Abstract
The paper deals with the history of media theory before and after digital networked media. It identifies the premises of Classical Media Theory (CMT), which is based on an invariant combined with both dependent and independent variables. The independent variable of CMT was and is media technological innovation, the invariant being the human body. The dependent variables are social relationships and the training of the senses. CMT argues from the asymmetry of variables and ignores agency of the invariant that in CMT partly overlaps with the dependent variables. The media history of CMT is written in the asymmetrical manner of arguing from “Media first” and attributing changes in the dependent variables to changes of media technology. The text gives an account of the demise of CMT and its inability to deal with digital media and computing devices, by drawing on the symmetry postulates of Science and Technology Studies, and a pertinent account of computer programming. Cooperative media practices are assumed to be prior to both historical media and current digital devices.
“The wheel is reinvented so often because it is a very good idea; I’ve learned to worry more about the soundness of ideas that were invented only once.”
(David L. Parnas)
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Notes
- 1.
Johannes Sievert, formerly physicist at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Braunschweig).
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Schüttpelz, E. (2023). Reinventing the Wheel of Media Theory. In: Eisenmann, C., Englert, K., Schubert, C., Voss, E. (eds) Varieties of Cooperation. Medien der Kooperation – Media of Cooperation. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-39037-2_2
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