This book is one of the results of the III International Seminar on Research on Mediatization and Social Processes held in 2019. The III International Seminar on Research on Mediatization and Social Processes had a program developed on two levels: Debate Tables, with invited researchers (five discussion tables, with the participation of researchers from France (3), Argentina (2), Germany (1), and Brazil (5). The schedule of the III Seminar and its structure can be seen at https://www.midiaticom.org/seminario-midiatizacao/grade-de-programacao-2019/. In total, there were 15 hours of debates at the five Discussion Tables. Methodologically, the Seminar takes place in the articulation of Debate Tables with international guests and Working Groups with the presence of researchers, doctors, doctoral students, masters, and masters' degree students. We point out that, even in the scope of training processes, master's and doctoral students, masters and doctors, post-doctors and post-doctoral graduates, and members of the organizing Research Group take part as reviewers, in a blind evaluation process, of the expanded abstracts submitted by graduates with a lower title - under the coordination of the research professors from the Mediatization and Social Processes Group. They evaluated (in a group of more than three dozen reviewers) each of the works submitted by colleagues with a lower instructional level, with classificatory notes, which resulted in the approved works. They were then grouped by the Organizing Committee, successively, until they reached the event's working groups.

This book focuses on key challenges related to conducting research on mediatisation, presenting the most current theoretical, empirical, and methodological challenges and problems, addressing ignored and less frequently discussed topics, critical and controversial themes, and defining niches and directions of development in mediatisation. With a focus on the under-representation of certain topics and aspects, as well as methodological, technological, and ethical dilemmas, the chapters consider the main critical objections formulated against mediatisation studies and exchange critical positions. Moving beyond areas of common focus – culture, sport, and religion – to emerging areas of study such as fashion, the military, business, and the environment, the book then offers a critical assessment of the transformation of fields and the relevance of new and dynamic (meta)processes including datafication, counter-mediatisation, and platformisation. Charting new paths of development in mediatisation, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of mediatisation, media studies, media literacy, communication studies, and research methods.

This book results from the IV International Seminar on Research on Mediatization and Social Processes held in 2020/2021. The III International Seminar on Research on Mediatization and Social Processes had a program developed on two levels: debate panels with invited researchers (5 panels, with the participation of researchers from Sweden(2), Argentina (2), and Brazil (9, including five from PPGCC-Unisinos). The IV Seminar program and its structure are at https://www.midiaticom.org/seminario-midiatizacao/programacao-2020/. In this IV Seminar, the theme of the panels was “Mediatized Sapiens: the social construction of knowledge among interactions, means, circulation, and social mediation.” With mediatized sapiens, we want to refer to several media processes related to the mental changes of the species. Several questions can be enunciated related to these. How can we think of knowledge social construction when mediated by the media processes? To what extent does the mental experience of the species hold media processes as references to its building and inferences? How do the actors in a network participate in these processes? To what extent do institutions and organizations adapt to these new environments? In particular, how do the University, research, and scientific fields participate in this repair? Do the media in digital media, in action through expert systems and artificial intelligence, interpose themselves in these processes to the point of asking incisive and secondary questions? How do temporalities and spatiality affect the conditions of production and reception, including social practices, in the social production of knowledge? What epistemologies and methodologies can account for this new complexity amid indetermination and uncertainty zones?