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Media Transatlantic: Developments in Media and Communication Studies between North American and German-speaking Europe pp 197–213Cite as

The Messenger as a Model in Media Theory. Reflections on the Philosophical Dimensions of Theorizing Media

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Abstract

The concept of communication leads a double life in German discourse. On the one hand, there is the theory of communicative action, coupled with universal pragmatics, and associated with Jürgen Habermas. On the other, there are technical-material theories of communication, derived from the Shannon-Weaver model, and often associated with the name of Friedrich Kittler. Both types of theory converge on a single point: language and media are autonomous and function like an Archimedian point and an a priori. Is it possible to develop a philosophy of the media without following such stances on language and media determinism? This question can be answered in the affirmative only if we reject the thesis that media are autonomous and look at them as heteronomous. The constitutive heteronomy of media is explained from the perspective of a “messenger-model.” Its heuristic value consists in the fact that it rehabilitates and explains the productivity of “transmission” and “transgression” in very different cultural and natural fields. Three messenger-figures are analysed: the religious idea of an angel, the physiological concept of a virus, the juridical and epistemic institution of the witness.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For an interpretation of Kittler’s media theory see: Krämer (2006).

  2. 2.

    See: Bolz (1993), Bolz et al. (1994), Gumbrecht and Pfeiffer (1988), Kittler (1999), Flusser (1985), Margreiter (1999), and Virilio (1992).

  3. 3.

    Chang (1996 48): “Communication should be construed as a postal affair.” See also: Derrida (1987: 39) and Winthrop-Young (2002).

  4. 4.

    Regarding the difference between dialog and dissemination, see: Peters (2001), 36 ff.

  5. 5.

    In the classical sense, for example, of Searle (1969).

  6. 6.

    Aisthesis as opposed to logos in the Greek sense.

  7. 7.

    Contemporary studies on angels include Agamben (2011), Cacciari (1987), Cacciari and Vedova (1989), Pleşu (2005), and Serres (1995).

  8. 8.

    For an epistemological perspective on the witness, see: Coady (1992) and Fricker (1995). For an ethical, juridical, historiographical perspective, see: Baer (2000), Dulong (1998), Derrida (2005), Felman and Laub (1992), and Weigel (2000).

  9. 9.

    Dieter Mersch has emphatically pointed to this withdrawal of media; see Mersch (2002, p. 132 ff).

  10. 10.

    Das Medium verbirgt sich im Prozess seiner Mediatisierung, bleibt unkenntlich, verschwindet als Mittel hinter dem, was es bewirkt (Mersch 2002: 135). [The medium hides itself in the process of its mediatization; it remains unrecognizable, disappearing as means or middle behind that which it produces.]

  11. 11.

    See: Mersch (2002: 135 ff), Engell and Vogl (2000: 10), and Groys (2000: 21).

  12. 12.

    Jäger (2004: 59, 65) emphasizes this by describing the transparency of the medium not as a characteristic of the medium, but rather as an “aggregate state” of communication.

  13. 13.

    See also: Hoffmann (2002: 30 ff) and Seitter (2002: 33 ff). Seitter was the first to characterize and contrast Aristotle and Heider as classical authors of media theory.

  14. 14.

    wenn der Zwischenraum leer wäre, so würden wir nicht etwa genau sehen, sondern gar nicht. [if the space in between were empty, we would not see with precision, but rather not at all.] Aristotle (1966: 419a). 11–13.

  15. 15.

    Alle diese Mediumvorgänge, die unsere Sinnesorgane treffen und uns Kunde von den Dingen geben, sind falsche Einheiten. Und diese falschen Einheiten haben die Eigenschaft auf Anderes hinzuweisen, sie sind in sich unverständlich… [All of these processes of media, that our sense organs encounter, and that make things known to us, are false unities. And these false unities by their nature point to something else; they are in themselves un-understandable.]

  16. 16.

    Groys (2000: 22) conceived of this idea as the interplay of expression and concealment, which is part of the sign itself: Jedes Zeichen bezeichnet etwas und weist auf etwas hin. Aber gleichzeitig verbirgt jedes Zeichen auch etwas – und zwar nicht die Abwesenheit des bezeichneten Gegenstands, wie ab und zu behauptet wird, sondern schlicht und einfach ein Stück der medialen Oberfläche, die dieses Zeichen materiell, medial besetzt. [Every sign designates something and points to it. But at the same time, every sign hides something. It does not hide the absence of that which it designates, as is sometimes claimed. Instead, what it hides is plainly and simply the material surface of the medium that that the sign both materially and medially occupies.]

  17. 17.

    Leo Spitzer (1969: 203) pointed out the ambivalence between spatial middle and functional relationship inhering in the Latin concept.

  18. 18.

    Illustrated in: Serres (1995, pg. 80 f).

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  1. Institute of Philosophy, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Sybille Krämer

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  1. Dept of Educational Technology, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA

    Norm Friesen

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Krämer, S. (2016). The Messenger as a Model in Media Theory. Reflections on the Philosophical Dimensions of Theorizing Media. In: Friesen, N. (eds) Media Transatlantic: Developments in Media and Communication Studies between North American and German-speaking Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28489-7_11

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