Philosophy of Media
Perniola’s wide range of theoretical interests include philosophy of media. In Contro la comunicazione (Against Communication 2004) he analyzes the origins, mechanisms, dynamics of mass-media communication and its degenerating effects. The volume Miracoli e traumi della comunicazione (Miracles and Traumas of Communication 2009) deals with the uncanny effects of communication since the 1960s focusing on four “generative events”. These are the students’ revolts in 1968, the Iranian revolution in 1979, the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, and the 9/11 Twin Towers attack. Each of these episodes are all dealt with against the backdrop of the miraculous and traumatic effects in which mass-media communication have blurred the differences between the real and impossible, high culture and mass culture, the decline of professions, the success of populism, the role of addictions, the repercussions of the internet on today’s culture and society, and, last but not least, the role of evaluation in which porn stars seem to have reached the highest ranks in the who’s who charts.
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