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PP 553
Mediatization and Dynamics of Organizing in Public, Private and Civic Sector – In a Quest of Cross Sectional and Multilevel Analysis
J. Pallas
1
1
Uppsala University, Department of Business Studies, Uppsala, Sweden
The purpose of this paper is to systematically introduce and explore the increasingly potent notion of mediatization into management studies where it
has been remarkably overseen (Pallas, Jonsson & Strannegård 2014). In media and cultural studies –where the concept has found most of its theoretical
foundation– mediatization is dealt with as“the process whereby society to an increasing degree is submitted to, or becomes dependent on, the media and
their logic. This process is characterized by a duality in that the media have become integrated into the operations of other social institutions, while they
also have acquired the status of social institutions in their own” (Hjarvard 2008). Despite the theoretical ambition to elevate mediatization into societal
phenomena comparable to other societal meta-processes like marketization, commercialization, globalization or industrialization, none of the disciplines
within social science has offered necessary empirical evidence supporting such a claim (Lunt & Livingstone 2015). More importantly, the ambition to
account mediatization as a meta-process would require to approach mediatization from a perspective where different levels of analysis (individual, orga‑
nizational, field/societal) are connected, compared and examined in terms of underlying dynamics, prevalence, saliency, robustness and consequences.
And as I seek to argue in the paper, one possible route to such a multilevel and cross-sectional approach can be offered through a lens of organizational
institutionalism (Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin, & Suddaby 2008). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to introduce and discuss an upcoming comparative and
multi-level study of three societal sectors (private, public and civic) where I seek to examine qualities of mediatization as a theoretical concept with respect
to two perspectives: 1) mediatization as an outcome of numerous organizational activities and preferences that change the way in which organizations and
their members understand themselves, define relevant goals and priorities, and structure and perform their operations; and 2) mediatization as a field-level
process that in a most fundamental way transforms conditions for and structuration of relationships within and between organization populating different
societal sectors. Or simply - how can we explain (or rather what can explain) similarities and differences between the different sectors in terms of drives,
consequences and dynamics of mediatization at different levels of analysis? In more general the terms the paper aims at examining the nature and dynam‑
ics of mediatization as a category/phenomenon for management and organization studies. Embedding this aim into a more epistemologically grounded
question puts mediatization under scrutiny in terms of its characteristics as a workable, unified category. Expressed differently, does mediatization entail
societal process that next to (or in tandemwith, or in opposition to other societal processes) drives a specific form and types of changes in organizations with
subsequent consequences at individual, organizational and field-level? Or are current changes in structures, activities, relations, priorities developments in
organizations –commonly associated with mediatization– more likely to be associated with other societal processes?