“As metáforas da mídia como epistemologias implícitas” (original) (raw)

2007, In Florence Dravet, Gustavo de Castro, and João José Cuvello, (Eds.), Os Saberes da Comunicação: Dos Fundamentos aos Processos, Brasilia: Casa das Musas, 2007, 23-34.

I argue that there are three competing core metaphors that have operated silently and simultaneously beneath the surface of research and popular discourse about communication technologies. Each metaphor has facilitated clear thinking about media for those who embrace it, and yet it has also tended to discourage questions about media that grow out of the other metaphors. The largely unconscious embrace of media metaphors has also led to confusion and misunderstanding among those drawing on different metaphors, precisely because they are speaking about different objects and processes without realizing it. The three metaphors are: medium as vessel/conduit, medium as language, and medium as environment. This essay very briefly outlines these three images of media and the epistemological implications of each. Related articles appeared as “What Are Media?” in Culture, Vol. 11 (3-4), Spring/Summer 1997, 5-7, and as “Understandings of Media” in Et cetera, 56(1), Spring 1999, 44-52. For extended forms of the model outlined here, see “Images of Media: Hidden Ferment—and Harmony—in the Field,” Journal of Communication, Vol. 43(3), Summer 1993, 55-66, and “Multiple Media Literacies,” Journal of Communication, 48(1), Winter 1998, 96-108. The author wishes to thank Janna Meyrowitz for her comments and suggestions. Portuguese translation by Kelly Missae Miyano Sumi.