Category Archives: Media Theory

New Book: Media Transatlantic!

Posted on June 1, 2016 by friesenn

I have a new book out as of the end of May. It’s published by Springer and titled Media Transatlantic: Media and Communication Studies between North American and German-speaking Europe. Here’s the blurb: This book reflects recent scholarly and theoretical … Continue reading →

Posted in Friedrich Kittler, Marshall McLuhan, Media Theory, Michel Foucault, Uncategorized, Writing | Leave a comment

Psychology & Neurology are Constructed via Media and “the Social”

Posted on May 16, 2016 by friesenn

Given the socially and technologically contingent nature of symptoms like the “flashback,” neuroscience alone cannot be expected to provide ready answers. This symptomatology of the flashback and its use as a narrative device was developed in the “age of film,” … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Theory, Media Theory, The Self, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

John Dewey as Media Theorist ?!

Posted on July 4, 2015 by friesenn

I’ve been working on this for submission to the John Dewey Society:  Communication and (Educational) Media: Dewey as a Theorist avant la lettre In addition to being an educational reformer and philosopher nonpareil, John Dewey also theorized media and communication. The inimitable Marshall … Continue reading →

Posted in Media Theory | Leave a comment

Old Literacies and the “New” Literacy Studies: Revisiting Reading and Writing

Posted on January 28, 2015 by friesenn

Video “abstract” and paper that recently appeared in the open, online journal Seminar.net. This paper traces a discontinuous and material history of “schooling,” writing and its technologies, rather than one that would be continuous and etymological or cultural in focus (i.e. going … Continue reading →

Posted in Media Theory | Leave a comment

How Luther went Viral

Posted on April 28, 2014 by friesenn

A 2011 article from the Economist (listen to audio, above) compares Martin Luther’s use of the then new medium of print in the Reformation, and the use of Facebook in the so-called “Arab Spring.” In looking at Luther’s use of … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Media Theory, Textbook | Leave a comment

Paradigm shifts and Educational Forms: A Textbook Case

Posted on November 18, 2013 by friesenn

This article just appeared in “Online First” for AERA’s Educational Researcher. It is intended as a kind of ‘sequel” to my study of the “transmedial history”of the lecture, which was published in the same journal in 2011. Both articles look … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Media Theory, Textbook, Writing | Leave a comment

Faculty ProD Keynote: Simulation, Stimulation & Silence – Learning Online and Off

Posted on October 10, 2013 by friesenn

I gave this keynote at an excellent professional development event at my alma mater, the University of Alberta in August. CTL TECHKNOWLEDGY Symposium Keynote Here’s the abstract: Almost 20 years after the popular adoption of the Internet, we are still … Continue reading →

Posted in Media Theory, Phenomenology | Leave a comment

"On beyond Ong:" the bases of a revised theory of orality and literacy

Posted on October 9, 2013 by friesenn

J. Coleman’s Public reading and the reading public is excellent book that goes way beyond its ostensible medieval specialization, and offers a comprehensive critique of the antiquated ethnocentrism of the Ong / Goody approach to orality and literacy. This approach, … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Media Theory | Leave a comment

Education, Media and the End of the Book –a view from German media theory

Posted on August 1, 2013 by friesenn

Just finished a draft of this paper with Rainer Leschke. It incorporates a number of concepts and references familiar in German media studies (Medienwissenschaften), including notions of a Leitmedium, of Medienvergessenheit and media-systems. But these aren’t all necessarily German. One of these … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Media Theory, Writing | Leave a comment

Educational Change & the Longue Durée: An Analysis of the Anatomy Lecture

Posted on July 1, 2013 by friesenn

Proof of a paper, co-authored with Wolff-Michael Roth, soon to appear in Educational Philosophy and Technology. Here’s the abstract: Although there are many points of continuity, there are also a number of changes in the pedagogical form of the anatomy … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Lecture, Media Theory | Leave a comment