Sendung

Auch die Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturforschung erreicht ihre Leserinnen und Leser als Sendung, als Postgut auf dem Wege der Zustellung nämlich. Wer immer sie liest, hat also mit der Sendung zu tun. Allein das schon ist ein Grund, sich mit der Sendung zu befassen.

Even in liberal democracies there are media forms and procedures monopolized by the state. Such are the methods to secure and stabilize the authenticity of money and state documents, i.e. the central media of economy and the state. In terms of a media history of the state, the paper describes these forms and methods of securing authenticity and shows how the state had to respond to ever new technological threats to its media monopoly.

Conservation and exhibition of historical works of art run many risks of misrepresenta- tion of the life and meanings of objects. This paper explores the identities of some particu- larly compelling examples of Byzantine art restored under special circumstances at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. This examination of the restoration of frescos and icons, and their particular display histories, reveals the contingencies of our encounters with and explanations of historical art.

Threads, ropes and textiles are elements of everyday life, which have reached a high technical level of development early in human history. The spinning of the yarn, one of the oldest forms of knowledge, seems to be, like the origin of every form of art, inseparable from a particular mythology. Besides their practical use, threads, nodes and tissues must have been quickly charged with symbolic meanings. This article examines the symbol- ism of the thread, the node and the tissue as metaphors that are sometimes connected with life and sometimes with death.

A debate is a public dispute that follows cer- tain rules. The goal of a debate is not the solution of a problem as in a discussion , but to point out positions. In a debate, not only arguments, but also polemics and the courage to take a stand are essential. Besides certain rules that are accepted by all participants, a debate needs a so-called debate culture in order to be productive. Christian Demand and Ekkehard Knörer lead a debate on the establishment of this concept in the 1980s and develop theses for its alleged disappearance caused by the acceleration of debates under the conditions of “new media.”

Kapitel XIX: Von denen Schreiben oder Berichten, und was man darbey beobachten muß Es ist nicht genug eines Fürsten oder Staats Interesse an einem fremden Hof geschicklich zu beobachten wissen, sondern man muß auch verstehen eine richtige und treue Relation zu thun von allem, was da vorgehet, so wohl, was die Negotiation betrifft, die man auf sich genommen hat, als auch alle andere Sachen, die sich binnen der Zeit, da man sich allda aufhält, ereignen. Die Brieffe, welche ein Negotiant seinem Fürsten schreibet, sollen…

François de Callières hat in dem Kapitel Von denen Schreiben oder Berichten, und was man darbey beobachten muß aus seinem Band Der staatserfahrne Abgesandte eine kurze Geschichte aufgenommen, die er von »einem grossen Potentaten« (S. 237) erfahren haben will. Dort erläutert er als Negativfolie ein Versagen der Regierung und selbstsüchtiges Verhalten der Gesandten, was im Zusammenspiel auf den Zustand des spanischen Weltreiches verweise oder – medienwissenschaftlich zugespitzt – den Niedergang Spaniens mitverschuldet. Die Parabel mag vielleicht auf Fakten beruhen, dient aber in erster Linie dazu, die Bedeutung einer vorausschauenden und korrekten Berichterstattung eines Gesandten an seine Regierung herauszuarbeiten und zu illustrieren. …

To the extent in which postal ‘sending,’ the successful delivery of messages, dramatically improves since the European eighteenth cen- tury, the persuasiveness of the religious sense of mission or ‘sending’ is fading. This is not surprising. To be reached by a divine call, by a Kerygma, should, indeed must be an exqui- site exception of the regularities of every- day life. Many are called but few are chosen (Matthew 22:14). In somewhat enlightened times, the question of the reliability of heav- enly sendings cannot be suppressed anymore. Anyone can deny anyone to be the truthful addressee of divine sendings. There are no in- tersubjectively binding states of transmission between heaven and earth: this higher triv- iality is predicable and writable since 1750. Complementary to this development, the controllability of terrestrial sendings increases – despite enormous gains in complexity.

Both the structure of the Google search algo- rithm and the rhetoric surrounding the com- pany suggest Google’s aspiration to attain the classic theological status of omniscience. Understanding how Google performs online searches shows that this most characteristic of all digital media corporations fits in a long lineage of religious media that claim to oper- ate ontologically.

Among the many institutions of sending, tele- vision certainly represents the most successful one over long decades. Nevertheless, given the changes that the medium incurs in terms of broadcasting and broadcasts as a conse- quence of digitalisation, many proclaim – and not entirely without reason – the post-broad- cast era. This paper studies these changes by way of a reading of different television series. The format of the series seems particularly suitable to this end, since the broadcasting of television seems deeply linked to seriality and the serial as a principle. The changes in tele- vision broadcasting can be gleaned from the forms and changes of the serial.

This article takes the second screen – tele- vision-related use of smart phones and tablet computers – as a starting point to discuss how current culture is shaped by the ever more heterogeneous connections between multiple devices, texts and platforms. They form un- stable assemblages that simultaneously high- light and undermine the specific affordances of their elements. Focusing first on technical and industrial and then on practical and do- mestic procedures of creating connections, the current media landscape will be described as ›convergence as crisis‹: While media indeed become increasingly more interconnected, the connections themselves and the shape of the assemblage in its entirety are ephemeral, unstable and vague. Convergence mainly ex- ists and is generated through being in crisis.

As a novelty of the industrial and postal mod- ernism of the late 19th century, the postcard differs from the letter in terms of media cul- ture. While the paradigmatic act of verbal intensity and extension (of “writing” or “composition”) is constitutive for the latter, the postcard represents an opposing model of reduction and substitution of scripture. The postcard symbolizes the trenchant signal whose value is obtained from the mastery of sending. To show in what way the medium of short communication has been instrumen- tal in the emergence of a modern culture of “sending” is the aim of this paper.

Google is not only a worldwide enterprise that represents like no other the power of search engines and the Internet in general. In this interview from 2009 Barbara Cassin ana- lyzes Google’s rhetoric and sense of mission, which is “to organize all the information in the world.” Cassin characterizes this claim as global, violent and total, and shows that it also influences contemporary notions of democ- racy, culture and science. In the course of the conversation, it becomes clear that this influ- ence not only has positive effects.