Parasitic transmission

Abstract

In this article I have applied Michel Serres’s theory of parasite culture to the analysis of technical media. Technology changes human relations forming new regulations in the field of culture. I have shown that parasitic transmission is an constitutive mode of being of technical media. I have illustrated my theoretical arguments by the examples of everyday media usage. I suggest that parasitic transmission is not something to be judged morally. Instead, I propose to look at it as a mechanism embedded in technoculture. I also draw consequences from that statement later in the summary of the paper.