Conceptualising mediatization: Contexts, traditions, arguments

Why “mediatization” as a topic for communication theory now? This rather ungainly word has been rising in prominence for the past decade, but many readers of this journal may still want to ask: What does it mean? What does it add to communications theory? And is it necessary at all? The purpose of this introduction to the special issue—apart from introducing and summarizing the articles that follow—is to provide some context for the emergence of “mediatization” as a key theoretical concept for contemporary media and communications research, and to offer some reasons why it now deserves the full attention of scholars of communication theory.