transmitting something via the media. Mediation can also mean the overall effect of media institutions within the contemporary societies. It also means the overall difference made by the existing media in our social world. Therefore, mediation describes the basic though unevenly dialectical process through which institutionalized media involved in communication such as World Wide Web, television, broadcast radio and the press participate in the public circulation of various symbols in the social life (Couldry 2011, p.379-380). This implies that the concept of mediation requires people to have a clear view of how the process of communication changes their social and cultural environments supporting them. It is relevant to note that mediation requires people to understand the existing relationships amongst individuals, between institutions and environments. There are six aspects of media that the concept mediation attempt to explain and these include text, production process and context, mode of production and development as well as industrial context and state (Aouragh 2012, p.520). The fact that a medium exists and operates makes the process of mediation to appear self-evident. Hegelian dialectics provides the view that the really precept of immediacy is regarded irrelevant by the existence of a mediating space between the subject and object. Therefore, Hegel’s concept of mediation tries to conceive an accumulative understanding of existence, a process that is too complex to be comprehended fully by mere human consciousness. The concept of mediation emerged as the predictability of human intellectual progress. It is a multiplying process that mediates itself other disparate processes in the media into a more plurality of mediums. Since the time of Hegel and other scholars after him, mediation has achieved a more sociological direct meaning as the increasingly diverse ways through which society has continually mediated awareness of itself. Evolved from the primitive days when the runners were required to move from village to village to convey messages, today, the levels mediation have developed in the sense that human text is translated into machine-readable codes. Basically, the encrypted coded are transmitted in the digital format through a non-corporal network. Decryption of the codes is made at the receiving terminal where re-translation of the machine language is applied to generate human-readable scripts as messages (The Chicago School of Media Theory 2014). It seems that increased dependency on technology creates more diverse forms of mediated interactions in social existence. How the concept of Mediation has been applied in current research Since mediation works in various ways, it means that people will often require media and communication research so as to develop a clear view of how media mediates. Therefore, other disciplines such as linguistics, economics, and literature and consumption studies are needed to understand how language, money, narratives and myths as well as material goods mediate respectively. As far as these disciplines are concerned, the interest in the process of mediation may arise because they discuss the dynamic relations among the various social structures rather than simply informing about the media in isolation. Research shows that mediation not only allows us to avoid limiting our focus to the common media such as radio, press and television crucial in convergence culture, but more important to recognize that social and technological changes are increasingly transforming the two way centrepiece of a communication field. This is reflected in the mass communication and interpersonal communication that involve diversifying and computerizing the processes of mediated communication (Livingstone 2009, p.3-4). In order to clearly understand mediation strategies applied in distance learning environments that promote the sense of social presence about the learner, it is crucial to first develop a clear view of how social presence is currently used in the computer-mediated communication. It is also important to understand its historical backgrounds in distance learning. With advancements in new communication technologies, it cannot be denied that the world is undergoing a technology paradigm shift where these technologies have enormous power and effect on the networked society (Joyce 2009). Therefore, it is apparent that the networked society is expected to provide different mechanisms and concepts that can be integrated into distance learning environment. This implies that understanding the role of social presence in computer-mediated communications as well as in online learning is one of the significant ways in which the concept of mediation been applied in current research about contemporary media forms. Ideological mediation is practised partly through the commoditisation of various media sources and tools. Currently, corporate platforms experts and providers sell their users to advertisers, and thus intensifying exposure to misinformation of commodities of advertisements as sell online. This creates a space where both mediated base and superstructure is reflected specifically in Arab revolutions. For example, the availability of ICT is considered as direct results from corporate structure and the ideological symbols that have shaped the narrative about social media as well as the Arab revolutions (Fuchs 2012, p.146). In this age of globalization, Tsatsou (2009, p.16) examines that mediation is one of the key functions related to electronic media and communication, arguing that globalization significantly affects people’s perceptions of time and space. In this case, it would be relevant to support Tsatsou’s argument that the effects of globalization and the habit of globalizing various events on time and space are entirely enabled by electronic media. Therefore, it is true that the global span of electronic communications makes the scope of mega-events broader, implying that mediation largely influence how people manage their everyday schedules as well as their contexts of living. This clearly explains why Tsatsou emphasizes that mediation is a function and element of electronic media and communications. Silverstone’s 2006 concept of the ‘Mediapolis’ as cited in Tsatsou (2009) is an appropriate example of the nature and role of mediation in continuous reconceptualising and experiencing of time and space. This is because he clearly defines mediated public space as a medium where contemporary political life continually finds its place at national and global levels. Silverstone notes that Mediapolis is basically created through electronic communications, forming the new and mediated arena where both public debate and communication occurs regardless of the past restrictive spatial and temporal boundaries. Therefore, Mediapolis is created through incorporating the different experiences and perceptions of such boundaries. Through the concept of mediation, scholars have been inspired to analyse specific electronic media forms as well as to explore the manner in which they modify different aspects of temporal and spatial modes of life today. For example, television remediates the past in the current as it positions events and news in different and new temporal contexts by enabling aliveness and managing time lag of how events occur in regard to its tele-visual broadcast. As a result, a sense of simultaneity is created which differentiates between the old and new perceptions of what might be happening in the media (Tsatsou 2009, p.17). It makes sense to support Tsatsou’s idea that mediation is a significant concept which describes the media representations of specific phenomena that occur in distant time and space. Therefore, through mediation such represents may result in other new phenomenon such as distant suffering to call for public action to engage with distant others. Further discussions on the notion of mediation reveal that in contemporary communication landscape, there is a range of connected relationships that goes beyond the mediated relationships. It is considered that connected relationships cannot replace face-to-face communication instead they form another communicative dimension to enrich face-to-face communication (Tsatsou 2009, p.18). This implies that connected relationships render the physical location and temporal distances less important because they no longer determine communication as it used to be in the past decades. Today, it cannot be doubted that the use of mobile technologies has solved the need for physical location to access communication and human connection. Generally, it seems that all the theoretical and research views on time and space particularly in the electronic media and communications world analyses more complex and controversial issues of how the various media technologies influence and negotiate as well as define the personal and societal perceptions of time and space in varying modes and contexts. By looking at such discourses and research arguments synthetically, it is relevant to mention that both time and space exist in the form of mediation and re-mediation, and through restructuring and negotiation within the electronic communications. Mediation is considered as means of presenting normative representations of social relations. However, the form of mediation whether websites, newspapers, films or books that is at stake matters most. It is important to note that each technological transformation is regarded as a continuation and distinct transformation manifested in various ways based on the intended development. This implies that all technological advancements will also have an effect on the balance of forces as well as tools needed to implement the new technology, and thus supporting the Marxist idea of base and superstructure mediation. These are connected to the internet’s political expression of ideologies that promotes non-violent horizontal networks and in economy as a medium incorporated in neoliberal ICT corporations. Research shows that mediation of culture and communication has been an interesting subject of discussion in the Arab revolutions in particular, Sabry’s relation to aesthetics and poetics of mediation (2012, p.82). Besides its literal meaning, study has been conducted to engage with the concept of mediation beyond its connotations of dissemination to explain how it helps us to understand the capitalist rules of engagement through base and superstructure. It has been argued that mediation reveals the inner relationships and put on surface the patterns that cover up relations that lead to exploitation, representing two major processes; the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic. However, the fundamental challenge is how to practically use this Marxist exercise within the context of media technologies. In regards to the media, there are six levels through which mediation is represented; text, production process and context, mode of production and development as well as industrial context and state (Aouragh 2012, p.520). The value of the concept of Mediation in explaining about contemporary media At this historical moment, it has been argued that all mediation is remediation because all the existing media works as remediators, implying that remediation creates a means through which people can interpret the work accomplished by earlier media. Through their culture people conceive each medium as it competes, responds to, redeploys and reforms other media. The most fundamental idea here is that newer media remediates older media particularly digital media are remediating their predecessors. For example, television refashions itself in the form of World Wide Web, while films incorporate computer graphics in its linear form. Based on the current historical and cultural moment, it would be relevant to mention that all mediation is remediation as it can be noted that each act of mediation relies on other acts of mediation. Today, media are increasingly commenting upon, reproducing as well replacing each other. This process is fundamental to media because media must work in collaboration with each other so as to be considered media at first sight (Bolter & Grusin 2010, p.345). The significance of the concept of Mediation in understanding the relationship between contemporary media and everyday life Nearly every part of the world and human activity is affected by the new media. It is important to note that societies across the globe are being shaped by the changes taking place within the global media as well as information environment. Similarly, the everyday lives of citizens are shaped by the changes made in the global media. Different forms of social, economic and political inclusions and exclusions at national and sub-national levels are created by the increased dependence on advanced information and communication technologies that enable in mediating nearly every dimension of people’s social life. Language is considered the ideal model case of mediation, in explaining how practically the media mediates. Based on the use of language, it is relevant to point out that today’s media become significant due to the coordinated human activity and people clearly understand their positions in the world through the media or mediation process (Martinec & van Leeuwen 2009). Research shows that values are mediated via media, and thus it is important to consider the often unstated processes through which the struggles over power take place in our everyday lives. Today, the use of social networking sites by teenagers has raised issues of global concern about how youths struggle over their power. It has been observed that the developing identities of teenagers are expressed and strongly shaped by various social determinations such as their peer group, gender norms, protective measures applied by parents and life style expectations. However, the most fundamental issue is to understand how these social determinations are considered problematic by the easy access of the sites themselves. Therefore, youthful literacy and technological affordances have facilitated the mediation of identity and the social relationships of youths. The affordances of the social sites framed through certain media logics pose great challenge to the sites to ensure highly standardized formats to enable individuals to express their identities in a more secured manner. The issue of privacy seems somewhat irrelevant to teenagers yet the commoditization of daily interactions online has been questioned requiring all users of social networking sites to take a guerrilla action to ensure privacy of their accounts and information (Livingstone 2009, p.7). Since it is apparent that the question of mediation is posed in a broader context that traverses the contemporary interests within the socially engaged art, it means that media should not only be regarded as signs but also general processes of mediation which cannot be restricted to mere technological media in isolation. In so doing, such shift in perception will help professionals in the media art to focus beyond the current technological paradigm so as to establish different points of affinity. Furthermore, scholars in media art will be able to participate in a practical association with research or practices of contemporary art explore issues such as materiality and performance, interaction and communication. Therefore, the problem of mediation should not be perceived as a distinct and marginal concern but rather as lens for engaging with different frameworks of varied experience and practices in a society (Brogan 2013). Conclusion It can be noted from the above discussions that mediation is basically positioned in the context of communications. The distinct aspects of the concept of mediation require communication scholars to focus more on what could be the specific empirical, historical and political implications of the argument that everything is mediated. Language is the ideal model case of mediation that enables us to explain how practically the media mediates. The fundamental role of a transmedia story is to unfold across different media platforms, with new texts to distinctively and valuably contribute to the whole communication. List of References Aouragh, M., 2012, “Social Media, Mediation and the Arab Revolutions”, Triple-Cognition, communication and co-operation, vol.10, no.2, pp.518-536. Brogan, B., 2013, Beyond the Technological Paradigm: Walking as Mediation, SEA, Sydney. Bolter, J.D & Grusin, R., 2010, Remediation: Understanding New Media. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Couldry, N., 2011, ‘Mediatisation or mediation? Alternative view of the emergent space of digital storytelling’, New Media Society, SAGE Publications. Chicago School of Media Theory, 2014, “Theorizing Media since 2003”, Media Theory, Retrieved April 9, 2014 from, Fuchs, Christian 2012, “The Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook”, Television & New Media, vol.13, no.2, pp.139-159. Grant, E. A & Wilkinson, S. J., 2008, Understanding Media Convergence, Oxford University Press, the State of Field. Guillory, J., 2010, “Genesis of the Media Concept,” Critical Inquiry, vol.36, no. 2, pp. 322-323. Jenkins, H., 2006, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New York University Press, New York. Joyce, M.K., 2009, Enabling Social Presence in Online Learning: Mediation Strategies Applied to Social Networking Tools, East Carolina University. Livingstone, S., 2009, “The mediation of everything: ICA presidential address 2008”, Journal of communication, vol.59, no.1, pp. 1-18. Martinec, R & van Leeuwen, T., 2009, The language of new media design: theory and practice, Routledge, London and New York. Sabry, T., 2012, “Historicism, the Aporia of Time and the Arab Revolutions”, Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, vol. 5, no.1, pp.80-85. Tsatsou, P., 2009, ‘Reconceptualising ‘Time’ and ‘Space’ in the Era of Electronic Media and Communications’, Journal of Media and Communication Vol.1 (July 2009): 11-32. Read More