9. Disadvantages of the Existence Structure Promoted by New Media

Below, I derive conclusions from the inventory I have compiled in this work. The treatment of media socialization epochs, such as Antiquity and the Middle Ages, is part of a comprehensive inventory of data on media socialization. This data, along with the evaluation concepts necessary for its classification, can be useful in deriving these conclusions.

Before proceeding to my conclusions, I want to point out that a positive evaluation of new media has only been rudimentarily developed so far. Marshall McLuhan’s characterization of the 20th century as a mixture of two media cultures offers an explanation for this. According to him, the 20th century is marked by the overlap of two media cultures:

“Our own Western reaction to new media such as film, radio, and television was clearly a book-culture reaction to these challenges.”

Here, regarding media socialization, there is a striking similarity to the late Middle Ages, which was also marked by the overlap of two media epochs. During the late Middle Ages, the medieval existence structure persisted for a long time. For example, “during the first two centuries of printing, most of what was printed” had medieval origins. McLuhan attributes this to the fact that readers were still attuned to an earlier culture. “Not only were there initially no modern writers, but there was also no audience ready to accept them.”

Similarly, the classification of new media in the 20th century reflected typical attempts at categorization by a printing-press society. This specific evaluation of new media has only recently started to shift toward a more neutral attempt to assess them. The development of the iPad as an educational medium in schools exemplifies this evolving approach.

9.1. Reduced Compensation for the Dialectical Nature of Humanity

The decline—or relativization—of the validity of print culture, along with the rise of digital communication, has led to societal changes in the structure of existence. The alienation from one’s physicality, as described by Elias and Böhme & Böhme, is being relativized. In relation to the evolution of print culture, a reverse development seems to be taking place today:

Now, it is not the body that is increasingly perceived as alien; rather, the possibility of experiencing the external world or parts of it as alien has moved to the forefront once again. This does not align with the concept of a morally upright human being. However, the images of the “noble savage” and the “evil savage,” or human nature in general, are too simplistic to claim universal validity.

This could be due to the historical emergence of these images during the era of print culture, an epoch characterized by a weakened understanding of interactions. Not only was the sense of interconnections weakened, but scholars of that era also became estranged from their own physicality and emotional responses.

In this context, I interpret the idealization and condemnation with which print society approached indigenous peoples and children as a form of “transference” in the psychoanalytic sense—an evaluation of emotions that were alien to themselves.

The new media are thought to have an effect that brings the dialectical nature of humanity to the fore more than was the case in print society. However, this seems not to be due to the new media’s effects themselves but rather to the diminished influence of digital print products. Analogously, in the Middle Ages, a similar society to that of new media showed a low influence of literacy and stronger emotional behavior. As examples from the Middle Ages demonstrate, such emotional behavior can also take the form of violence.

A factor that plays a role in the development of emotions related to violence is the degree to which individuals are embedded in “interdependencies.” This was less pronounced in the Middle Ages. Although today’s society is highly interconnected, there are still individuals who fall outside this framework of mutual interdependence.

The dialectical nature of humanity appears to be an evolutionary trait. Even today, there seem to be only a few indigenous peoples who do not lead lives “full of aggression and violence.” The risk of dying a violent death is “significantly higher” in indigenous cultures than the “average risk” in major U.S. cities, which are certainly “no havens of harmony.”

While I partially agree with the accusation in the media that new media promote violence, I believe that two additional factors must be considered in the emergence of violence today:

1. The mutual dependencies of media users, as previously mentioned.

2. The relatively reduced importance attributed to the emotion-dampening effects of digital book knowledge.

Violent video games have been found to have a violence-promoting effect on a small subset of recipients, while having no effect on most users. The aspect of violence promotion due to a reduced influence of print culture can be understood through the thoughts of Böhme & Böhme:

“Freedom from external threat is made possible precisely because self-control becomes universal.”

This self-control, caused by a distanced appropriation of physicality and the resulting alienation from “the nature of one’s own body,” is apparently “the flip side of the process of civilization.”

9.2. Disadvantages of a Lack of Intellectual Engagement

A characteristic of the media selection pressure in new media is that it does not encourage “aggressive reactions” to its “truth content.” Instead, it appeals to “emotions” rather than intellect. While new media have a positive impact on interpersonal communication within groups, a limitation arises because they do not encourage intellectual engagement, even though the effects of individual actions often extend beyond interpersonal communication.

My hypothesis is that under the influence of new media, there is a tendency to avoid intellectual engagement. While this has a positive influence on interpersonal communication within groups, it leads to a preference for avoiding issues that extend beyond everyday interpersonal communication, especially if they are not of a positive nature.

For example, consider a fictitious company that manufactures clothing in a so-called “low-wage country.” The company pays wages that do not allow workers a dignified life, while its marketing creates the image of a “fashionable” brand.

From an overarching perspective, there are two possible ways to evaluate this product when it appears in a store in Germany:

1. Assess its global production impacts.

2. Evaluate the product based on its effect on the local social environment.

The latter approach is far more common because the opinions of the immediate social environment have a much stronger influence on individuals than evaluation criteria outside the realm of everyday life. For example, the working conditions of the laborers who produce the clothing are not immediately visible or tangible in the product itself. Evaluating the product based on its global consequences requires intellectual engagement, which is not encouraged by new media and often not rewarded by the social environment.

In conclusion, the transfer of ethical and ecological responsibility to consumers is historically rooted but ultimately ineffective on a global scale. Reassigning this responsibility to companies would simplify the task and align more closely with their profit-oriented nature. It would also reduce the unrealistic expectation that individuals act morally beyond their immediate environment.