El paradigma de la mediación: crítica y perspectivas

Abstract

In the last three decades, the study on mediation has become one of the main routes of analysis in the Latin-American field of communication. The repeated use -almost obligatory- of the concept in researches and essays might make us think that we are facing a formalized theory or model. The reality is that the examination of mediation in the communicative processes has been characterized by the diversity of epistemological, conceptual and methodological approaches. On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of La Mediación Social (1978), undoubtedly an essential landmark for the development of the communication research in Latin America, this article examines critically the proposals of Manuel Martín Serrano and Jesus Martín-Barbero with the aim of promoting the debate on the uses of the concept of mediation in the field of communication.