I have explored the role of technology in human life since the start of my PhD in 1997, and over these twenty years I have noticed that digital technology networks take over more and more aspects of communication. Artificial intelligence is a particularly interesting and dangerous phenomenon. It is important to study these technically initiated ordering forces.
Abstract It seems clear that the teletext experience has rather low intensity compared to that of other media. Teletext consists of a visual interface that communicates in alphabetical script, numbers and icons. In this chapter, I offer a phenomenology of teletext inspired by close readings of Merleau-Ponty, Gibson and Scannell. They all write about lived […]
‘If you got ears, you got to listen’ sang Captain Beefheart in 1980. His statement alludes to the immersive nature of sound, and its taken-for-grantedness, which may explain the relative lack of studies of sound in culture and the media. The emerging discipline of sound studies struggles to deal with the ephemeral acoustic culture in […]
In a little known manuscript from 1998 Paddy Scannell asks some dumbfoundingly basic questions about the electronic media: ‘What happens when you turn on your television set? What is the meaning of television?’ The present article presents Scannell’s Heideggerian analysis of the act of turning on the TV set, and relates it to his other […]
Interactivity is the most revered value of new media. It promises to empower domestic users and make the media more democratic, and even to increase the profit of media companies in the bargain. The meaning of “interactivity ” must be defined carefully so that we do not confuse good and bad qualities in communication just […]