Juhasz, Alexandra. “Tweaking Enzenberger” (2008)

In his “Constituents of a theory of the Media,” in The Consciousness Industry (1974), Hans Magnus Enzenberger describes a new media (”satellites, color television, cable relay television, casetters, videotape, videtape recorders, video-phones, stereophony, laser techniques, electrostatic repredocution processes, electronic high-speed printing, composing and learning machines, microfiches with electronic access, printing by radio, time-sharing computers, data banks”), and proposes the necessary constituents for a revolution within and using them. What does he tell us that could be of use to our new media revolution (or lack thereof)? What are we missing? What didn’t we learn the last time around?

Enzenberger sees a political and corporate landscape bent on controlling communication through censorship, denial of education, and community.

Read Enzenberger.

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