Media as Contexts of (Inter)action

Marshall McLuhan’s argument may be turned upside down: McLuhan’s question about the impact of technology on humankind (the extension of senses) is interesting; however, it is at least as much interesting what people do or feel like to do in a given technological context. McLuhan studies human action from the perspective of media, but we may look at media from the perspective of human action. From this viewpoint the theory of technological determinism seems to exaggerate, since new techniques and technologies do not necessarily or unavoidably lead to social changes. According to more conservative approaches (see Joshua Meyrowitz, Neil Postman), technical media in a cultural context only encourage certain types of interaction and discourage others. Media are not mere extensions, as McLuhan suggests, which annihilate distances or extend senses, but they are rather catalysts and barriers according to which given feelings and inclinations of their users intensify or moderate, and start to prevail at the level of society, or not. This paper studies along these lines our more and more affective and intimate relations towards digital media and digital tools.