2-1: copy machines - on materiality and exposure in media studies and biology
"Messages, information, programs, code, instructions, decoding: these are the new concepts of the life sciences."
- Georges Canguilhem[1]
- Gregory Bateson[2]
Although contemporary use of the term "media" is commonly associated with the emergence of the "mass media" in the latter half of the nineteenth century, W.J.T. Mitchell and Mark B.N. Hansen note that the term has had a much more complex and long-standing history in Western thought. Fascinatingly, they note that many of the term's earliest etymological roots can be traced to biology. Citing the Oxford English Dictionary, Mitchell and Hansen trace the origins of media to ancient Greece, during which time it was originally used to refer to "the permeable, middle layer of the wall of a blood vessel or lymphatic vessel" but then also came to mean "a principle vein in the basic pattern of insect wing venation." However, by the time the term migrated over to Latin, Mitchell and Hansen argue that "media" began to pick up some of its more familiar connotations: derived from the Latin for "middle or center," the term could then also mean 1. "something that is intermediate between two degrees, amounts, qualities, or classes," 2. " a person or thing which acts as an intermediary ," or 3. "a substance through which a force acts on objects at a distance or through which impressions are conveyed to the sense."[3]
- Georges Canguilhem[1]
![[1]](http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/lipshin/media/copy-footnote-1.jpg){kind=link}
"What we mean by information - the elementary unit of information - is a difference which makes a difference."
- Gregory Bateson[2]
![[2]](http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/lipshin/media/copy-footnote-2.jpg){kind=link}
Although contemporary use of the term "media" is commonly associated with the emergence of the "mass media" in the latter half of the nineteenth century, W.J.T. Mitchell and Mark B.N. Hansen note that the term has had a much more complex and long-standing history in Western thought. Fascinatingly, they note that many of the term's earliest etymological roots can be traced to biology. Citing the Oxford English Dictionary, Mitchell and Hansen trace the origins of media to ancient Greece, during which time it was originally used to refer to "the permeable, middle layer of the wall of a blood vessel or lymphatic vessel" but then also came to mean "a principle vein in the basic pattern of insect wing venation." However, by the time the term migrated over to Latin, Mitchell and Hansen argue that "media" began to pick up some of its more familiar connotations: derived from the Latin for "middle or center," the term could then also mean 1. "something that is intermediate between two degrees, amounts, qualities, or classes," 2. " a person or thing which acts as an intermediary ," or 3. "a substance through which a force acts on objects at a distance or through which impressions are conveyed to the sense."[3]
![[3]](http://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/lipshin/media/copy-footnote-3.jpg){kind=link}
| Previous page on path | Point 2 Path, page 1 of 10 | Next page on path |
Discussion of "2-1: copy machines - on materiality and exposure in media studies and biology"
Add your voice to this discussion.
Checking your signed in status ...