Medium (Definition according to Debray)

From Mmswiki

A medium ist something transporting Information

…can`t stopp the internet, when i close my computer the internet is still there…

Media ist all around me, like the fish in the water fable, Torsten Meyer often use…

a new medium kills the old one for example : writing reduce the “remembering skills”

The difference between media and a medium

Media the plural form means the subject of information.

Whereas medium the singular form expresses different ways of approach:

1. the way of symbolization i.g. a word or the scripture

2. the social communication code i. g. language like english or german

3. the material of saving i. g. paper or clay

4. the net of recording connected with the net of circualtion i. g. tv or photo

It is more or less the fourth one which means in the end the system record - subject - process.

Medium according to Regis Debray

Possibly, Regis Debray’s main contribution to the study of media is the proposal of mediology as a new method of analysis with the aim of studying the process for which a piece of information is transmitted. In order to understand his approach to media theory, it is essential to dedicate some time to Debray’s conception of medium and its function.

First of all, it is important to take into account that Debray’s use of the term medium is done in a wide sense. Through this word, he can refer to symbolic processes such as writing and the creation of images and a social code like would be a natural language. At the same time, a medium can be a material device for storing and storage. The word medium can also designate a recording and distribution system as, for example, a publisher, a TV network and an information system. At this point, we should differenciate between medium and media since the first one includes much more meanings than it does the term media. This last one, that’s to say the mass media, should be understood as a particular, late an invading extension of mediations which intervene in the introduction of an idea. Finally, it is important to remember that Debray’s mother tongue was French and therefore, this was the original language of his writings. Consequently, what in English has been translated as medium was the word “milieu” which, in fact, has a wider meaning than the word choosen for the English translation. For “milieu” it is also designed the lived environment, the social life of media and communication technologies as well as mediation. This last one refers to the social and material intermediaries that create communication.

Before closing the differentiation between medium and “milieu” we should point out a last aspect. Even the medium may be new, the “milieu” is old as it can be understood as an area that reflects its history. Precisely, this understanding of the term “milieu” helps explaining the interdisciplinary character of mediology because in the study of the process for which an idea gets accepted and assimilated it is necessary to take into account a wide and diverse number of elements, in other words, a “milieu”. see discussion page

According to Debray’s definition of medium, it can be defined as a system of dispositive-device for storage-process.It is this system that triggers a mediological revolution technological aspects are some, but not all, of the elements which take part into the way in which information transmission takes place. As we can state in Debray’s approach, a lot of attention is paid to cultural aspects. Culture is presented as a key element in the comprehension of the mediations for which an idea becomes a material force, that is to say, it becomes real. The reason for this is because a medium can only acquire some importance in a milieu in which a need for this medium is developed. An example Debray mentions is the invention of the clock. It was not the clock which led to the interest in time measurement but it was the interest in time measurement the led to the invention of the clock. Therefore, according to what Debray calls Mediosphere, the small system, that's to say the material device/dispositive, is confronted to the medium/"milieu" which represents the larger system.

Debray's definition of medium vs McLuhan definition

From Regis Debray point of view, McLuhan puts much emphasis in technological aspects such as the code. This glorification of the code is developed at the expense of what it is really used for in a specific milieu. In short, we could say that whereas McLuhan believed that the media itself has the meaning, Debray defended that the media is what offers the ground for the meanings to occur. For this reason, Debray’s main criticism to McLuhan ideas is their technologically determinist approach which builds a very narrow definition of the essence and function of the medium. Another aspect that distinguishes McLuhan’s work from Debray’s one has to do with power. In this sense, McLuhan’s main goal of his research was to understand how media influence man and society whereas Debray’s main purpose was to understand how it is produced belief and how does it work power. At this point, it can be interesting to reproduce the words of Regis Debray in his Cours de médiologie générale.

Si donc l’on entend par médium tout moyen de produire une opinión ou de transmettre un discours, c’est-à-dire de susciter ou modifier une croyance collective, on comprend que le médium dominant d’une époque sois l’enjeu d’un rapport de forces politiques. ( If thus we understand by medium all way of producing an opinion or to transmit a speech, that is to say, to arouse or modify a collective belief, we understand that the dominant medium of a time would be the challenge of a relation of political forces.)

DEBRAY, R. (1991) Cours de médiologie générale. Gallimard: Paris. (pp. 313)

According to Debray, the medium represents the center of pursuit and redistribution of the streams of information, challenge and means of the fights for the superiority. For this reason, the study of the medium becomes a key element not only in the understanding of mediology but also in the functioning of power.

Contributed by Eva Durall for Seminar Pedagogical Media Theory (Wise 2008/09)