ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the value of cultural materialism as a framework for articulating mediatization as a perspective for cultural critique. It explores how Bourdieu's perspective can be brought into dialogue with Williams's cultural materialism in order to advance mediatization research as a platform for cultural critique. Cultural critique necessarily begins with culture, and, as Williams says, culture is ordinary. Culture may look quite different in different environments and during different periods, but it always has something to do with the common meanings that flourish among people and guide them through their everyday lives. Culture is located in people's minds and bodies as well as in the structural arrangements and institutions that keep societies together. There have been relatively few attempts to elaborate Bourdieusian theory for the purpose of understanding mediatization, and even fewer arguments as to the validity of mediatization as a concept that could add value to the Bourdieusian framework.
