Fragmentation of social segmentation? Durkheim, Debord and the segmented journalism

Abstract

The social fragmentation process is more and more a subject of the contemporary sociological discussions as well as a concern of the communication researchers. From a sociological view of social division process and their consequences, which are in some cases related to fragmentation, we intend, in this paper, to observe how the social divisions are refl ected upon the emergence of differentiated communication forms. Our objective is to demonstrate the correlation of the existence of Segmented Journalism to the intensifi cation process of the social division of labor, and to check whether this format of journalism evidences or not a process of fragmentation. In order to make this analysis, we will put in confront the ideas of two different theoretical chains – the Society of the Spectacle and the ideas of Niklas Luhmann and Émile Durkheim.