After Theme 2: Critical media studies

(N.B. This is the study blog for the course Theory and Method for Media Technology. More detailed information regarding the theme as well as the course is available on the course page [1].)

As a study review blog, I will reflect on the efforts I made for the second theme. Frist and foremost, a lot of reading has been done for a better understanding of this theme, such as the book Dialectic of Enlightenment [2] by Adorno and Horkheimer and Walter Benjamin’s influential essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproductivity" [3]. In addition to these, I want to discuss more about our blogs. It is so great to read other’s blogs. Your guys’ interesting and inspiring views make me much better understand the philosophic texts, especially for the great examples you made.

During this week’s study, I found several concepts have been misunderstood before, but I am very glad that they have now been clarified clearly after lecture and seminar.

Firstly, to get a better understanding of Nominalism, we discussed it compared with Realism. One of my classmate said that ‘Nominalism is more specific, while realism is more general.’ This is interesting to me and help enhance my understanding of Nominalism. As Nominalism is often used with not changing, it can be seen as a metaphysical view in philosophy, in which abstract ideas or concepts do not exist.

What other important and useful thing we learned from the lecture is to investigate something within its born context though the cultural and historical lens. In this sense, a more completed picture and a more reasonable sense can be achieved.

There is also a pair of key concepts for this theme, which are ‘substructure’ and ‘superstructure’. Besides my previous knowledge of the concepts, one classmates proposed another interesting explanation to them as ‘The substructure was everything related to the production, such as machines; while the superstructure was the art, for example entertainment. It is a good way to make examples to discuss the abstract philosophical terms with relation to our studied subject media technology.

Last but not the least, my understanding of ‘enlightenment’ is well improved. And another important term I learned this week is the ‘AURO’, which is a kernel view according to Benjamin and can be referred to ‘uniqueness’ or ‘authenticity’. What’s more, I also find the Allegory of the Cave from Plato [4] is very interesting and helpful to understand this week’s theme. Learned from his example, it can be concluded that not only the philosopher but also the scholar or just each of us who wishes to seek wisdom should try to be freed from the cave and come to understand the shadow as well as the reality.

Sources:
[1] https://www.kth.se/social/course/DM2572/page/theme-2-critical-media-studies-2/
[2] Adorno, T. W., & Horkheimer, M. (1997). Dialectic of enlightenment (Vol. 15). Verso.
[3] Walter Benjamin (1968). Hannah Arendt, ed. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Illuminations. London: Fontana. pp. 214–218.ISBN 9781407085500.

[4] Plato. (1945). The republic of Plato (Vol. 30, pp. 175-203). New York: Oxford University Press.