How do we explain the fact that certain ideas, at certain moments in time, can have earthshaking effects? Or that some cultures have left an indelible mark while others have not? Why did Jesus, rather than Mani the Mesopotamian or the Eastern god Mithra, take hold among masses of people? Why did Karl Marx instead of Pierre Proudhon or Auguste Comte leave his mark on the century? Behind these questions lies the matter of the human need to conserve, hand down, and transmit cultural meanings -the study of the means of transmission and of the long evolutionary history of media.
In a departure, Regis Debray redefines communication as the inescapable conditioning of civilizations meanings and messages by their technologies of transmission and lays the groundwork for a science of the transmission of cultural forms -in a word, mediology.
"Transmitting Culture" examines the difference between communication and transmission and argues that ideas and their legacies should be rethought... [More...] [Edit review] [Delete review]