Formal Analysis and Cultural Critique in Digital Media Theory

Abstract

Remediation is one example of an intermedia theory. If intermedia is about the relationships between media forms, remediation constitutes a specific reading of that relationship. Remediation is concerned with the cultural or economic competition of various media forms. The competition takes the form of a dispute over the 'real' or authentic - not, of course, in any metaphysical sense, but rather in terms of how our culture (or segments of our culture) define the authenticity of experience offered by each of these media forms. Remediation offers a way of understanding how the borrowing of formal elements takes on cultural significance. Remediation could therefore serve as a 'bridge theory', showing that formal and cultural theories of media can be seen as two aspects of the same phenomenon.