Mediation of reality

Mediation of reality is a theory that claims that media influence social and political processes, as well as affect the society where these processes take place. In this case, an important aspect of the modernization of society is the development of the media. Changes in communication media entail changes in the main institutions of society.

Mediation of reality is a shift in the paradigm of media and communication research. Following the concept of "mediation", that is, mediation , mediation reflects the process of transformation of society with a change in the model of communication.

The Swedish media researcher Kent Asp presented the concept of mediation and explained that mediation was first used to influence political communication. Kent Asp was the first to speak of the mediation of political life. He implied a phenomenon in which "the political system is influenced by the media and is corrected by them through the manner in which political events are covered."

Asp used the term applied to politics to explain how media became a necessary intermediary between politicians and society. According to Asp, the political structure is dependent when the media is the only source of political information through which it can influence people's perceptions of political reality. Asp's theoretical assumptions that the media can implement political ideas through their mediation have been accepted by many communication sciences. The Danish media specialist Stig Harvard helped develop the concept of mediation and suggested that it was a social process in which society is so saturated with media that other phenomena can no longer exist separately from the media.

The concept focuses not only on media effects, but also on the relationship between changes in the media of communication, on the one hand, and socio-cultural changes, on the other, as part of our everyday communication and construction of reality. The study of mediation is a study of the relationship between media-communicative and sociocultural changes, understood as a meta-process. The media are not necessarily the direct cause of the transformation, but they somehow influence the formation of the image of politics, economics, education, religion.

Hyarward and Peterson ^{[ who? ]} summarized the role of the media in cultural change:

• When various forms of subcultures try to use the media for their own purposes, their culture most often becomes mass.
• Cultural politicians often become levers to increase mediation.
• Mediation involves the transformation of the ways in which authority and experience are proved and protected.
• Technological progress creates the means used by the media, and as a result determines a specific way of mediation.