**3. A new media ecology based on the mediatization and transmediation of television news**

In seeking connections with the new media ecology, it is necessary to present its initial trajectory, starting from McLuhan's proposal, as an expanded theory that covers, "according to the chosen-theoretical enunciator, almost all aspects of communication processes, from the relations between media and economy to the perspectives and cognitive transformations that subjects undergo because of their exposure to communication technologies."3 ([12], p. 17). According to the author, from some discussions with McLuhan, in the 1960s, postman defined media ecology as: "the study of media as environments" (emphasis added), turning a metaphor into a theory, with a specific field [12]. It is precisely in this study of the media—as environments, that the research on Brazilian TV journalism is inserted—, as constituents of a larger web, but with its own characteristics and peculiarities, that the research aimed to identify.

Although media ecology does not focus on any particular medium, it is a transmedia theory, for all purposes and for all times, "its reflection begins with the emergence of language. And it continues with the transition from orality to writing, reaches our hectic days of digital life, and on some occasions does not give up on outlining future scenarios"4 ([12], p. 18). It is in this context that the observed news programs work in an integrated manner with digital social networks to extend and overflow their content beyond the broadcast.

<sup>3</sup> según el teórico-enunciador elegido, casi todos los aspectos de los procesos de comunicación, desde las relaciones entre los medios y la economía hasta las transformaciones perspectivas y cognitivas que sufren los sujeitos a partir de su exposición a las tecnologias de la comunicación.

<sup>4</sup> su reflexion comienza con la aparición del lenguaje, sigue con la trasición de la oralidade a la escritura, llega hasta nuestros agitados días de vida digital y en en algunas ocasiones no renuncia a delinear escenarios futuros.

The ecological metaphor applied to media presents, according to Scolari [12], two possible interpretations, the first being of media as environments and the second, of media as species. For the proposal of media as environments, the author synthesizes a basic idea of the ecology of media: "communication technologies from writing to digital media technologies—have generated environments that affect the subjects that use them"5 ([12], p. 29) this context at present is easier to be identified, with the connected media environment. In interpreting Innis on media as species, Scolari [12] places the relationship between media as a basic component of his conception of communicational systems, and cross-media competence occupies a central place in his reflections. These communicational systems can be identified in the very distribution structure of the TV news content. For McLuhan [3], Scolari [12], no medium acquires meaning or existence alone, but in constant interaction with others. Defined by Scolari ([12], p. 30) as an intermediary dimension of the interpretation of the ecological metaphor, "media are like "species" that live in the same ecosystem and establish relationships with each other. "In this way, it is possible to identify an ecosystem or micro ecosystem in the production and distribution scenario of the TV news content, where several elements are related, such as television broadcasting and other forms and formats of content distribution, such as digital social networks and the Internet.

Analyzing television for Williams [13], as a specific cultural technology, comprised examining its development, its institutions, its forms, and its effects in a critical dimension. The author began his research through three aspects, "(a) versions of cause and effect in technology and society, (b) social history of television as a technology; (c) the social history of uses of technology" ([13], p. 24). When referring to the versions of cause and effect in technology in society, the author starts his studies stating that television has changed the world, and to justify this he listed nine senses that prove this. Among all the nine senses pointed out by him, we highlight that television became available as a result of scientific and technical research and in its character and use it exploited and emphasized elements of a passivity and a cultural and psychological inadequacy, which have always been latent in people, but which television now organized and came to represent ([13], p. 25). On the senses indicated by Williams [13], they can be distinguished into two broad classes of views, with the first being that technology is accidental and known as "technological determinism." It is a very incisive and now largely orthodox view of the nature of social change. According to him, new technologies are discovered by an essentially internal process of research and development, which sets the conditions for social change and progress ([13], p. 26). In the second class of views, called the "symptomatic technology" view, the author presents as less deterministic. "Television, such as any other technology, becomes available as an element or a medium in a process of change that is already occurring or is about to occur" ([13], p. 26). Where certain technologies or a complex of technologies are considered as symptoms of change of another kind, "research and development are assumed to be self-generating but in a more peripheral way. What is discovered on the margins is then appropriated and used" ([13], p. 27).

The second aspect presented by Williams [13], which treats the social history of television as a technology, shows that the invention of the television was neither a single event nor a series of events, rather it depended on a series of inventions for other purposes and development in electricity, telegraphy, photography, film, and the radio, the invention stood out as a specific technological goal between 1875 and 1890,

<sup>5</sup> Las tecnologias de la comunicaión, desde la escritura hasta los médios digitales –generan ambientes que afectan a los sujeitos que las utilizan.

#### *New Social Practices on Brazilian TV: Reconfigurations in News Production and Distribution DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113307*

and then after a break it developed from 1920 onwards as a specific technological enterprise until the first public television systems in the 1930s.

The third and final aspect related by Williams [13], which deals with the social history of television technology uses, begins with the observation that it is not true that in modern societies when a social need is revealed, the appropriate technology to meet it is found. The author goes on to question what were the needs that led to the development of a new media technology. He responds by exemplifying the development of the press as a response to the development of an expanded social and political system in response to the crisis of the system. "New relationships between men and between men and things were being intensely experienced, and in this area, particularly the traditional institutions of church and school, or the stable community and the renitent family, had very little to say" ([13], p. 34). In the specific case of television, the author highlights the investments that were required for signal distribution, "these were systems designed primarily for transmission and reception as abstract processes, with little or no prior definition of content" ([13], p. 37). Moving forward to contemporary times, it is possible to observe that television is immersed in a new scenario that puts it in convergence with other media, as Jenkins [1] proposes, where multiple media systems coexist and in which content passes fluidly through them. "Convergence is understood here as an ongoing process of interstices between different media systems, not a fixed relationship." ([1], p. 377). For the author, convergence goes through several strands, such as alternative convergence when: "informal and sometimes unauthorized flow of media content when it becomes easy for consumers to archive, comment on the content, appropriate it, and put it back into circulation" ([1], p. 377), as corporate convergence when: "commercially directed flow of media content." Convergence is also assumed to be cultural by: "change in the logic by which culture operates, with emphasis on the flow of content across media channels. Or technological from the "combination of functions within the same technological apparatus" ([1], p. 377). This media convergence scenario proposes a participatory culture, where fans and other consumers can participate in the creation and circulation of new content. in this context that initially develops in entertainment and fiction, but that is gradually approaching telejournalism, through transmedia strategies, which can characterize transmedia journalism, and in the case of this research a transmedia telejournalism.

In, his doctoral thesis, Moloney [14] examines how transmedia storytelling methods emerge from the entertainment industry but can be used in a journalism context. According to the author, Journalism has been facing many crises such as the loss of audience and relevance by the public. In his research, he asks whether with the expansion of media on various platforms with the possibility to interact makes it more difficult to attract the audience to a socially relevant issue or to a story. "Faced with similar problems, the entertainment industry has developed a means to engage fans in a way that draws them in across multiple media platforms, captures their imagination, and involves them personally in the story being told" ([14], p. 5). Some experts describe *transmedia storytelling* methodology as "the art of world building" ([14], p. 5). In his research, the author shows that journalists can better engage their audiences by adapting transmedia storytelling methods for journalism. Comparing entertainment, transmedia narrative theory, and technique with examples from journalism that illustrate one or more of these techniques. Moloney [14] explores whether journalists can reach more individuals, achieve better engagement and participation from their audiences, and more fully communicate the complexity and context of any given story. Transmedia journalism is presented by Renó and Flores [15] as an ongoing perspective within contemporary

journalism, where it comes to be a language that contemplates at the same time, several media, with various languages (or formats) and different narratives, which complement each other, to attract a multitude of users. This perspective is directly related to the phenomena that we intend to investigate during this research, to contribute to the conceptual, theoretical, and practical reflection on the empirical object—telejournalism. To close this social, cultural technological, and tangled scenario where telejournalism is present it is also necessary to situate the process of mediatization in which society is inserted, which Hjarvard [16], in the search for a concept presents as: "a double-sided process in which the media has become a semi-independent institution in society to which other institutions have to adapt" ([16], p. 53). To formulate a theory of mediatization, the author asks how does the media alter both the inner workings of other social entities and their mutual relations. After identifying the various fields of contemporary society where the effects of mediatization can be observed, Hjarvard [16] draws connections and comparisons with some communication theories, such as Thompson's theory of modernity, because he sees mediatization as an integral part of the development of modern society. The invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century witnessed the birth of a technology that made possible the circulation of information in society in an unprecedented way ([16], p. 58). With books, newspapers, magazines, and other printed possibilities, the modernization process accelerated. Then with radio, TV, and the Internet, and as cultural consequences is the emergence of large organizations on a national and global level. According to the author Hjarvard [16], media alter human communication and interaction through four processes that: (1) extend the possibilities of human communication in both time and space; (2) replace social activities that previously occurred face-to-face (such as going to the bank); (3) a merging of activities, personal communication combines with mediated and media; and (4) accommodateadapt behavior (*sound bites*). In this case, mediatization can be a metaprocess on par with individualization and globalization, "as an ongoing process in which media alter human relations and behavior and thus alter society and culture" ([16], p. 57).

Another theory that Hjarvard ([16], p. 60) presents in line with mediatization theory is the theory of the medium or media ecology, "with respect to observing the different formatting of each medium and its impacts on the interpersonal relationships to which it gives rise." Mediatization in postmodern theory is observed with restrictions by the author, who from the hyperreality proposed by Baudrillard, who presents the simulacrum—symbolic world of the media replaces the real world, taking as an example the Gulf War (1990–1991), "which did not happen, but was another invention of the media simulacra" ([16], p. 61). It is in this context of convergence, with a mediatized society, and the power of participation that the current stage of Brazilian telejournalism is found, where the news programs Jornal Nacional (TV Globo), Jornal da Record (TV Record), Jornal da Cultura (TV Cultura), Jornal da Band (TV Bandeirantes, and SBT Brasil (SBT) were analyzed and observed virtually in order to identify an ecology of Brazilian telejournalism.
