POLITICS OF THE DIGITAL IMAGE: RECONSIDERING VILEM FLUSSER’S DIALECTICAL PHENOMENOLOGY AND HABERMAS’S CRITICAL FRAMEWORK AFTER THE DIGITAL TURN

Date

2026-1-2

Author

Sarıkaya, Mehmetcan

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Purpose of this study is to analyze how the conditions of democratic discourse and political presence are being transformed by digital images as omnipresent information and communication codifiers in the early 21st century. This study focuses on an interdisciplinary intersection of critical theory and media philosophy by positioning Vilem Flusser’s new media ontology into the Jürgen Habermas’ normative theoretical framework he revisited on the public sphere. With a synthesized methodological approach, study aims to reconstruct and clarify certain key concepts such as telematic society, technical image, communicative rationality, refeudalization of public sphere etc... before scrutinizing further on how these conceptualizations actualize today’s contemporary digital media spaces. Furthermore, the concept of ‘digital image’ is problematized as an omnipresent locus of symbolically complexified representation of political power. With a thematic theoretical study of abovementioned figures, potentials, contingencies and the emancipatory limitations of ‘digital image’ in the public sphere are evaluated and capacities of political participation are exposed.

Subject Keywords

Vilem Flusser, Jürgen Habermas, Digital Image, Political Sociology, Digital Humanities

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/118294

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis