What Do Angels, Viruses, and Media Have in Common?
Abstract
At the core of Sybille Krämer's most recent monograph is the idea that media should be understood as archetypal messengers. This places media on a continuum with angels, viruses, psychoanalysts, and witnesses. Based on an exemplary analysis of these phenomena, the German media theorist develops a "message model" which, when applied to medial transference, reveals a process characterised by distance, heteronomy, thirdness, materialism, and indifference. Supplementing this with the opposing idea of a "trail" – which, sadly, is not given as much attention – Krämer demonstrates the applicability of her concept to other topics within the field of media studies.
All articles (not book covers) in KULT_online from issue 50 on are published under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. All published articles may be reused under the conditions of the license, particularly for commercial purposes and through editing the article (Human-Readable Summary). All authors (have) permitted the publication under the above mentioned license. There is no copyright transfer towards KULT_online. For all book covers specific rights might be reserved, please contact the respective publisher for any lawful reuse. All contributions published in issue 1-49 of KULT_online are free available online and protected by the German Copyright Law.
