Power and the Medium Munich as a Paradigm for an Analysis of Current Power Structures?

Johannes Kandler

Abstract


The question is, how far in the context of printing there may still happen presence-phenomena taking back the human body? Bavarian printing seems to make it possible, to give an answer. Therefore theoretical explanations on the value of re-updating and re-personalising as the basic techniques as well as re-presence as the basic intention of media-communicated political behaviour aiming at power or its retention are important. The given model itself is
fruitful for processes and shifts of current politics. The 16th
and the 21st century may be reasonably compared to each other, as both then and now radical changes of the media (human body or physical communication and printing on the one hand, printing and the new media on the other hand) can be observed as the communications-theoretical signature of the time. The claim of media then and now is to generate re-presence of the human body, which has consequences on the power and its production.


Keywords


Analysis of power; 16th century Munich as a paradigm; current power structures (21th century); book-printing; Instagram; Facebook; performative content; Avatar; re-presence

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References


The idea of a conjunction of the sacral and the dynastic will to representation, as it was developed by Sabine M. Schneider: Bayerisch-römisches Siegeszeichen. München 1997, pp. 176-186, is basically correct, however it deals only insufficiently with the thus connected consequences when it comes to the claim to power or the possibility to institutionalise action patterns.

Horst Wenzel: Mediengeschichte vor und nach Gutenberg (2008), p. 54-56.

Ibid., p. 19-20.

The following list makes no claim to completeness. Apart from the bibliography in Horst Wenzel: Mediengeschichte vor und nach Gutenberg (2008), p. 306-310, I refer to: Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht: Beginn von 'Literatur'/Abschied vom Körper? München 1988, p. 15-50, Christian Kiening: Zwischen Körper und Schrift. Frankfurt/Main 2003, Albrecht Koschorke: Körperströme und Schriftverkehr. München 1999, Jan-Dirk Müller: Der Körper des Buches. München 1993.

Horst Wenzel: Mediengeschichte vor und nach Gutenberg (2008), p. 18-23.

Vilém Flusser: Die Schrift. Göttingen 1992, p. 49-56.

Barbara Stollberg-Riling, Tim Neu: Einleitung. Köln 2013, p. 17.

Ebd., p. 17f.

Contradicting Barbara Stollberg-Riling, Tim Neu: Einleitung. Köln 2013, p. 19: „The point is: the intention, the inner attitude and conviction of those acting are irrelevant at first. Valid is what is publicly displayed and not what one may think inwardly.“

Achim Landwehr: Historische Diskursanalyse. Frankfurt/Main 2009, p. 70.

Uwe Schimanek: Handeln in Institutionen und handelnde Institutionen. Stuttgart 2004, p. 299.

As it can be observed already with the transition from physical language (voice) to (hand-) writing, see Horst Wenzel: Mediengeschichte vor und nach Gutenberg. Darmstadt 2008, p. 53-61. On this see also: Vilém Flusser: Die Schrift. Göttingen 1992, p. 35-39, who calls the invention of the alphabet the threshold between prehistorical and historical consciousness (ibid., p. 39).

See Horst Wenzel: Mediengeschichte vor und nach Gutenberg. Darmstadt 2008, p. 254-284.

A statement gained in this way is congruent with what Vilém Flusser calls “puree information”, see Vilém Flusser: Die Schrift. Göttingen 1992, p. 54.

Jean Boudrillard: Die Agonie des Realen. Berlin 1978.


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