Classics And Media Theory

Introducing a largely neglected area of existing interactions between Greco-Roman antiquity and media theory, this volume addresses the question of why interactions in this area matter and how they might be developed further. It aims not only to promote awareness of the presence of the classics in media theory but also to encourage more media attentiveness among scholars of Greece and Rome. By bringing together an international team of scholars with interdisciplinary expertise in areas ranging from classical literature and classical reception studies to art history, media theory and media history, film studies, philosophy, and cultural studies, the volume as a whole engages with numerous aspects of 'classical' Greece and Rome revolving around issues of philosophy, cultural history, literature, aesthetics, and epistemology. Each chapter provides its own definition of what constitutes mediality and how it operates, constructs different genealogies of the concept of the medium, and engages with emergent fields within media studies that range from cultural techniques to media archaeology, diagrammatology, and intermediality. By seeking to foreground the persistency of Greco-Roman paradigms across the different strands of media theory the volume persuasively calls for a closer consideration of the conceptual underpinnings of the cultural practices around the transformation of ancient Greece and Rome into 'classics.'

This comprehensive collection introduces and contextualizes media studies’ most influential texts and thinkers, from early 20th century mass communication to the first stages of digital culture in the 21st century. The volume brings together influential theories about media, mediation and communication, as well as the relationships between media, culture and society. Each chapter presents a close reading of a classic text, written by a contemporary media studies scholar. Each contributor presents a summary of this text, relates it to the traditions of ideas in media studies and highlights its contemporary relevance. The text explores the core theoretical traditions of media studies: in particular, cultural studies, mass communication research, medium theory and critical theory, helping students gain a better understanding of how media studies has developed under shifting historical conditions and giving them the tools to analyse their contemporary situation. This is essential reading for students of media and communication and adjacent fields such as journalism studies, sociology and cultural studies.

Introducing a largely neglected area of existing interactions between Greco-Roman antiquity and media theory, this volume addresses the question of why interactions in this area matter and how they might be developed further. It aims not only to promote awareness of the presence of the classics in media theory but also to encourage more media attentiveness among scholars of Greece and Rome. By bringing together an international team of scholars with interdisciplinary expertise in areas ranging from classical literature and classical reception studies to art history, media theory and media history, film studies, philosophy, and cultural studies, the volume as a whole engages with numerous aspects of 'classical' Greece and Rome revolving around issues of philosophy, cultural history, literature, aesthetics, and epistemology. Each chapter provides its own definition of what constitutes mediality and how it operates, constructs different genealogies of the concept of the medium, and engages with emergent fields within media studies that range from cultural techniques to media archaeology, diagrammatology, and intermediality. By seeking to foreground the persistency of Greco-Roman paradigms across the different strands of media theory the volume persuasively calls for a closer consideration of the conceptual underpinnings of the cultural practices around the transformation of ancient Greece and Rome into 'classics.'

This unique textbook is a manageable introduction to all the theories and approaches that make up media studies, giving students an informed, balanced and global view of media today. Exploring the evolution of media internationally, this book offers theory and evidence in its discussion of past and present modes of media. Divided into four parts, readers are offered insight into critical theories and topics such as ‘Social and Global Change,’ ‘the Influence of Media,’ ‘Intercultural Communication’ and ‘News as a Form of Knowledge.’ Written by leading experts within media studies, Balnaves, Donald and Shoesmith lend their wealth of knowledge to the student reader through this text, guiding them through the progression of cultural and media studies. Genuinely global and cutting-edge, this leading textbook is the ideal learning resource for lecturers of media studies and undergraduate and postgraduate students seeking gain a thorough understanding of worldwide media, past and present.

This student's guide is a clear and concise handbook to the key connections between Classical Studies and critical theory in the twentieth century. Louise Hitchcock looks at the way Classics has been engaged across a number of disciplines. Beginning with four foundational figures – Freud, Marx, Nietzshe and Saussure – Hitchcock goes on to provide guided introductions of the major theoretical thinkers of the past century, from Adorno to Williams. Each entry offers biographical, theoretical and bibliographical information along with a discussion of each figure's relevance to Classical Studies and suggestions for future research. Theory for Classics, adapted from Theory for Religious Studies, by William E. Deal and Timothy K. Beal, is a brisk, thoughtful, provocative, and engaging title, which will be an essential first volume for anyone interested in the intersection between theory and classical studies today.

In recent decades, media theory has become one of the most influential trends in contemporary thinking, namely within cultural studies, the arts and humanities. Spreading mostly from the German scholarly scene, under the influence of post-structuralism, media theory has developed as a fundamental theoretical framework, for many fields of theoretical and applied research, through authors such as the late Friedrich Kittler, 1943–2011. Commenting on several aspects of Kittler’s work, and on its impact in different fields of art and culture, this essay collection examines recent developments in media theory brought about by concepts such as “cultural techniques” and “operative ontologies” and by key authors, contributing to this volume, such as Bernhard Siegert, Sybille Krämer and Peter Weibel.

Among students at universities and colleges of higher education, as well as in the written press, one can ascertain a growing interest in media theory. There is a conveyor belt of books about new media, but what seems to be missing is knowledge and understanding of the classical media theories of Ernst Cassirer, Susanne Langer, Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Claude Shannon, Gregory Bateson, Vil»m Flusser, Friedrich Kittler, and many others. In Understanding Media Theory, the ideas of these theoreticians and philosophers are explained and applied in a clear and accessible way--not by discussing the writers one by one, but by using real examples and analyzing them on the basis of concepts developed in media theory. Consequently, this volume is accessible to a broad public, though it is primarily intended for students and teachers of media studies. The main thrust of media theory is the analysis of how a society is altered by the technical characteristics of the various media it encompasses. Media theory therefore examines popular culture as well as the arts, journalism as well as philosophy, scientific as well as general insights, mass media as well as individualized media. Media theory claims to offer an explanation for all historic and social phenomena.

Byzantine Media Subjects invites readers into a world replete with images—icons, frescoes, and mosaics filling places of worship, politics, and community. Glenn Peers asks readers to think themselves into a world where representation reigned and humans followed, and indeed were formed. Interrogating the fundamental role of representation in the making of the Byzantine human, Peers argues that Byzantine culture was (already) posthuman. The Byzantine experience reveals the extent to which media like icons, manuscripts, music, animals, and mirrors fundamentally determine humans. In the Byzantine world, representation as such was deeply persuasive, even coercive; it had the power to affect human relationships, produce conflict, and form self-perception. Media studies has made its subject the modern world, but this book argues for media having made historical subjects. Here, it is shown that media long ago also made Byzantine humans, defining them, molding them, mediating their relationship to time, to nature, to God, and to themselves.