Protective Media*

Abstract

Many contemporary media function as filters that protect us against external dangers, rather than as tools that help appropriate the world. From surveillance cameras to plastic partitions in pandemic times, from domestic screens to Zoom conversations, all build a sort of safe harbor from which to better manage reality. Consequently, mediation is no longer an “extension of man,” as Marshall McLuhan put it, but a more complex process, in which contact with the world relies on some kind of distancing, and in which grasping reality also means recognizing the threats it may pose – threats that are, more often than not, the result of human action on the world. This chapter explores the widespread presence of protective media in our contemporary media landscape, with its philosophical implications and its political consequences.