In the German humanities, „media“ are less a subject of research, but a research „paradigm“ in a sense somewhat figuratively adapted from Thomas Kuhn. In other words, media are not considered a real-life phenomenon to be critically observed and analyzed (following a more or less empirical research method). Rather, the concept of „media“ is seen as a theoretical dispositive by itself that allows to put already known artistic and discursive phenomena — from medieval literature to 19th century anatomical research — into a new research perspective. In that respect, „media“ has a conceptual and unifying function for Medialitätsforschung that is equivalent to the notion of „culture“ in British-American cultural materialism and cultural studies.

As such, „media“ has substituted the 19th century notion of „Geist“ - whereas the notion of „culture“ continues to be indebted to Hegel and Marx in its emphasis of human agency and social construction. The German turn from Geistesgeschichte to Mediengeschichte follows the earlier German philosophical turn from metaphysics to ontology, i.e. from Hegel to Heidegger. But what Derrida already observed in the late 1960s, namely that the destruction of metaphysics by its substitution with something else merely continues metaphysics, is true here as well: One grand, abstract historical narrative has been replaced with yet another grand historical narrative that is fairly detached from the common sense understanding of media and, as such, can comfortably avoid to engage with their concrete social, economic, artistic […] issues and practices.

Florian Cramer

Karlas Marxas rašė, kad rankinis malūnėlis sukuria feodalinę visuomenę, o garo malūnas — pramoninę kapitalistinę. Šiuo dažnai cituojamu teiginiu jis pasiskelbė esąs vadinamojo technologinio determinizmo propaguotojas. […] Technologijos turi šalutinį poveikį ir visada įeina į tam tikrą kultūrinį kontekstą, kuriame sunku tiksliai numatyti, kaip jos bus naudojamos.

T. H. Eriksen. „Akimirkos tironija“

In Laws of Media (1988), published posthumously by his son Eric, McLuhan summarized his ideas about media in a concise tetrad of media effects. The tetrad is a means of examining the effects on society of any technology (i.e., any medium) by dividing its effects into four categories and displaying them simultaneously. McLuhan designed the tetrad as a pedagogical tool, phrasing his laws as questions with which to consider any medium:

• What does the medium enhance?
• What does the medium make obsolete?
• What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?
• What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?

The laws of the tetrad exist simultaneously, not successively or chronologically, and allow the questioner to explore the „grammar and syntax“ of the „language“ of media. McLuhan departs from his mentor Harold Innis in suggesting that a medium „overheats“, or reverses into an opposing form, when taken to its extreme.

Using the example of radio:

• Enhancement (figure): What the medium amplifies or intensifies. Radio amplifies news and music via sound.
• Obsolescence (ground): What the medium drives out of prominence. Radio reduces the importance of print and the visual.
• Retrieval (figure): What the medium recovers which was previously lost. Radio returns the spoken word to the forefront.
• Reversal (ground): What the medium does when pushed to its limits. Acoustic radio flips into audio-visual TV.

Wikipedia

„Nothing could be more unrealistic than to suppose that the programming for such media could affect their power to re-pattern the sense-ratios of our beings. It is the ratio among our senses which is violently disturbed by media technology. And any upset in our sense-ratios alters the matrix of thought and concept and value. In what follows, I hope to show how this ratio is altered by various media and why, therefore, the medium is the message or the sum-total of effects. The so-called content of any medium is another medium.“ (McLuhan, 1960: 9)

It is clear from this statement that the medium is actually the subject. It is human beings whose sense-ratios are altered by participating in the experiences made possible through the media. It is not the content of the communication, but the encounter between the medium and subjectivity that alters or disturbs how we then reflexively analyse our experience. Although ‘the medium is the message’ is generally interpreted in formal terms, and has been appropriated as a generalisation used to explain the presence of media in every aspect of our lives, McLuhan is here playing with cognitive and psychological research as it was developed in the 1950’s. More importantly, at this stage, he is avoiding a binary approach to form/content relations. He is effectively introducing a third element into the discussion, namely, embodied human subjectivity.

Technology, Information and Learning by Ron Burnett
http://www.ecuad.ca/~rburnett/a+d.html

Kita vertus, mcluhaniška medijų samprata visiems tapo tikru galvosūkiu, nes žymėjo daugiau kūrybišką metaforą nei griežtą teorinę sąvoką. Metafora remiasi reikšmės perkėlimu, jos turinys lieka iki galo neapibrėžtas, daugiaprasmis, atviras. Šia prasme medijas kaip tikrovės aprašymo instrumentą „išsprogdino“ reikšmių perteklius, nepamatuotas lūkestis šia metafora aprašyti visą socialinį lauką. […] Nuosekliai laikantis tokios pozicijos, liktų postmodernizmo išvada — nieko nėra anapus medijų. […]

Lietuvių kalbos žodyne šio žodžio vis dar nėra, tačiau praktikoje jis dažniausiai reiškia šiuolaikines elektronines technologijas, jų kuriamas „erdves“ bei jomis besiremiančias socialines institucijas, kurios įtarpina mūsų kasdienį patyrimą, leidžia laisvai judėti informacijai bei išplečia laiko ir erdvės apribojimų nepaisančios komunikacijos galimybes.

[…]

Kita vertus, verslas jau seniai remiasi idėja, jog pirmiausiai reikia paveikti žmogaus emocijas, bazinius psichinius vartojo poreikius. Reikia pripažinti, kad daugeliu atveju mes neketiname ir net nenorime spyriotis išradimų vilionėms. Kitaip tariant, technologinių, elektroninių inovacijų ir naujų komunikacijos priemonių galimybės ir nauda yra didesnės nei suvokiama rizika ar neabejotina žala. Jeano Baudrillardo radikalus polėkis veikiausiai pernelyg sugrėsmino hiperrealybės sklaidos mastą, ženklų dauginimosi nevaldomumą ir simuliakruose tarpstančio žmogaus bejėgiškumą.

Jūratė Kavaliauskaitė. Medijų burbulas

Juolab kad medijos (žodis, kurio, beje, nepripažįsta nei šis tekstų redaktorius, nei Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas) esti dinamiškos, aptakiai neapčiuopiamos, nors ir neva visur esančios. Vadinasi, mėginti jas apsvarstyti „amžinųjų“ klausimų rėmuose — regis, būtų kažkas anachronistiško.

Post Scriptum Nr. 13 — Medijos