Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gane, Nicholas

Titel

Radical Post-humanism: Friedrich Kittler and the Primacy of Technology

Ist Teil von

• Theory, culture & society, 2005-06, Vol.22 (3), p.25-41

Ort / Verlag

London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: SAGE Publications

Erscheinungsjahr

2005

Quelle

Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts (ASSIA)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This article uses the work of Friedrich Kittler to address the ways in which media technologies underpin and structure the basis of ‘human’ existence and understanding. Kittler’s ‘media materialism’ is explored through four main influences: the information theory of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, the media analysis of Marshall McLuhan, the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault’s work on power and discourse. These figures are used, in turn, to draw into question the materiality of information technology, and, following this, to develop a post-human approach to media analysis. The final section of this article considers the challenges such an approach poses to the humanistic bias of mainstream sociology and media studies.