El análisis sociológico de la comunicación: De la Escuela de Chicago a la Mediatización Digital.

This essay starts from the premise that sociological analysis has made important and valuable contributions to the conceptualization of the cultural, moral, and institutional aspects of communication. At present, however, the contributions of the sociology seem poorly represented within the field of communicative studies because these commonly overlook the fact that digital communication is inextricably linked to the social and material spaces which humans act and interact. Considering that it can generate a necessarily limited understanding of the communicative phenomenon, the objective of this work is to explore the approaches proposed by five schools of thought regarding the sociology of communication. Firstly, this paper reviews the main works produced by the Chicago School, the Columbia School, the Frankfurt School, the Toronto School and the Birmingham School to try to elucidate the conceptual bases of their postulates and to understand the criticisms they received from other scholars in the field. Subsequently, it describes the historical changes of the disciplinary research program and the approaches through which social researchers are trying to recognize and to understand the complex sociotechnical assemblages that characterize contemporary communication. Finally, it argues that the sociological perspective continues to be substantial in developing a critical comprehension of the social, political, and economic impact of digital mediatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]