Mediation

Introduction to Part 2

We have previously seen that the different meanings of the term mediation, at the junction of such disparate fields as the media, culture, the law and society, give it a somewhat hybrid status that leads us to regard it as a universal concept. The emergence of the concept in Information and Communication Sciences (ICS) corresponds to its appearance in all the humanities and social sciences.

In ICS, it is employed in research on cultural mediation, documentary mediation and in the context of business communication. These are the themes that we will tackle in the second part of this work by relying essentially on the situation of ICS in the Francophone world.

If we take a brief and cursory look at ICS research laboratories in France, we can see that the term “mediation” appears in the names of several of them. These include the “Communication, savoirs, médiations et organisation” (COSMOS) laboratories (“Communication, knowledge, mediation, and organization” (CKMO)), as well as the “L’image, les médiations et le sensible en informationcommunication” (LSMIC) laboratories (“Image, mediations, and the visible in information-communication” (IMVIC)), both affiliated with the University of Burgundy; the team “Médiations en information et communication spécialisées” (MICS) (“Mediations in specialized information and communication” (MSIC)), which belongs to the “Laboratoire d’études et de recherches appliquées en sciences sociales” (LERASS) in Toulouse ( “Laboratory ...