Call for Papers: InMediaciones de la Comunicación – Beyond Postmodernity
InMediaciones de la Comunicación
Volume 21 / N° 1 (January-June 2026)
Topic of Volume 21 / No. 1 (January-June 2026)
BEYOND POSTMODERNITY
The Processes of Contemporary Mediatization
Fundamentals of the Call
The progressive restriction of the objects of study in the field of mediatization –both in the North and the South– allows us to consider that increasing attention must be paid to the processes that shape contemporary societies, beyond postmodernity. The presence of this thesis in foundational and current works of mediatization analysis (Verón, 1984, 1986, 1997 and 2014; Fausto Neto (2010); Braga (2011); Hjarvard (2014); Krotz (2017); Escudero Chauvel and Olivera (2022); Bolin (2023); Carlón (2024); Ferreira, Bolin, Silveira and Löfgren (2024); to cite a few references from multiple authors) is increasingly evident and therefore deserves a detailed investigation of the processes that, at different levels –from the micro to the macro social, from the circulation of meaning to deep mediatization, from traditional devices and actors to new ones (bots, cyber troops, algorithms, generative technologies)– shape contemporary societies.
Within this framework, it is logical to think that a new exploration, aiming to obtain different results, should focus on unique features of our contemporary world. To the extent that mediatization affects, above all, time and space, we can ask, on the one hand, what present, past, and future mean within the framework of current mediatization processes; and, on the other hand, investigate how new processualities affect classic anthropological dimensions –that is, to what extent nature/technology/society enter into a new relationship and observe the complex dimension of this link.
These developments are likely to challenge Nordic and Latin American studies in ways that are common, but also specific. They may challenge Nordic studies because the meta-process of mediatization (Krotz, 2017) and figurative processualities (Hepp, 2013) are reconfigured –moment by moment– in a particular way. They may challenge Latin American studies, which rely more on semiotics and theories of meaning –an approach also proposed by Nordic authors such as Göran Bolin (2023)– because new questions arise about the edges and limits of what’s human in complex diachronic developments in which historical time is a fundamental protagonist. In any case, a new complexity defies the theoretical and conceptual frameworks with which we have allowed ourselves to think and analyze contemporary mediatization processes.
In this context, how do we move forward? One possible way to do so is perhaps by sharing some questions. Which ones? Below are some we can hardly avoid: What are the processes that characterize contemporary societies, in which different human actors (individuals, collectives, media, institutions) and non-human actors (automated devices, algorithms, different types of AI, bots, etc.) interact at all levels? Can we figure out their processes and circuits of interaction? Can we map them? How are their relationships with each other transformed through these contacts? What new characteristics is the circulation of meaning taking on in today’s mediatization? What types of actors and relationships between actors characterize us, beyond postmodernity? How are analyses that address the circulation of meaning linked to those of deep mediatization?