ABSTRACT
Mediatisation is a meta-process whereby media have gained in importance in all societal areas and by which the media surroundings of people become increasingly complex. Yet, in tandem with media’s increasing importance, especially digital media, are the immense material socio-ecological effects of mediatisation. Consequently, this chapter argues that scholars interested in mediatisation must do more to acknowledge and understand mediatisation’s socio-ecological connection with and effect on the climate. To make this argument we begin with a brief survey of climate change-focussed scholarship within media and communications through the lens of Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model of communication. Our review also makes clear that within mediatisation research, climate change has mainly been dealt with as an issue of mediated discourse and thereby relevant as media content. Yet we argue that mediatisation scholars must also view mediatisation as a material process that contributes to climate change. As such, the bulk of the chapter takes a material perspective on mediatisation and climate change with a specific focus on energy consumption within the production and appropriation of digital media. We conclude with a call to acknowledge mediatisation’s link to climate change to understand better and make visible mediatisation’s socio-ecological effects on the climate.
