Under Suspicion: A Phenomenology of Media

The submedial subject and the flux of signs -- The truth of the medial and the state of exception -- The media-ontological suspicion and philosophical skepticism -- The phenomenology of medial sincerity -- The gaze of the other -- The medium becomes the message -- The case of exception and the truth of the medial -- Marcel Mauss: symbolic exchange or civilization under water -- Claude Lévi-Strauss: mana or the floating signifier -- Georges Bataille: the potlatch with the sun -- Jacques Derrida: the lack of time and its ghosts -- Jean-François Lyotard: the roller-coaster of the sublime -- The time of signs -- Suspicion is the medium

Since the public generally regards the media with suspicion and distrust, the media's central concern is to regain that trust through the production of sincerity. Advancing the field of media studies in a truly innovative way, Boris Groys focuses on the media's affect of sincerity and its manufacture of trust to appease skeptics. Groys identifies forms of media sincerity and its effect on politics, culture, society, and conceptions of the self. He relies on different philosophical writings thematizing the gaze of the other, from the theories of Heidegger, Sartre, Mauss, and Bataille to the poststructuralist formulations of Lacan and Derrida. He also considers media "states of exception" and their creation of effects of sincerity-a strategy that feeds the media's predilection for the extraordinary and the sensational, further fueling the public's suspicions. Emphasizing the media's production of emotion over the presentation (or lack thereof) of "facts," Groys launches a timely study that boldly challenges the presumed authenticity of the media's worldview.

Since the public generally regards the media with suspicion and distrust, the media's central concern is to regain that trust through the production of sincerity. Advancing the field of media studies in a truly innovative way, Boris Groys focuses on the media's affect of sincerity and its manufacture of trust to appease skeptics. Groys identifies forms of media sincerity and its effect on politics, culture, society, and conceptions of the self. He relies on different philosophical writings thematizing the gaze of the other, from the theories of Heidegger, Sartre, Mauss, and Bataill