Page 97 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

80 C. de Witt

called a ‘communication thread’. In his electrostatic experiments he stretched a
hemp thread and attached it to a battery, with his assistants keeping the thread damp
and signalling when the ‘electric virtue’ arrived. This ‘communication thread’
anticipated the electronic transmission of data, which in the form of the telephone
and internet has become an indispensable part of our lives today.
This is an example of how new media change communication processes. Media
science researchers do not investigate a particular medium or the effects of particu-
lar medium, but the reciprocal effect of media on our perception of reality and on
life in society. McLuhan (1964) has shown persuasively that it is the media them-
selves and not the content they transport that need to be the focus of research. Media
do not – as was once the assumption – depict reality. Instead they create reality.
While Pross (1972) differentiates primary, secondary and tertiary media according
to their channel of communication, Luhmann (1997) for example sees media as
symbolically generalised media of communication, which include money, love,
truth, power and value. From this perspective media are anything that mediates –
and they do not need to be related to a technology or even communication itself. As
a means of communication however media are also instruments that serve to propa-
gate messages. Their functions in talk can be found in the focusing on particular
topics, enabling opinions to be formed, criticism to be made or control to be exer-
cised. And this is exactly why they are so interesting for a larger perspective on
communication about sustainability.
There is an international discussion among researchers to demonstrate theoreti-
cally the enormous potential of new media to encourage people to become respon-
sible actors, not only through the contents transmitted by media but also through the
democratic communities they initiate. At the same time global communication net-
works are moving public social discourse from the level of national to global debates
(Castells 2008; Bekkhus and Zacchetti 2010). There are historical and theoretical
analyses of the relationships of media, humans and communication (e.g. Leverette
2003; Davidson 2009; Rantanen and Downing 2009; Buck et al. 2010).

Theoretical Perspectives on Media

Media Revolution as a Subject of Media Theory

Especially in revolutionary periods in communication and media cultures, there is
a need for theoretical reflection. The emergence of new media technologies,
through socio-cultural changes or paradigm shifts in society, science or culture lead
to uncertainties, to the loss of competencies, to new concepts and re-evaluations
(Rusch 2002). Revolutions in media are “upheavals, which in similar media, pho-
tography and film, took place over a century ago and today in digital form are
redefining our life” (Käuser 2002: 256). However new media are also characterised
by the reversal, recycling and reinforcing of older media elements. The new develops