It is a well-know fact that politics in postindustrial societies is mediated, in the sense that the media mediate between political actors and the citizenry. However, the concept of mediated politics is rather static, and it thus fails to capture the dynamics of political communication of today and how it has evolved over the last decades. Thus, the purpose of this article is to analyze the process through which politics increasingly has become mediatized. The article argues that mediatization is an inherently process oriented concept, and that it is possible to make a distinction between four different phases of mediatization. Each of these phases are discussed and analyzed. The conclusion is that as politics becomes increasingly mediatized, the important question no longer is related to the independence of the media from politics and society. The