Media Practices, Mediation Processes, and Mediatization in the Study of Social Movements

The aim of this article is to explore the use of 3 concepts of media studies—media practices, mediation, and mediatization—in order to build a conceptual framework to study social movements and the media. The article first provides a critical review of the literature about media and movements. Secondly, it offers an understanding of social movements as processes in which activists perform actions according to different temporalities and connect this understanding with the use of the 3 media related concepts mentioned above. Then, the resulting conceptual framework is applied to the Italian student movements. In the conclusion, benefits and challenges in the use of such framework are considered and lines of inquiry on current movements are suggested.