Media Pathologies 2. Criticism and Aesthetics of Digitalization as Reflected in the Discourse on Digital Reading

该项目继续探索新媒体的批判性话语及其所隐含的美学概念，这些在18世纪末和20世纪初的项目第一阶段进行了调查，直到目前关于数字娱乐和阅读格式的辩论。我们的目标不是按照时间顺序完成这些话语，而是关注数字化话语，以及这种话语与早期媒体批评的病态话题之间的连续性和断裂。由于冠状病毒大流行被视为数字技术传播的催化剂，将有害的媒体影响归咎于最近有所增加。最近，诸如学校和大学的数字化学习以及社会生活向互联网的转变等话题受到了越来越多的关注。当代媒体话语将数字技术的传播描述为一个历史性的转折，只有印刷术的引入才能与之媲美，同时也对书籍的文化相关性构成了威胁。基于这一观察，该项目将分析关注于数字化转向对阅读实践和文学美学的影响的辩论，并警告深刻的文化变革。第一步，该项目计划对数字文化演变的批评话语进行分类，主要集中在电脑游戏成瘾和流媒体平台上的过度“狂欢”系列的辩论上。关于游戏和系列作为一种提供强烈沉浸感潜力的新型叙事媒体形式的讨论是该项目的特别兴趣所在，因为这些功能与传统的文学概念相竞争。根据该项目的一般假设，通过批评媒体影响的危险强度，对媒体使用的病理归因也阐明了相关技术的美学潜力，关于在屏幕上阅读文本的话语以及关于“数字时代”文学转型的辩论将是研究的关键方面。它的重点将是媒体技术和美学参考在新媒体的批判观点中所经历的转变，在讨论与数字阅读设备相关的表面阅读的后果，而不是“高级文化”的书本形深度阅读。正如将显示的那样，对数字阅读的基本批评与对在纸上阅读小说概念的重新评估有关。因此，关于阅读和文学的话语，以及文学文本中的话语，将被视为当代媒体反思和媒体批评的重要组成部分。基于这一假设，本项目将分析关于数字媒体技术对当前文学概念的影响的争论，以及数字媒体在当代文学中的反映。

The project continues exploring critical discourses on new media and the aesthetic concepts they imply, which were investigated in phase 1 of the project for the late 18th and early 20th centuries, up to current debates on digital entertainment and reading formats. Instead of aiming at a chronological completion of these discourses, the goal is to focus on the discourse on digitalization with regard to the continuities and ruptures between this discourse and the pathological topoi of earlier media criticism. Attributions of harmful media effects have recently increased because the Corona pandemic was perceived as a catalyst for the spread of digital technologies. Topics such as digital learning in schools and universities, but also the shift of social life to the Internet, have recently received increased attentipn. Contemporary media discourses describe the spread of digital technologies as a historic turn comparable only to the introduction of the printing press – and at the same time as a danger to the cultural relevance of the book. Based on this observation, the project will analyze debates that focus on the consequences of the digital turn for practices of reading and literary aesthetics and warn of a profound cultural change. In a first step, the project plans to categorize the critical discourse on the evolution of digital culture, mainly focusing on debates on computer game addiction and excessive 'binging' of series on streaming platforms. The discussion about games and series as new narrative media formats providing an intense immersive potential is of specific interest for the project because these features compete with traditional notions of literature. According to the project’s general hypothesis that by criticizing the dangerous intensity of media effects pathological attributions to the use of media also illuminate the aesthetic potential of the technologies in question, the discourse on reading texts on screens as well as the debate about the transformation of literature in the 'digital age' will be crucial aspects of the research. Its focus will be on the shift that both media technologies and aesthetic references within critical perspectives on new media undergo within the discussion about the consequences of a surface reading tied to digital reading devices as opposed to a book-shaped deep reading of ‘high culture’. As will be shown, the fundamental critique of digital reading is connected to a revaluation of the concept of reading fiction on paper. Discourses about reading and literature, also within literary texts, will therefore be considered as an essential part of contemporary media reflection and media criticism. Based on this assumption, the project will analyze debates about the effects of digital media technologies on current literary concepts on the one hand and the reflection of digital media in contemporary literature on the other hand.