Mediatization research shares media effects studies' ambition of answering the difficult questions with regard to whether and how media matter and influence contemporary culture and society. The two approaches nevertheless differ fundamentally in that mediatization research seeks answers to these general questions by distinguishing between two concepts: mediation and mediatization. The media effects tradition generally considers the effects of the media to be a result of individuals being exposed to media content, i.e. effects are seen as an outcome of mediated communication. Mediatization research is concerned with long-term structural changes involving media, culture, and society, i.e. the influences of the media are understood in relation to how media are implicated in social and cultural changes and how these processes come to create new conditions for human communication and interaction. From the perspective of mediatization research, the most important effect of the media stems from their embeddedness in culture and society.