The Mass Media: Spokesmen of the Scientific and Technological Apparatus

Dominantni znanstveno-tehnološki Aparat doveo je do velikog i neizbježnog preokreta u shvaćanju ljudskih vrijednosti. To je dovelo do toga da danas, željeli mi to ili ne, navedeni Aparat neizbježno upravlja svijetom unutar kojeg i sam čovjek mu je postao funkcionalno podređen. To isto vrijedi i za masmediji koji su, u pravom smislu riječi, postali glasnogovornici sve dominantnijeg Aparata (Stuart Wilde). Naime riječ je o radikalnoj promjeni ako ne i o preobražaju same stvarnosti, budući da svako sredstvo suvremene kompjutorske komunikacije predstavlja samo dio one “mreže” koja, u službi “mega-aparata” u vidu “virtualnog prostora”, predstavlja zaseban svijet unutar kojega je inhibiran svaki vid slobode djelovanja i gdje ponovno su oživljele i djeluju „imago“, „signa“ ili “barbara et arcana carmina” kao utjelovljenje sila antičkih božanstva (James Hillman). Iako isprva tehnologija djeluje samo kao sredstvo, ona se postupno pretvorila u zasebnu realnost koja teži ka tome da tu istu realnost, kao prirodu stvari, postupno i u potpunosti zamijeni. Taj preokret, uslijed kojega su sredstva postala ciljem, nedvojbeno dovodi i do nekih bitnihe antropoloških promjena uzrokovana upravo masovnim medijima. Preobražaj stoga ne zahvaća samo masmediji već i samoga čovjeka. Zapravo riječ je o rađanju jednog novog čovjeka: tehnološkog čovjeka nasuprot već prevaziđenog čovjeka tradicije.The dominant scientific-technological apparatus has brought the world to a big and inexorable inversion of all values, as from simple means in the hands of man; it has become a self-functioning apparatus which includes man as its official. This matter, generalized and extended to the whole world of technique, applies also to the mass media, as their spokesman (Stuart Wilde). Mass media evolving from simple instruments and becoming a separate reality of their own. It is a radical change, as each computerized mass media represents only one part of the “web” which, in the function of “mega apparatus” or “cyberspace» “, is in fact a separate world, within which there is no freedom to act, except for that of following its rules, as beforehand conditioning, just to be somebody in the world. This inversion of the media into aims clearly brings also an anthropological transformation caused by the mass media themselves. Man, in fact, is not a “something” granted by its being; his existence in the world depends also on the way he manipulates the surrounding reality, so that not only the mass media transform themselves, but man himself does. And this happens independently on how he uses the media or on the aims he wants to achieve when using them. In fact, we are facing the birth of a new kind of man: the technological man