Shih-che Tang

This study seeks to demonstrate and criticize the structural limitation of the mechanism of news production in the electronic media. Taking a materialistic approach, the study argues that the pursuit of absolute speed constitutes to the major cause of news aberration from its designated social responsibility. Speed-driven news production gives rise to a system marked by operational closure, which deprives news from representing social reality. Speed has become the ultimate manipulator of the symbolic violence of the social space. Therefore, a thorough examination of social problems created by television news should start from an investigation of the "field," characterized by the interaction among the factors of transmission technology, the habitus of industrial competition, and the nature of the televisual image. These interrelated material conditions deprive electronic news of its task in improving social interaction.

Society as an organic system has taken root in the spatial expansion of
transportation and communication media. In the light of this materialistic
epistemology, the article presents the infrastructural dimensions of the
Internet as a communication system, unfolding a discussion with the affinity
of the system as a concept with the development of modern transportation
and communication networks. From canals, to railways, to radio masts and
submarine cable lines, the physical layout of modern transportation and
communication infrastructure has, at different times, inspired various
thoughts of society as an organic system. The article proposes to use
infrastructure as a conceptual entry point to explore the Internet as a
communication system. By way of Geoffrey Bowker and Leigh Star’s
characterization of infrastructure, the article singles out cable as a crucialboundary object with social and geo-political implications: Socially, the Internet as a technology of connectivity has been a work of collaboration since its incubation stage. Via wired computers under a unified communication protocol, this network technology at the seminal stage underwent a process of social integration, linking diverse communities of practice with heterogeneous interests in national defense, science, and business. Therefore, the Internet fully manifested itself as a socio-technical system. The boundary character of the Internet is also apparent in the transoceanic connection of the submarine cable. Geo-politically, this cable has been, and still is, the acting agent of surveillance systems on a global scale. The risk of disconnection reflects the ongoing conflict and struggle among international political power blocs. In addition, high-tech corridors and zones benefitting from the transoceanic cable linkage substantiate the logic of accumulation through the dispossession characteristic of digital capitalism.

尹尼斯（Harold A. Innis）的「媒介理論」開創了媒介技術、傳播過程與社會文化政制的關聯性討論，但他的政治經濟批判卻鮮少受到重視。本文檢視尹尼斯的加拿大經濟史與政治經濟批判相關的著作，聚焦在他獨創的「大宗物資命題」（the staple thesis），意圖由重讀中挖掘新意。本文討論區分為三個部分：首先探討尹尼斯在批判傳播政治經濟學的邊陲角色；繼而以「大宗物資命題」中三個核心概念：邊陲、壟斷與依附，凸顯尹尼斯的政治經濟關懷；本文最後將此命題所凸顯的交通與傳播基礎設施對於社群性格的型塑，置於批判理論的系譜中，探討其鮮少被論及的「親族相似性」。

弗里德里希．基德勒（Friedrich Kittler）的媒介理論開啟了德國自 1980 年代以來的後詮釋學、反人本主義思維：一個以媒介技術的本體運作為探問依歸的文化分析。本文擬作為基德勒的媒介思想初探式整理，討論區分為兩個部分：其一是將基德勒置於德國自 19 世紀末期以來發展的技術哲學脈絡裡，並耙梳技術哲學如何對日後、起因自視聽裝置多元發展的文化技術研究產生影響；其二則是引介弗里德里希．基德勒（Friedrich Kittler）的媒介理論，由基德勒思想中關於媒介本體論的討論，探究其對當前傳播理論建構的啟示。本文並以基德勒的代表性作品在不同階段的發展作為討論重點，分別探討：一、論述網絡與社會配置；二、技術媒介對時間軸的操縱；三、字母作為符碼的多重銘刻性。