The End of Cinema – A Medium in Crisis in the Digital Age

As can be seen in the following passage (pp. 21-22), which makes reference to our article “A Medium Is Always Born Twice,” trans. Timothy Barnard (Early Popular Visual Culture 9 [2005]): 3-15.

This example [of the webcam] demonstrates that a technological invention becomes a medium only when it is appropriated by more or less specific uses of it, themselves susceptible to being recuperated by an institution which transforms them into cultural products (this schema is not far removed from that for the cinema developed by A. Gaudreault and P. Marion, who believe that “the history of early cinema leads us, successively, from the appearance of a technological process – that of the apparatus that records moving images – to the emergence of ‘moving pictures,’ or the establishment of diverse procedures which endow the process with the status of an apparatus, to the constitution of an established medium” [Gaudreault and Marion, 2005, p. 5]).

A summary of this dissertation is accessible online: https://dea.lib.unideb.hu/dea/handle/2437/4045.

The quotation is taken from an article posted online on 12 February 2012 and which was accessible at the following address: http://julien.lecomte.over-blog.com/article-nouveaux-medias-de-la-passivite-de-la-masse-a-l-interactivite-revolution-100034519.html, but which has since been removed. It is possible to download a PDF of a reproduction of the complete article below.

The text reads as follows:

On this topic, we should beware of confusing trends with revolutions. Thus many “theorists,” each more rigorous than the last, have developed marketing prescriptions to use on social media, presenting them as reflections of the way of life that has taken hold. And yet Facebook did not exist ten years ago. And who knows if it will exist ten years from now (Facebook, terminus en 2024?)? I’m not saying it will disappear, but it will undoubtedly no longer be completely like what it is today. The Internet has already seen many mutations: e-mail, chatrooms, IRC, forums, BBS, msn/live messenger, blogs, wikis and now the social media. While these latter are certainly an integral part of social life, they are not sufficient to define it entirely.

The quotation is taken from an article posted online on 12 February 2012 and which was accessible at the following address: http://julien.lecomte.over-blog.com/article-nouveaux-medias-de-la-passivite-de-la-masse-a-l-interactivite-revolution-100034519.html, but which has since been removed. It is possible to download a PDF of a reproduction of the complete article below.

A device that can be used to send e-mails, receive them, surf the Internet, take notes, record sound, take photos, listen to music, audioview films, use a GPS, find the address of a business and its opening hours, compare prices, find digital discount coupons, buy things and, at the same time, make calls, and which we persist, nevertheless, in calling a . . . telephone!