Media and innovation in Simmel, Benjamin and McLuhan

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the textual relations that link the thought of Simmel (Philosophie des Geldes and Die Grosstädte und das Geistesleben), Benjamin (Das Passagen-Werk) and McLuhan (Understanding Media) in terms of a common reflection on modes of technological innovation. Through a close reading of the texts, the reflection unfolds in three complementary parts: the reconstruction of the tradition mentioned above, accomplished through a focus of the traits of continuity that tie into an organic corpus of the three authors; a survey on the concept of medium and his epistemological implications; the case of photography, emblematic, in this study, for the technological innovation. The elements which arise from this reflection – medium and perception, medium and time, medium and habits, medium and social forms – show in detail an idea of communication based on a new image of history and nature, observed in their mutual relation of competition and exclusion.