Social Texts: How to Account for the Cultural Work of Carrier Media

Book chapter from an edited volume on new approaches to the investigation of inscriptions from different cultural and historical contexts. From the wider arena of cultural-historical inquiry, notions of embodiment and materiality have recently entered the traditional domains of literary analysis. The increasing theoretical relevance of these areas also owes to the emergence of digital communication networks, which have exposed the printed media circuit as anything but a natural way of organizing social communication. Building on theoretical considerations concerning the agency of carrier media (Trägermedien), this chapter outlines three central concerns, which—at least from the vantage point of literary studies—can advance the transdisciplinary exploration of the aesthetic nexus between language and media. The first of these clusters is centered on method, the second on socio-cultural frame theories, and the third on textual structures