Media Temporalities in the Internet

Media Temporalities in the Internet: "Abstract

The essay comprises four sections. The first section provides a survey of some significant developments which today determine philosophical discussion on the subject of 'time'. The second section conisders the question of how time and the issue of media are linked with one another in the views of two influential contemporary philosophers - Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty. Finally, in the third section, the temporal implications of cultural practices developing in the new medium of the Internet are analyzed and, in the fourth section, related to the named philosophers' theses.
Introduction

Traditionally time was thought of as being a transcendent dimension of human experience and, hence, as something which would remain quite unaffected by the mere advent of new communications technologies such as the Internet. Modern philosophical thinking about time, however, has questioned traditional presuppositions in such a way that cultural determinants of its conception have become more manifest. In the following account an attempt is made to illustrate the way in which the Internet proves particularly apt in demonstrating the characteristics of two influential contemporary philosophical views of time and media: namely, those of Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty. To do this current philosophical debate on time is first briefly surveyed. I will then outline the way in which Derrida and Rorty link the issues of time and media, and procede to use these links as a basis for examining the forms of temporality prevalent in the semiotic environment of Internet-based computer-mediated communication (CMC). Having argued that temporality is in fact embedded in pragmatic semiotic action I will, finally, attempt to bring out and fuse complementary aspects of Derrida's and Rorty's viewpoints and to establish the importance of the close interrelationship between philosophical and political reflexion on time and media."