This book results from the IV International Seminar on Research on Mediatization and Social Processes held in 2020/2021. The III International Seminar on Research on Mediatization and Social Processes had a program developed on two levels: debate panels with invited researchers (5 panels, with the participation of researchers from Sweden(2), Argentina (2), and Brazil (9, including five from PPGCC-Unisinos). The IV Seminar program and its structure are at https://www.midiaticom.org/seminario-midiatizacao/programacao-2020/.

In this IV Seminar, the theme of the panels was “Mediatized Sapiens: the social construction of knowledge among interactions, means, circulation, and social mediation.” With mediatized sapiens, we want to refer to several media processes related to the mental changes of the species. Several questions can be enunciated related to these. How can we think of knowledge social construction when mediated by the media processes? To what extent does the mental experience of the species hold media processes as references to its building and inferences? How do the actors in a network participate in these processes? To what extent do institutions and organizations adapt to these new environments? In particular, how do the University, research, and scientific fields participate in this repair? Do the media in digital media, in action through expert systems and artificial intelligence, interpose themselves in these processes to the point of asking incisive and secondary questions? How do temporalities and spatiality affect the conditions of production and reception, including social practices, in the social production of knowledge? What epistemologies and methodologies can account for this new complexity amid indetermination and uncertainty zones?