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Books
Walter Benjamin and the Media by Jaeho Kang
Terri Murray surveys Walter Benjamin’s perspective on the media within cultures.
Does it matter whether this review is presented to you in a one-off public gathering that takes place at a unique historical time and place, such as a literary salon, or in an edition of Philosophy Now magazine? Does the change from collective audience to solitary reader have any impact on your cognitive faculties, or even have political implications? Furthermore, does it make any difference if you’re reading this not in the print version, but via some early-twenty-first-century communication tech, such as a smartphone or an iPad?
Walter Benjamin’s Information Age
The German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) certainly thought all this does make a difference. He had reason to reflect on new forms of communication. Hounded by Nazi propaganda, he settled in Paris, and later, after the fall of France, committed suicide while attempting to escape through Spain. Benjamin sought to develop a new kind of media critique, applicable to the new forms of media technology that were emerging in the twentieth century. In Walter Benjamin and the Media, Dr Jaeho Kang illuminates how and why Benjamin’s theoretical contributions to understanding the development of the media are still relevant and applicable to today’s new technologies.
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