Human's Mediated Being-A Study On Meyrowitz's Media Thought

Joshua Meyrowitz is a leading third-generation scholar of Media Ecology School.Facing the two dominant media from mid-1950s until now,namely television and Internet,he studied their social and cultural impacts from the perspective of interpersonal communication.In 1985,he shot to fame because of No sense of Place which put forward Media Situationism.In the Internet era,he successively proposed "Generalized Elsewhere","Glocality","Boundary Studies","Three Media Metaphors",and so on,which develop Media Situationism and make breakthrough.In Media Situationism,he distinguished the situation bias of print media and electronic media.He held that television resulted in the merging role structure of people's self.The post-Media Situationism media thoughts turned to the social psychological process how self defined the place context and media context,thus resulted in role norms.Although he did not fulfill the paradigm transition in post-Media Situationism thoughts which the Internet studies require,he inspired the researches of "Context Collapse" of social media scholars.The subject of media studies is human being,therefore it is a problem worth studying how Meyrowitz defined human's mediated being.Now as we live in the mobile Internet era and look back on the developrment history of Meyrowitz's media thoughts,we can make clear how he understands human's mediated being in different research levels,interpret and criticize the shortcomings of his media thoughts.And based on that,we can further his media thoughts,and explain human's mediated being in the Internet era.Until now it has been 43 years since Meyrowitz became a Media Ecology scholar.Based on the reading experiences of his works,referring to former studies and his personal intentions,finally 12 representative works are selected(including one book and 11 thesis).The media thoughts contained are generalized and classified into four themes-"Media Situationism","Media Contextualism","Boundary Studies",and "Three Media Metaphors".According to Meyrowitz's academic sources and how he cited from them,it is found that his media thoughts can be divided into three levels,namely the situation level,the self level and the subject level."Media Situationism" is on the situation level;"Media Contextualism"and "Boundary Studies" are on the self level;"Three Media Metaphors" is on the subject level.Studies on the four themes were conducted by literature research and speculation.The evolution path of his understanding of human 's mediated being,as well as his shortcoming,namely,the failure to rise to the body subject level is found.Drawing from micro-power analysis to make up for that drawback,"mediated social body" was reinterpreted,and constructive critique was done.On the level of body subject,based on the concept of identity,his actual social body was reinterpreted.Finally,according to the characteristics of Internet,the double dasein structure of the body is elucidated.It was found that:Firstly,the change of view on role runs through his studies on the situation,self and subject levels,and determines that he defined human's mediated being as actual social body.All his three academic sources set human as the body subject,so the body level is preset in Meyrowitz's media thoughts.The view on role of Dramaturgy which presents the self while suspending the body subject supports Meyrowitz's situation level media thoughts.The view on role of symbiotic interaction which presents the self motivated by the body subject supports Meyrowitz's self level media thoughts.However,Meyrowitz suspended the body subject on both the situation and self level,and he did not find the dynamics between the group side of role,the individual side of role and the body subject,deeming human as actual social body with preset role structure.On the subject level,he saw the metaphorical relations between body,actual social body and mediated social body,but he did not interpret people's role structure,the individual side of role and the group side of role from the body subject level.Meyrowitz's difficulty in bring out the body subject was vividly manifested in the evolution of his views on role.Secondly,the root of flaws in his understanding of human's mediated being lies in his lacking of sense of micro-power,so he neglected the discipline mediated social body exerts on body and the disciplined condition of actual social body.In McLuhan's biological media,media information exerts influences on the body.However,in Meyrowitz's social media,media information exerts influences on actual social body,which shows a loss of basic stance that media disciplined the body.In his "Three Media Metaphors",actual social body was extended as"mediated social body"."Mediate social body" has perceptual mode and context definition angle which accord with the grammatical properties of the media.It is docile.Actual social body and it are unified in people's body behavior.Therefore,he can not combine human's social and biological nature,nor can he explain how under the discipline of "mediated social body" the body generates the group side of role,the individual side of role,and role structure.Thirdly,"mediated social body" is the ideal,docile social body determined by the characteristics of media information,and it is the hand of body-disciplining power,and it results in different ethical relations between body and actual social body.Foucault's knowledge-power has the dimension of media,and he thought that episteme changes with the change of media.Episteme not only disciplines people's mode of cognition,but also results in different ethical relations between body and actual social body.Giddens' resource-power studies the interaction between bodies under concrete social structure,and he finds that the relations between the group side and the individual side of role changes because of the micro-power of media information.He thinks that the differences between the group side and the individual side of role are differences in perspectives of context definition.On the basis of induction of the two views on micro-power,the discipline of "mediated social body"is proposed.It is mediated phenomenological body.It not only determines perception of body,resulting in different cognitive modes,but also renders different ethical relations between body and actual social body,as well as those between the group side and the individual side of role.The new interpretation of "mediated social body" is the key to upgrade Meyrowitz's understanding of human's mediated being and view of role to the subject level.Fourthly,in the Internet era,the actual social body is the field where the body subject searches for identification,and the subject takes a journey to and fro between the actual subject and the virtual subject.Internet "mediated social body" results in new ethical relation between the body subject and actual social body.The origin of the body subject's identification is highlighted,and the identification from the body strikes the role identification originated from the group.In order to study the actual social body of the Internet era on the body subject level,we are required to substitute role with identity.The sense of place of humanistic geography can demonstrate the dynamics between the body's libido,the group side of body identity,and the individual side of body identity.So Meyrowitz's view of role can be upgraded to the body subject level.The body's actual sense of place can be divided into visible actual sense of place,invisible actual sense of place and lacking sense of place.The visible actual sense of place corresponds to the group side of body identity.The invisible and lacking senses of place correspond to the individual side of body identity.The condition of being disciplined makes the body project suppressed libido into cyberspace,forming virtual sense of place and virtual place where the virtual subject inhabits.The discourse foundation of Internet "mediated social body" results in its self-reflex.So with the personality structure of actual self as its starting point and destination,the virtual subject can return to people' body identity,reshaping the actual social body.In conclusion,Meyrowitz's failure in bringing up body subject just demonstrates that Internet studies must be based on the paradigm of body-to-body interaction.Only if we see the new ethical relation between body subject and actual social body rendered by media micro-power,can we really grasp human's existential structure in the Internet era,make cyberspace a place to perfect human existence,and make virtual interaction between virtual subjects the way to better human existential conditions.