Transmitting Culture

How do we explain the fact that certain ideas at certain moments in time canhave earthshaking effects? Or that some cultures have left an indelible markwhile ot... » 

How do we explain the fact that certain ideas at certain moments in time canhave earthshaking effects? Or that some cultures have left an indelible markwhile others have not? Why did Jesus rather than Mani the Mesopotamian or theEastern god Mithra take hold among masses of people? Why did Karl Marx insteadof Pierre Proudhon or Auguste Comte leave his mark on the century? Behind thesequestions lies the matter of the human need to conserve hand down andtransmit cultural meanings the study of the means of transmission and of thelong evolutionary history of media.In a departure Rgis Debray redefines communication as the inescapableconditioning of civilizations meanings and messages by their technologies oftransmission and lays the groundwork for a science of the transmission ofcultural forms in a word mediology.Transmitting Culture examines the difference between communication andtransmission and argues that ideas and their legacies should be rethought notin terms of communication from sender to receiver but of mediation by thevectors and messengers of meaning. Transmitting Culture stresses thetechnologies and institutions long overlooked by philosophy and the humansciences in the study of symbols and signs throughout the history ofcivilizations. Ranging widely from the history of religion and the printingpress to the French and industrial revolutions from the role and place ofauthority to scientific inquiry Transmitting Culture establishes a newapproach to the cultural history of communication. «