感官征服:“单向度”视角中网络媒介的文化功能

The Conquest of the Senses :The Cultural Role of Internet Media Discussed with the Theory of“One-Di mensionality”

本文立足马尔库塞“单向度”理论的批判视角探析网络媒介功能。认为技术与文化意义上的网络媒介功能,本质上是一种“单向度”的对网络主体的感官征服。“人性化”界面,以其多感官的表象模式,对网络主体感官进行技术同化和改造,实现对主体感知世界方式、效果的影响与控制。超文本的“多维空间”威胁着网络主体的意义容纳能力;非线性、自由联想的感知方式,使主体在“超空间”中迷失。网络主体在虚拟现实中沉浸,则意味着主体经验越来越成为人工的产物与技术的附庸。媒介即讯息,网络媒介技术对主体精神的感知方式、存在方式的深刻影响,特别是其“单向度”的功能局限,值得我们深入地反思和清醒地对待。

This paper attempts to explore the role of Internet media using the critical theory of Herbert Marcuse about “one-dimensionality”, It is argued that the function of Internet media in both the technological and the cultural sense in essence reflects a conquest of the senses of the net user by “one-dimensionality”. With its pattern of representations appealing to multiple senses, the “humanized” interface technologically assimilates and transforms the senses of the net user and takes control of the way the he perceives the world and the effect and outcome of his perception. The capacity of the net user to receive meaning is threatened by the “multi-dimensional space” of the hypertext, and the net user gets lost in the “hyperspace” due to the non-linear and freely-associating way of perceiving. The net user is immersed in virtual reality, which means his subjective experi- ence has increasingly become an artificial product and an appendage of technology. As “the media is information”, we need to reflect deeply on the profound effect of the Internet media technology on the perception of the actor＇ s spirit and its way of being, especially on the limitations of the onedimensional role the Internet media.