The communicative figurations of mediatized worlds: Mediatization research in times of the mediation of everything

Conducting mediatization research is no easy task. Linked with this term is not only the idea that media have a certain 'specificity', which as such exerts an 'influence' on culture and society: the term also implies a process of change. But how can we find a practical approach to mediatization research when the time we live in is shaped by the 'mediation of everything'? How can we carry out this kind of analysis if the focus is not to be merely on any one single media - the television, the mobile phone, the social web - but all different kinds of media in their entirety? These questions are the departure point of this article, which has the aim to develop a transmedial approach of mediatization research. I start with a short review of two of the main traditions of mediatization research. This builds the foundation for an understanding of mediatization that focuses on the communicative figurations through which we construct our mediatized worlds . Such a conceptualisation makes it possible to re-theorise mediatization research from a diachronous and synchronous perspective. In order to develop this kind of argument, it is necessary to clarify the underlying understanding of 'media'. When I use this term in the following, I don t mean primary media like, for example, language or acting theatre. Also I don't have generalised media in mind - like money, love or power. In contrast to this, all my arguments refer to technical communication media, i.e. the various kinds of media we use to extend our communication possibilities beyond the here and now: television, the (mobile) phone, the social web, and so forth