Sociological study of mediatization from an institutional perspective: Concepts and empirical researches

Abstract

The rapidly unfolding process of mediatization radically changes the contours of social reality. Unprecedented arrangements of individuals, communications and media give rise to new collectivities and new translocal discourses on politics, economics, education, culture, and religion. The new media included in the structure of communication opened up access to information and practice beyond the censorship of institutionalized authorities. A variety of movements, groups and communities declare themselves through the communicative spaces of blogs, websites, podcasts, digital platforms. Media’s public sphere gives the voice to youth subcultures that previously were in the gray zones of sociality. These and many other consequences of mediatization call into question the methodological tools of social sciences. Theories on mediatization as well as the empirical research into mediatized social reality are the relatively new developments of the Russian academic field. There is an evident absence of sociological theorizing on mediatization in the Russian literature on media research. This article is aimed at reviewing the institutional approach of the Danish sociologist Stig Hjarvard, who was a pioneer in the theoretical understanding of mediatization as a process of total change in modern societies. The institutional approach is extremely in demand in the humanities. The part of the article covers from Hjarvard’s initial reflections on the mediatization to his later development of approach to mediatization.The article proposes an analysis of the key concepts of the institutional approach and the thematic areas formed through its application in the study of youth — youth practices and subcultures in the media’s public spere and digital storytelling as a tool for identity construction. The proposed article contains an analysis of specific cases of applying the methodology of the approach in the study of subcultures of street graffiti writers, skaters and electro-dancers.