How does the mediatization of art transform the production and consumption processes?

Ece Güçlü Evrüke
Nov 6 · 14 min read

1. Introduction

As a consequence of the modernization process, many significant developments in media and communication have been accelerated. The shape of traditional media shifted into an interactive and social one. After the emergence of social media, social institutions and cultural procedures have changed their character, mission, and organization in light of the omnipresence of media. Almost every field of our lives is affected by that transition and many social terms and methods have been evolved into digital. Due to the surrounding of media, new terms are existed to have a better understanding of current values such as mediation and mediatization. Mediatization, which is a theory that discusses the changing definitions and frames of communication (especially discourse and conversation), directly relates to the transformation of communication and media. As a result of this process, the whole society — including institutions and individuals — is re-shaped. New media technologies result in dependencies and differentiated representations of self, which is the point of mediatization. On the other hand, every aspect of life has not been affected by mediatization simultaneously such as “visual arts”. Since, visual art is something concrete, tangible and ‘at hand’ and one of the most intellectual dimensions of our lives, it was not an easy process to bring it into the digital world which refers to the milestone of mediatization. However, after a while, especially after the release of Instagram, visual arts came into the scene of digital media and broke the rules itself. As Fredric Jameson (1991) points out that, the mediatization of visual art in the postmodern world creates a system that imposes a hierarchy of artistic media and ascribes new self-reflective properties to them. Because of the nascent and hesitative situation on that digital reflection of visual arts, production and consumption sides (producer and consumer) have to be examined separately in terms of meta processes, process of social change, intervention of social changes, social dimensions and quantitative aspects of mediatization to gain a clear understanding of social media and visual art relations in all dimensions.

2. Mediatization of “producer and production”

2.1. A meta-process among other meta processes of social change

The term of mediatization is a framework that describes and explains theoretically particular economic, social and cultural dimensions of the actual change. These are long-term and permanent exchanges that are targeting all of the globe. Due to the technological and digital transformation of visual arts, mediatized art is accompanied by other meta processes such as globalization, individualization, and commercialization. Apparently, these meta processes are significant for the future shapes of life, as they are important for both people and their actions at a micro-level; for the activities of institutions and organizations on the midlevel; and for the nature of culture and society at a macro level (Krotz, 2007). It defines lifetime and temporary changes in both individuals’ daily life and the community’s cultural habits. Regarding the current expression of visual arts, it is obviously shown that producers, production process and the product itself is “globalized” with instant posts, comments, and stories. Every single moment of production might be spread all around the world with only one post. Due to that instant interaction, artists can react to everything on time. Every one of producers can reach all the globe with one single post. That idea brought some of the producers into a new movement called Street Art which is an expression of self in public areas and make your art piece spread around the world with public posts. It is a political and social attitude and social media made it happen that common. For instance, Banksy is one of the pioneers of widespread street art with an individual attempt. As far as we know there was no institution behind her/his artworks and these works are globalized via social media and reach a significant amount of subscribers all around the world. That idea brings us to another metaprocess: “democratization”. Art pieces are the instruments of critical assessments of social change and contribute to the more democratized level of social expression. After the popularization of Banksy’s art pieces, many artists gain the encourage to express themselves and spread their works throughout the world. Social media art posts are the way of self-expression much more bravely, and that point takes us to the “individualization” process. Since the voice of every single producer could be heard, their products are more individualistic and have a characteristic. There is not a third person to approve and judge their style and discourse, so producers are much more flexible to create their own style. Many street artists came to the scene after Banksy and lots of them had a chance to reflect their own style without any approval mechanism. On the other hand, digital consumption takes the place of hardcopy purchases, so artists promote themselves (their lifestyles) more than their products to get a share from the “commercialized” digital market (to get digital investments). As far as we observe after Banksy’s popularization, her/his art-pieces used by some individuals or institutions for commercial aims with the help of digital marketing tools.

2.2. Process of social change

The evolution of the art expression on social media brings a behavioral change among society. These social changes occur in various manners. The first method is “extension” which widens the human communication from a time and space-dependent level to a spatial and temporal one (Schulz, 2004). That extension is social media as a novel communication tool for producers to promote their art; the limits of time and space vanish via Instagram. Especially performance artists take advantage and disadvantage of the extension process. They gain the ability to spread their particular performance which occurred in a strict time period. On the other hand, social media might ruin the spirit of this performance without these time and space dependence. This is a controversial issue and needs further discussion. The second term is “substitution” to define the replacement of traditional communication by social media. For instance, before the social media attempt, the only way to exhibit an art piece was seasonal exhibitions, contractual galleries or traditional media channels which gives a priority to very famous ones. However, today a beginner producer may create her/his own gallery on Instagram and catch more attention than the past for sure. Today many artists gained their own audiences by their own social media posts without any institution behind and they are getting more popular among millennials. Thus, It can be said that traditional exhibition procedures partly substituted by social media accounts. The third method to embrace social media art is “amalgamation” which refers to the merge of past and current tools. As it is mentioned above, the partial substitution of social media (not total) still remains some area for actual exhibitions. In spite of the fact that during the exhibitions, events, production processes almost every producer publishes many stories and posts to promote their art pieces. Almost every moment of the producers organized for social media. The actual and virtual promotion has been merged with each other and the boundaries between them are disappeared. That is a merge of life with the product itself which can be called “social art” (Lütticken, 2011) on social media. For instance, Jim Carrey, one of the greatest actors in our era, has an Instagram account in which he shares his art production in his studio and most of us follow him by social media today. The last term is “accommodation”, which is defining the placement of self, according to the social media demand. Many artists are gain the power to re-define themselves via social media. They are not only sharing their art, but they also express their lifestyle, political choices, social attitudes, and cultural perspective. They are able to reflect a solid identity and accommodate themselves in media society (Hjarvard, 2008). As an example, Ai Weiwei is an active user of Instagram and he represents himself by some contradictory post which we could not be aware of his identity without this account before. At that point, we started to judge our subscription list by multiple dimensions not only by art.

3. Mediatization of “consumer and consumption”

3.1. A meta-process among other meta processes of social change

Now, the mediatization mirror turns from the producer side to consumer and consumption. As the internet connection spread among society, social media gives the feeling of “to be connected to social life”. Mediatization transforms traditional human communication into an interactive and personalized one. Due to the new possibilities of communication technologies, audiences have a chance to construct their own world (Krotz, 2007). Mediatization of consumption is a process that includes both individualization and globalization at the same time as oppositions and also as a kind of synonymy. Firstly, despite the collective aspect of production, the final product is pretended to be served for a single audience who is feeling satisfaction to obtain his/her desired content. That product is presented on small-scale video screens that combine art itself, artist virtual persona, public discussion, and the legitimation. That is the point of “individualization” which is the ownership sense of the audience. Everyone is created their own tiny virtual words to manage and reflect themselves. As Schulz (2004) quotes “The new media allow their users a directed retrieval of messages according to individual needs and interests (consultation pattern). Broadcasting transforms into narrowcasting”. The standard audience of the television era passes into divided audience groups called ‘virtual communities’ which interact with each other across distances. That point brings the term “globalization”. In the era of globalization, the new media not only provide channels of communication between nations and individuals, but also establish networks across all manner of geographical areas and actors (Hjarvard, 2008) The object of art — like any other product — creates its own subscribers all around the world who have the taste of art and appreciate it. These audiences are not recipients anymore, they are also communicators of the global scene. Individualistic approaches of audiences feed the art producers and their products who address various tastes in these globalized social media platforms. Hence, subject and object interchange their meanings and they are rooted in each other in terms of production and consumption. On the other hand, although most of the visual art consumers on social media do not have a sophisticated taste and education on art, they have the power to dominate the artistic content regarding the above alteration of consumer and producer dynamics.

3.2. Process of social change

Today, our sense of the world is ruled and shaped by images producing and that is a new consciousness (Sontag, 2003) Mass media offers various contents and social actors can articulate their opinions and interests on these platforms. These individual and collective discourses generate a new social memory. That “extension” of our consciousness and collective memory is a consequence of the spatial and temporal expansion of the digitalized universe. For instance, people are faced with extraordinary art movements and pieces among the social media platforms and get used to it over time. Their capacities to reach the new information and style has been evolved and extended via social media. In that sense, I assume that, if Dada has occurred in the digital era, it could get more audiences all around the world with the help of social media. One other side of social change is the substitution of the actual art pieces by virtual ones. Audiences are able to take a tour on an artist’s gallery via Instagram whenever and wherever they want. The perception of reality altered by virtual spaces, thus tangible art has been transformed into a digital one. The established art culture is shifting, and the importance of agents and galleries is slowly diminishing (Michele, 2017). However, that is a partial substitution, not a total one, because visual art exhibitions still keep their reputation and preferable among society. In addition, as it is mentioned on the production side, although consumers are still in favor of actual exhibitions, they are enthusiastic about social media stories of art events and the life of artists. Thus, the participation of culture embedded in social media. Some institutions and events have been come to exist after digital evolution. Mamut Art Project and Contemporary Istanbul are the most remarkable events in which art is commercialized due to their structures which encourage a huge amount of audiences — without certain intellectual levels of art — to attend such a popular cultural event for the sake of their social appearance on social media. These kinds of events use art as a tool of profit because of the deformation of novel characteristics of potential audiences. The third process is “amalgamation” which is the merge of visual art posts into our daily life. New media make it possible to subscribe an artist’s social media account, look at her/his posts and go for a haircut (for example) or watch TV at the same time. Art might be a part of our daily routine in that way. The last part of the process of social change is “accommodation”. Audiences are able to accommodate themselves to a sophisticated level with their subscription list. They may pick some artists and movements to follow to reflect their desired persona. That is the point, which supports the idea of popular and commercial art, represented and embraced by Contemporary Istanbul and Mamut Art Project — as an example.

4. Media intervening into the social interaction between producer and consumer

As Hjavard (2008) mentions, mediatization is constituted on duality and it intervenes human interaction in many diversified contexts. Also, it describes the media as an autonomous existence with its own principles. Therefore, the theory of mediatization is supposed to be accountable for this duality and to describe the linkages between institutions and individuals. In that sense, social media intervening in the interaction between producer and consumer. Interactive communication is a bridge between production and consumption processes which are points of a circle. These two terms are completing each other and a product becomes a real product only by being consumed. (Marx, 1859) The communication flow between two points of that circle has been changed and both producers and consumers are able to influence the content. As Thompson (1995) mentioned, there is a solid connection between mediatization and its cultural results. The emergence of very large media organizations (such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.) on a national and global level, transforms the interaction between producer and consumer. It is a completely different form of communication than traditional mass media on which receiver and sender do not have control the information and interpretation of the other side (Hjarvard, 2008) Due to the interactive feature of social media, producers affected by consumer demands and the taste of audiences shaped by producer posts. In other words, consumption reproduces the need, and production defines the consumption in terms of both product and consumption method. Besides, subject and object relation interlaced; subjects of the actual life turned into objects of social media. For instance, Based Istanbul is a magazine that aims to create a common platform for both up and coming international/local artists. This platform supports new perspectives and supports them in order to gain their own audiences. That platform uses social media for this goal and feeds consumers and producers in a very intellectual manner to increase the cultural participation by an interactive structure. This platform uses art subjects as objects to support the development of the local art sphere. To summarize, mediatization constitutes a novel form of connection between subject and object which are completely interrelated with each other in terms of production and consumption of art in social media.

5. Quantitative aspects of mediatization

The quantitative aspects of mediatization are basically marked by the word ‘more.’ (Hepp, 2009) The number of technological media available has increased as well as our various utilizations of these media throughout history. The description of mediatization as an ongoing process consists of three levels; temporal, spatial and social levels (Krotz, 2007). On the temporal level, the rising number of digital media platforms is making communication mediums more accessible all the time. By the emergence of social media, visual arts accessible more than ever. The current internet technology makes it possible to surf all the time, and subscribe to visual arts. Before the digital evolution of social platforms, art events are only available during particular time periods. Producers and consumers cannot connect with each other during the production process and art pieces could not be inspired by its own audiences. On the other hand, today it is possible for an artist to share the draft of her/his work and collect the commends of audiences simultaneously. In that way, the producer side collects the comments before the final product; the consumer side indigenizes the artwork and the artist. On the spatial level, media is much more accessible across various zones. In that sense, there is no need for a certain place to communicate. An internet-enabled mobile phone is the medium for the meeting of producer and consumer across all spaces. As an example, Mardin Biennial is one of the most significant events of the year since 2010. It was not on the scene at the beginning years, but today — with the rise of social media — It is getting more audience from far distances and these audiences are being curious about the actual exhibition spaces. It is obviously shown that

Mardin Biennial will be much more popular with the help of social media which is a positive effect of this spatial independence. On the other hand, consumers are tailoring art events according to its popularity so many unique attempts just disappear among these events and institution crowd. For example, Baksı Museum is a contemporary art museum that is constructed in Bayburt by an individual attempt of Hüsamettin Koçan. As an origin, the museum brings together a high-quality contemporary art collection of leading artists and folk paintings together. Even it might be much more popular — if it gained a popular image on social media -, I assume, today it is invisible in the digital world because of this tailor-made process and lack of filtering among the new art audience. These examples bring us to the social level of mediatization, which means increasing social contexts are noticeable by media use. For instance, art pieces could be posted and subscribed on social media in different contexts such as; commercial, promotional, social, informational, etc. In addition, social media gather completely different profiles into one account to follow in terms of diversified aims. Visual arts take the opportunity to be temporal, spatial and socially multi-dimensional through the agency of social media.

6. Conclusion

To summarize, media not only represent the art, but it also gives superficial categorical frameworks through which we apprehend it. Art and social media have a mutual relationship and today they are interdependent notions in many perspectives. However, as Bourdieu (1999,2005) mentions, there is a distinction between autonomous and heteronomous poles of that relationship. Where producers keep the past values of art, they are judged by the medium’s or genre’s criteria of quality. On the other hand, the heteronomous pole is the site of other influences like the market’s, politicians’ or the media’s. The relationship between art and social media has also many other dimensions that affect each other in either positive or negative ways. Social media, as a medium of art promotion, minimize the discrimination and creates a more homogeneous platform for both producers and consumers. Moreover, the mediatization of art can enable further societal tendencies on many cultural dimensions in which individual, local, national and global notions can be linked in new ways. Otherwise, there is no doubt that social media has blurred the distinctions between reality and media representations of art, and between actual and virtual. The perception of reality has been evolved by social media in terms of art and visuality. Today, as Walker and Chaplin (1997) define, visuality is a social process which is called as the socialization of vision. The expansion of the facilities for interaction in virtual spaces gives art a new dimension to discuss whether it is an evolution or disruption.

7. References

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Hepp, Andreas, Krotz, Friedrich, Moores, Shaun and Winter, Carsten (eds) (in press). Connectivities, Networks, Flows: An Introduction. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Hjarvard Stig. (2008). The Mediatization of Society. Nordicom Review 29, pp. 105–134. https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0181

Jameson, Fredric (1991) Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. London: Verso.

Krotz, F. (2007). The meta-process of `mediatization’ as a conceptual frame. Global Media and Communication, 3(3), 256–260. https://doi.org/10.1177/17427665070030030103

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Michele, C. (2017, January). The artists of Instagram. Retrieved January 19, 2018, from https://www.goethe.de/ins/ca/en/kul/mag/20901880.html

Schulz, Winfried (2004) ‘Reconstructing Mediatization as an Analytical Concept’, European Journal of Communication 19(1): 87–101.

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Thompson, John B (1995) The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Industrial Designer, MA in Media and Communication Studies

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