The Marvelous Clouds Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media |
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| Author:
| Peters, John Durham |
| ISBN: | 978-0-226-42135-3 |
| Publication Date: | Aug 2016 |
| Publisher: | University of Chicago Press
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | AUD $37.95 |
Book Description:
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In one sense, this book is a guide for the perplexed to the digital era, a book richly laced with insights into the great digital transformation. But Peters explodes the scope and vision, arguing that nature itself--the ocean, the wind, our bodies, all of it--is essentially one big media system. In this expanded sense, then, Peters seeks to re-lay the foundations of the entire field of communication and media studies. Communication here becomes an embodied, a natural process....
More DescriptionIn one sense, this book is a guide for the perplexed to the digital era, a book richly laced with insights into the great digital transformation. But Peters explodes the scope and vision, arguing that nature itself--the ocean, the wind, our bodies, all of it--is essentially one big media system. In this expanded sense, then, Peters seeks to re-lay the foundations of the entire field of communication and media studies. Communication here becomes an embodied, a natural process. Media enable grand visions of nature and culture. Peters gives us a model of how to reunite rather than divide the human and the non-human parts of the world. He roams from the deep seas of dolphins to the data-driven campus of Google, spinning out and expanding the intellectual landscape of media theory by taking a main element and showing its mediated qualities: the sea (in ch. 2), fire (in ch. 3), the sky (ch. 4), and then language--chs. 5 and 6 on writing and on Google. He wonders what it would be like to live in an ocean--a world without material manipulation, whereas the final chapter (on Google) activates old dreams of a book of life in which everything is documented, ending with thoughts on conscience and loss. But as long as we have the clouds, Peters concludes, we have hope and love, and the faith to keep on fighting.