Vorlesung 1:
Modes and means of Communication
● Walter Benjamin:
-Human perception changes over time
-these changes are linked to historical shifts in how societies exitsts
-Perveption is organized through a medium
This medium is in uenced by both natural and historical factors
● Umberto Eco:
-books will always be thereComponents may change over time, its fundamental nature will
remain the same
Media/ Medium
● means middle in Latin
Historical usage:
● 16th/early 17th century: “an intervening or intermediate agency agency or substance
● 18th century: Used in context of newspaper- “through the medium of youth publication”
● 20th century: Associated with broadcasting-“mass media”
● —> Media is complex and has no real de nition
● There is a distinction between physical media (sight sound touch) and technical media
(print broadcast)
● Debate on the extent to wich media determines the content of what is being
communicated
Raymond Williams:
● Strong sense of media as something with its own speci c and deremining properties
● A social sense of media in which the practices and institutions are seen as agencies for
quite other then their primary purposes
Marshall McMuhan
● media as “the extension of man”
● Media introduces “ a new scale into our affairs and change time and space factors in
human association
● The content of any medium is always another medium (print contains writitng)—> media
as a transfomative force that extends human capabilities and reshape social interactuons
Communication:
fl fi fi
,● From lines of communication (roads, canals, railways) to means of passing information
and maitaining social contact
● Two meanings to transmit or to share - one way or participatory ( communication together
or talking to someone)
● There are different media con guration
● Representational (Tv deferred release of information) vs. Connective media( right now)
Niklas Luhmann
● Mass media establishes a ctional connection = representational and connective media
(through newspaper for example —> made communities)
● Games are a second reality and you don#t have to engage with the real reality
● Entertainment as opening up a new reality in contrast to the rst one
● Media = a plastic set of possiblilites into which forms are temporarily xed ( like footprints
in the sand are only temporary)
Literature as second/ order observation *mazbe isn’t in the exam
● second order observation = an observation that observers other observers
● Example lyric speech in poetry- the lyric speaker vs. The poems textural composition that
can show his / her blind spots
● Literature is never merely about information, It‘s performative : imitation mimesis, ctional
reality
● Luhmann: art gives us a position from which something else can be determined as
reality / alternative possiblilites
● The content of literature is its form
Literature
● middle age = learning
● 18th century = the practice and professions of writing, later imaginative literature
Different types of media:
Multimedia, intermediality, ekrphrasis, adaption media ecology book history
Why not just literary history?
Different emphasis, recent developments in the eld:
● new media- focus attention on older media as well
● Material text
● Materialities of communication
fi fi fi fi fi
, ● Book history
Three ages of media history
Performance based media (singer. 70000BCE) theater singing
Media of representation (since 1500 CE) books
Media of connectivity (since 1850) Telephones and telegraph
Voice and Hand session 2
● Idea: Ever since humans learned to walk we enjoyed to use our face and our hand
simontaniously at the same time = Andre Leroi Gourhan : Le Geste et la parole: cultural
anthropology, human evolution and technological progress
● C. 70000 BCE The cognitive revolution ( usage of hands —> for better communication)
● 35000 BCE: rst graphic symbols ( are abstract, shows rather rhythms than forms, )
Andre Leroi-Gourhan:
● refers to the concept of representation in early human communication and art:
● It means the process of sing abstract symbols or signs to represent real world objects or
concepts—> doing this instead of actual replicas of reality ( use of imagination
Examples:
● Gilgamesh =is an ancient hero and legendary gure in Mesopotamian mythology
● = he was wise, is associated with a Long jouney, a hero
Timeline
··
r &
1600 mauscripts( written by hand ) Pergamum = made from calves
Papyrus = pressed leaves —> pasted together
Parchment= leather, associated with Christianity
Cassiodorus = loves paper
When Phildes grammarian books were destroyed a lot of people were sad and were
mourning it
fi fi
Modes and means of Communication
● Walter Benjamin:
-Human perception changes over time
-these changes are linked to historical shifts in how societies exitsts
-Perveption is organized through a medium
This medium is in uenced by both natural and historical factors
● Umberto Eco:
-books will always be thereComponents may change over time, its fundamental nature will
remain the same
Media/ Medium
● means middle in Latin
Historical usage:
● 16th/early 17th century: “an intervening or intermediate agency agency or substance
● 18th century: Used in context of newspaper- “through the medium of youth publication”
● 20th century: Associated with broadcasting-“mass media”
● —> Media is complex and has no real de nition
● There is a distinction between physical media (sight sound touch) and technical media
(print broadcast)
● Debate on the extent to wich media determines the content of what is being
communicated
Raymond Williams:
● Strong sense of media as something with its own speci c and deremining properties
● A social sense of media in which the practices and institutions are seen as agencies for
quite other then their primary purposes
Marshall McMuhan
● media as “the extension of man”
● Media introduces “ a new scale into our affairs and change time and space factors in
human association
● The content of any medium is always another medium (print contains writitng)—> media
as a transfomative force that extends human capabilities and reshape social interactuons
Communication:
fl fi fi
,● From lines of communication (roads, canals, railways) to means of passing information
and maitaining social contact
● Two meanings to transmit or to share - one way or participatory ( communication together
or talking to someone)
● There are different media con guration
● Representational (Tv deferred release of information) vs. Connective media( right now)
Niklas Luhmann
● Mass media establishes a ctional connection = representational and connective media
(through newspaper for example —> made communities)
● Games are a second reality and you don#t have to engage with the real reality
● Entertainment as opening up a new reality in contrast to the rst one
● Media = a plastic set of possiblilites into which forms are temporarily xed ( like footprints
in the sand are only temporary)
Literature as second/ order observation *mazbe isn’t in the exam
● second order observation = an observation that observers other observers
● Example lyric speech in poetry- the lyric speaker vs. The poems textural composition that
can show his / her blind spots
● Literature is never merely about information, It‘s performative : imitation mimesis, ctional
reality
● Luhmann: art gives us a position from which something else can be determined as
reality / alternative possiblilites
● The content of literature is its form
Literature
● middle age = learning
● 18th century = the practice and professions of writing, later imaginative literature
Different types of media:
Multimedia, intermediality, ekrphrasis, adaption media ecology book history
Why not just literary history?
Different emphasis, recent developments in the eld:
● new media- focus attention on older media as well
● Material text
● Materialities of communication
fi fi fi fi fi
, ● Book history
Three ages of media history
Performance based media (singer. 70000BCE) theater singing
Media of representation (since 1500 CE) books
Media of connectivity (since 1850) Telephones and telegraph
Voice and Hand session 2
● Idea: Ever since humans learned to walk we enjoyed to use our face and our hand
simontaniously at the same time = Andre Leroi Gourhan : Le Geste et la parole: cultural
anthropology, human evolution and technological progress
● C. 70000 BCE The cognitive revolution ( usage of hands —> for better communication)
● 35000 BCE: rst graphic symbols ( are abstract, shows rather rhythms than forms, )
Andre Leroi-Gourhan:
● refers to the concept of representation in early human communication and art:
● It means the process of sing abstract symbols or signs to represent real world objects or
concepts—> doing this instead of actual replicas of reality ( use of imagination
Examples:
● Gilgamesh =is an ancient hero and legendary gure in Mesopotamian mythology
● = he was wise, is associated with a Long jouney, a hero
Timeline
··
r &
1600 mauscripts( written by hand ) Pergamum = made from calves
Papyrus = pressed leaves —> pasted together
Parchment= leather, associated with Christianity
Cassiodorus = loves paper
When Phildes grammarian books were destroyed a lot of people were sad and were
mourning it
fi fi
