Debray on the Mediasphere

Posted on | October 2, 2007 | 3 Comments

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From the French Socialist intellectual, Regis Debray, in an article on ‘Socialism and Print’ (but given a slightly different title in the online version, for some reason):

“The revolutionary act par excellence starts from a sense of nostalgia, the return to a forgotten text, a lost ideal. Behind the ‘re’ of reformation….or revolution…there is a hand flicking through the pages of a book, from the end back to the beginning. Whereas the finger that presses a button, fast-forwarding a tape or disc will never pose a danger to the establishment.”

This is in the context of an attempt to delineate the progressive development throughout history of what Debray calls the ‘mediasphere’. He identifies three stages: logosphere, graphosphere and videosphere, typified respectively by writing, print and audiovisual. Each stage does not supplant the previous stage(s) entirely: each builds on the other and becomes the dominant paradigm within the increasing complexity of the ‘communication networks that enable thought to have a social dimension.’ He creates an interesting matrix that illuminates progression through the three stages across a range of aspects. So, for instance, the ‘group ideal’ or ‘political tendency’ might be described as ‘the one’ for the logosphere, ‘all’ for the graphosphere, and ‘each’ for the videosphere. Or the ‘Spiritual Class’ for each stage would be the church (prophets, clerics), the intelligentsia (professors, doctors) and the media (broadcasters, producers) respectively.

It is an intriguing piece but its description of the so-called videosphere is already dated – the broader mediasphere, to use Debray’s own term, is undoubtedly moving on yet again, towards a paradigm that supersedes the broadcast model of the mass media, a sphere in which the ’spiritual class’ might be described as simply ‘Us’.

I wonder what name might be given to the sphere we are moving into?

Technorati Tags: regis debray, mediasphere, logosphere, graphosphere, videosphere

Category: books, media

Comments

3 Responses to “Debray on the Mediasphere”

NickP
October 4th, 2007 @ 10:40 am

I have a suspicion (fear) that it might be something like the egosphere – can ‘I’ become a type of media? Here I’d add a definition of ego as “An exaggerated sense of self-importance; conceit”. Hopefully we’ll move on to the next sphere quickly!
John Connell
October 4th, 2007 @ 12:08 pm

That is good, Nick…..despite its negative connotations, it’s a word that some might pick up on and use, some ironically, many not.
NickP
October 6th, 2007 @ 11:36 am

Yeah – it was the negative conotation that made me wish I could come up with something better! Having posted this comment I finally got around to listening to Andrew Keen’s lecture to the RSA entitled ‘The Great Digital Seduction‘ in which he launches something of a tirade against web 2.0. I was beginning to regret my decision to go with ‘egosphere’ as Andrew does indeed paint a rather negative view of the way the web is going until Tim Montgomerie (RSA’s biog) responded – I may not necessarily agree with his politics but he presented a much more positive and hopeful view of the egocentricity of much of what web 2.0 has enabled. His view is that this may well be a short lived, but ultimately essential step on the way to something more socially, educationally, morally and (you choose) uplifting. A really good, thought-provoking debate, especially for those involved in education at the moment.