Mazarella’s “Culture, Globalization, Mediation”

William Mazarella’s “Culture, Globalization, Mediation” is a literature review of works on media and globalization. He is interested in the issue of mediation, which he defines as, “the processes by which a given social dispensation produces and reproduces itself in and through a particular set of media (Mazarella 2004:346).” He talks of mediation in terms of globalization and the interaction between cultures. Specifically, with mediums globalization like satellite television and the Internet facilitating the increasing interconnectedness of people and cultures, people have begun a process of mediation of those new ideas they become exposed to. Mazarella wants to look at places where mediation is having real effects on the way people live their lives, or “nodes of mediation (2004:352).

He suggests that through interactions with media originating in different cultural backgrounds, people can explore aspects of themselves and their own culture, without being taken in by the new ideas they are being exposed to. There might be aspects of life that seem very similar to their own but also aspects that are very foreign to them in the media that they encounter. It is through processes of mediation that people and cultures grow from encounters with the unknown in media (2004:355). Mediation is a way in which people become and discover “who [they] are through the detour of something alien to [themselves](2004:356).”

Despite finding meaning and identity through difference, there is no risk of becoming homogeneous. This is because difference is one factor that aids social reproduction. Essentially, there is no risk of losing the “local” through encounters with difference in media, because people mediate to make meaning for themselves. Through processes of mediation people try to understand others just as they try to understand themselves. Sometimes it is not possible to come to an understanding, or to appropriately convey the differences through available media. However, people are constantly trying to make meaning from encounters with media portraying others and broaden their understandings and possibilities this way.