Média Médiums

Over the course of the twentieth-century, the "schizophrenic" gradually displaced the medium as the primary target of media hauntings. This talk presents a brief overview of schizophrenia as a "disease of information" and considers the historical braiding of psychosis, electronics, and media. How did "the media" become the primary antagonist in paranoid delusions and what does the ongoing proliferation of information technologies portend for the collective "sanity" of the world? Jeffrey Sconce is Associate Professor of Screen Cultures at Northwestern University. He is the author of "Haunted Media - Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television" (Duke 2000) and the editor of "Sleaze Artists - Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Financing (Duke 2007)." His forthcoming book project examines the historical relationship between electronic media and delusional psychosis.