[ecrea] New book: The Mediatization of Culture and Society by Stig Hjarvard

New book:

Stig Hjarvard: "The Mediatization of Culture and Society"

Routledge, published February 2013, Paperback: 978-0-415-69237-3, 
 Hardback: 978-0-415-69236-6, eBook: 978-0-203-15536-3.

Book's webpage: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415692373/

Mediatization has emerged as a key concept to reconsider old, yet 
fundamental questions about the role and influence of media in culture 
and society. In particular the theory of mediatization has proved 
fruitful for the analysis of how media spread to, become intertwined 
with, and influence other social institutions and cultural phenomena 
like politics, play and religion.

This book presents a major contribution to the theoretical understanding 
of the mediatization of culture and society. This is supplemented by 
in-depth studies of:

The mediatization of politics: >From party press to opinion industry;

The mediatization of religion: >From the faith of the church to the 
enchantment of the media;

The mediatization of play: From bricks to bytes;

The mediatization of habitus: The social character of a new individualism.

Mediatization represents a new social condition in which the media have 
emerged as an important institution in society at the same time as they 
have become integrated into the very fabric of social and cultural life. 
Making use of a broad conception of the media as technologies, 
institutions and aesthetic forms, Stig Hjarvard considers how 
characteristics of both old and new media come to influence human 
interaction, social institutions and cultural imaginations.

Reviews:

'Stig Hjarvard has through the last decade been a leading scholar in the 
emerging research on mediatization of culture and society. In this book 
he synthesizes his theory and makes his extensive work accessible in one 
English volume. He refines his institutional approach to changes in the 
media and in social and cultural areas that more and more take on media 
forms' -- /Knut Lundby, Professor of Media and Communication, University 
of Oslo, Norway. /

'In this noteworthy book, Stig Hjarvard redirects theories about the 
power of media. Hjarvard reveals a complex and vital picture of how 
contemporary societies are transforming themselves under conditions of 
high modernity.' -- /Gaye Tuchman, Professor of Sociology, University of 
Connecticut, USA./

'Mediatization is one of the most inspired innovations in contemporary 
media studies, and Stig Hjarvard provides essential reading for the road 
ahead.' /-- Mark Deuze, Associate Professor, Indiana University, USA/.

About the author:

Stig Hjarvard, PhD, is Professor and Vice-Chair at the Department of 
Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen, 
Denmark. He has published books and articles on journalism, media and 
globalization, media and religion, media history and mediatization 
theory. He is editor of the journal /Northern Lights/ and of the English 
language books /News in a Globalized Society/ (2001) and /Media in a 
Globalized Society/ (2003).