Mídia e inovação em Simmel, Benjamin e McLuhan

This paper aims to investigate the textual relations that link the thought of Simmel (Philosophie des Geldes and Die Grosstädte und das Geistesleben), Benjamin (Das Passagen-Werk) and McLuhan (Understanding Media) in terms of a common reflection on modes of technological innovation. Through a close reading of the texts, the reflection unfolds in three complementary parts: the reconstruction of the tradition mentioned above, accomplished through a focus of the traits of continuity that tie into an organic corpus of the three authors; a survey on the concept of medium and his epistemological implications; the case of photography, emblematic, in this study, for the technological innovation. The elements which arise from this reflection – medium and perception, medium and time, medium and habits, medium and social forms – show in detail an idea of communication based on a new image of history and nature, observed in their mutual relation of competition and exclusion