“慢”从何来?——数字时代的手帐及其再中介化

Where is the Slowness from? : Shouzhang and its Remediation in a Digital Age

本文从再中介化(remediation)的视角对手帐这一数字时代的所谓"慢媒介"现象进行重新思考。基于对五个知名手帐品牌的产品分析、有关手帐的线上线下出版物的文本分析、以及对10位手帐爱好者的深度访谈,研究发现,手帐在中国青年群体中的兴起并非对某种传统文化的回归或对数字文化的反抗,其实质是在中国高度流动和加速的社会技术语境下、由生产者和使用者共同参与的新旧媒介再中介化的结果。手帐在数字时代已经发展为一种新旧交织的媒介组合而不是某个单一媒介,与数字媒介之间存在着相互依赖和深度融合,看似纸质和手工的技术实则在设计和实操理念中渗透着数字化编码和模块化管理等新媒体语言。至于人们从手帐中所感知到的"慢"和"断",也并非来自纸和笔的固有属性,而是传统书写技术的某些物质性或"痕迹"在数字技术条件下被特定的技术和文化实践"超中介化"的结果,其背后是技术之间、人与技术以及人与人之间的关系不断的生成和转化。本文希望以这一个案开启对数字时代诸多"慢媒介"和"断联"现象的追问,进一步思考媒介化过程中移动与非移动、快与慢、联结与非联结之间吊诡而复杂的关系,发现其中更为深刻的社会和技术变化以及权力关系。

This paper uses shouzhang as an example to interrogate the phenomenon of‘slow media’in the era of digitalization from‘remediation’point of view.Based on the product analysis of five famous brands,textual analysis of online and offline publications about shouzhang,and in-depth interview of 10 shouzhang fans,it argues that the rise of shouzhang culture among Chinese youth cannot be interpreted as a return to a local tradition or a resistance against digital culture.Instead,it is the result of remediation of both old and new media jointly participated by both the producer and the user in the context of unprecedented mobility and acceleration in contemporary China.In the digital age,shouzhang has developed into a media ensemble co-constituted by the old and the new technologies.What appears as physical and handcraft has equally been permeated with the digital language in its design logic and practical notion,such as numeric coding and modular organizing.As for the sense of slowness related to shouzhang,that is not derived from any innate property of paper and pen,but an effect when certain traces of media are made visible by the technical and cultural operation of the logic of hypermediacy.This case study calls for more critical thinking on various phenomena of‘slow media’and‘disconnection’in a digital age,which can further enrich our understanding of paradoxical relationships between mobile and immobile,fast and slow,connection and disconnection in the process of mediatization.