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Go to Issue 6. Medium Theory

Medium Theory

Call for papers: Image & Narrative 6, Medium Theory

What is a medium? Along what lines can it be demarcated? How can it be categorised? Questions like these occur in different disciplinary and theoretical contexts and its tentative answers could be anthologised under the label 'medium theory'.

Medium theory focuses on the medium itself rather than on what it conveys or how information is received. In medium theory, a medium is not simply a newspaper, the Internet, a digital camera and so forth. Rather, it is the symbolic environment of any communicative act. Joshua Meyrowitz characterises medium theory as follows:

"A handful of scholars - mostly from fields other than communications, sociology and psychology - have tried to call attention to the potential influences of communication technologies in addition to and apart from the content they convey. I use the singular 'medium theory' to describe this research tradition in order to differentiate it from most other 'media theory'. Medium theory focuses on the particular characteristics of each individual medium or of each particular type of media. Broadly speaking, medium theorists ask: what are the relatively fixed features of each means of communicating and how do these features make the medium physically, psychologically and socially different from other media and from face-to-face interaction? Medium theory examines such variables as the senses that are required to attend to the medium, whether the communication is bi-directional or uni-directional, how quickly messages can be disseminated, whether learning to encode and decode in the medium is difficult or simple, how many people can attend to the same message at the same moment, and so forth. Medium theorists argue that such variables influence the medium's use and its social, political, and psychological impact" [Joshua Meyrowitz (1994) 'Medium Theory' pp. 50-77 in: D. CROWLEY & D. MITCHELL (ed.), Communication Theory today, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press].

We invite contributions which could fall under the general rubric of medium theory. Topics may include:

Work and insights from different authors who discuss the notion of 'medium' (Joshua Meyrowitz, Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Kittler, Walter Ong, Stanley Cavell, Régis Debray, Anna-Marie Christin, Roger Chartier, Janet Murray, etc.).
How do different authors conceptualise 'medium'? Are media defined as an 'extension of the senses' (McLuhan), or are they given a technical definition (Kittler)? What is the difference between 'medium' and 'form' (Heider)? Where do communication media differ from symbolically generalised media (Luhmann)? Which criteria can be used to distinguish different media?

The history and evolution of media of communication.
Can one distinguish different phases in the evolution of media (the difference between oral and literate cultures; the rise of modern print culture; the emergence of technological media in the nineteenth century; new media)? Is it appropriate to speak of 'media revolutions' ? What is 'new' about new media?

The influence of the medium concept in different disciplines such as literary theory, communication sciences and sociology.
Does medium theory involve a re-articulation of disciplinary boundaries?

The conceptualisation of communication in medium theory.
Do communication media simply serve to transmit information and symbolic content or do they take a more active role and involve the creation of new forms of communication, interaction, etc.? What is the relation between medium and content?

Issue 6. Medium Theory

Email Michael.Boyden@arts.kuleuven.ac.be for more information.

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