Introduction. Framing Reality: Power and Counterpower in the Age of Mediatization

The debate on the nature of the relationship between the notion of power and the role played by communication in current Western societies appears to be boundless. Before mass media communication was pervasively widespread throughout people’s everyday lives, political authority reproduced its own power by keeping citizens at a distance from its défaillance. In the age of mediatization, the relationship between the media and other forces capable of pervasively exercising their power appears to be, paradoxically, as strict as it is opaque. Social media and smart mobile technologies fully embed the media in daily lives of people. More generally, they may affect the modalities whereby other institutions and organizations reflect on themselves and develop their worldviews.