Mediology

Mediology (French: médiologie) broadly indicates a wide-ranging method for the analysis of cultural transmission in society and across societies, a method which challenges the conventional idea that 'technology is not culture'. The mediological method pays specific attention to the role of organisations and technical innovations, and the ways in which these can ensure the potency of cultural transmission - and thus the transformation of ideas into a civilisational worldview capable of sustained action. Mediology (French: médiologie) broadly indicates a wide-ranging method for the analysis of cultural transmission in society and across societies, a method which challenges the conventional idea that 'technology is not culture'. The mediological method pays specific attention to the role of organisations and technical innovations, and the ways in which these can ensure the potency of cultural transmission - and thus the transformation of ideas into a civilisational worldview capable of sustained action. The term was first coined and introduced in French as 'médiologie' by the French intellectual Régis Debray in the 'Teachers, Writers, Celebrities' section of his book Le pouvoir intellectuel en France, (Editions Ramsay, 1979). The English form of the term became more widely known and respected in the English-speaking world with the publication of the key text on mediology in English, Debray's Transmitting Culture (University of Columbia Press, 2004). Mediology was taught for the first time in the Sorbonne (Paris) in 2007.