Pedagogical theory of medium

Zvonimir Komar

Summary:  The paper’s central question is, is there a view of media that can be articulated through a specifically pedagogical theory, and if there is, how does the idea of medium open up to this pedagogical thinking? By answering this question, we would be able to articulate a specifically (pedagogically) determined outlook on media, but at the same time, we would be able to read pedagogical potentialities of the media themselves. By approaching the matter in this way, we would not be talking about pedagogical use of media but about pedagogical properties inherent in media and letting them speak in their own particular pedagogical strength without using them as means to a heteronomous goal. This line of inquiry relies on two other questions that must be answered before the central question above. First, what is pedagogical theory, and second, what is a medium? If we are able to answer these two questions and through them see the limited unity of the pedagogical outlook and the general properties of media (the idea of a medium), we could synthesize the answer to our central question. By approaching the inquiry in this way, we do not talk about specific media in this paper but prepare the theoretical outlook for pedagogical investigations of concrete, specific media. We see this paper as a preparatory theoretical work that tries to reflect the way in which we pedagogically see and ask questions about media, as well as how we use these media in a wide range of pedagogical relations.