Mediatization: from Gutenberg to unlimited media and datafication

Since the birth of modern media until Internet, communication has been profoundly transformed and through it culture, society, forms of power and the creation of economic wealth. This essay examines this long-lasting process by exploring the idea of mediatization. It is a historical movement of co-implication of symbolic forms, technologies, contexts and communicative frameworks that has altered communication practices, their scope and meanings through the introduction and reception of new technologies (mechanical, electrical, digital) and by institutions (publishers, media companies, propaganda and public relations bureaux, advertising, technological platforms). We argue that it is a non-linear process, with several stages, intensified in our days, with aspects very critical to freedom and democracy, but whose outcome is open.