Alphabetic monopoly
In his media theory , Friedrich Kittler characterizes the typographic writing system before 1900 as an alphabetical monopoly , which, as a time storage device, only had texts and scores at its disposal ; these “time memories” were not yet direct records, but symbolic representations.
Overview
The Gutenberg galaxy with what is known as the main medium of the book is, according to Kittler, following his source Marshall McLuhan, characterized by the awarding of prizes for the printed font and its products. This view is in the lineage generally shared property of McLuhan media scientist; Michael Giesecke , for example, argues in this sense in his monograph on book printing in the early modern era (1989) or Kittler's student Norbert Bolz in At the end of the Gutenberg galaxy (1993).
The alphabetical monopoly began - according to Kittler - to crumble from around 1880 with the technical differentiation of optics , acoustics and writing and was only finally broken at the turn of the 20th century by the possibility of the direct storage of acoustic and optical data in their time flow ( "Eye and ear have become autonomous"); the characteristic mass media and media networks of this upheaval are the phonograph and gramophone , kinetoscope and film, as well as the typewriter or typewriter , which Kittler summarizes as the writing system 1900 .
Causes and effects
Kittler sees - as the most prominent representative of the "technicality of the text" - the causes of the alphabetical monopoly in the medium of letterpress printing itself, that is, in the respective writing system . This not only determines the respective consciousness and the social effects, but even the human being: "What human is called, determine [...] technical standards" ( The world of the symbolic - a world of the machine 1989, in: Dracula's legacy , Leipzig 1993, p. 61)
Kittler sees the most important effect of the alphabetical monopoly on the concept of the subject , which in turn disintegrates when the alphabetical monopoly breaks; he cites Lacan as the informant ( Grammophon Film Typewriter 1986, p. 248)
Walter Jackson Ong describes one of the effects of the break with the alphabetical monopoly as a secondary orality of media acoustics , i.e. as a return of oral traditions ( oral tradition ) under the auspices of modern media technologies such as radio and television .
criticism
The term alphabetical monopoly refers explicitly to the alphabet , i.e. actually also to the media-genealogical epoch of literacy ; the terminology thus possibly relates to two distinct phases of media development, since he regards writing as a universal medium and not printing in particular ; however, Kittler does not elaborate on this aspect.
Kittler's point of view also ignores storage and reproduction technologies such as photography , which was established from 1839 , without giving any conclusive reasons or even taking a position on them.
In general, media historians offer very different and quite inhomogeneous connections to the Gutenberg galaxy ; Marshall McLuhan , for example, starts the end of the Gutenberg galaxy with the discovery and application of electricity , while Norbert Bolz couples the turnaround with the development of new storage and transmission media; further offers are Manuel Castells ' McLuhan galaxy , which is characterized by the leading medium of television and is being replaced by the so-called Internet galaxy .
See also
literature
- Friedrich Kittler : Grammophon Film Typewriter . Berlin: Brinkmann & Bose, 1986. ISBN 3-922660-17-7 (English edition: Gramophone Film Typewriter , Stanford 1999)
- Friedrich Kittler: Writing-down systems 1800/1900 . Munich: Fink, 1985. ISBN 3-7705-2881-6 (English edition: Discourse Networks 1800/1900 , with a foreword by David E. Wellbery. Stanford 1990)
- Norbert Bolz : At the end of the Gutenberg galaxy . Munich: Fink, 1993. ISBN 3-7705-2871-9