The friction of mediation. For a critique of technologically mediated world-relations

Bibliographic Data

ID19225258
AuthorsJoão Lucas Tziminadis (0000-0001-8181-3748), João Tziminadis (University of Erfurt, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume26
Issue1
Pagese48820-e48820
Publication date2026-05-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCivitas - Revista de Ciências Sociais (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1519-6089 • E-ISSN: 1984-7289
PublisherEdipucrs (PUBLISHER • BR)
DOI10.15448/2178-5694.2026.1.48820
OpenAlexW7162342445
LanguageEN
References cited21

While contemporary technology studies and philosophy have illuminated humanity’s constitutive technicity, they often bracket questions of modern social formation and alienation. Conversely, critical theory’s modernity diagnoses have tended to treat technology primarily as instrumental reason. This essay programmatically explores the tension between postphenomenology’s relational account of technological mediation and Hartmut Rosa’s critique of modernity. Introducing friction as constitutive discontinuity in mediated world-relations, it argues that modernity’s escalatory dynamics reduce friction to obstacles to be overcome. By foregrounding the friction of mediation, the paper sketches a critique of technologically mediated world relations oriented toward rehabilitating the engaging and transformative potential of friction

Affordance · Foregrounding · Idealization · Late modernity · Materiality (auditing) · Mediation · Modernity · Transformative learning · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Digital Media and Philosophy · Humanities and Social Sciences

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Open DOIOpen Access