Rather, what is true of all of the integration perspectives is that in each of
the ‘levels’ of social integration, individuals are separated and united at
the same time. It is the architecture of this separation and unity and the
tension that exists between levels which will determine the kinds of com-
munity and association that are possible within given social formations. It
is to the question of community that we shall now turn.Notes
Some of the passages discussing the work of Derrida in this chapter are derived from
Holmes, D. (1989), ‘Deconstruction: A Politics Without a Subject’, Arena, No. 188: 73–116.
1 This, of course, becomes metaphysical in the cases of the discourses of cyberculture –
discussion of being ‘jacked-in’ to the matrix, etc., plugged in to the medium.
2 In his treatment of Saussure, Derrida merely repeats the much earlier development that
is offered by Jacques Lacan (1985).
3 This would imply a mode of ideality in which, for example, a sign could be infinitely
repeated and withstand modification of its meaning, a project which occupied the
philosopher Edmund Husserl.
4 For an extended review of Derrida’s writings see Holmes (1989) and Norris (1982).
5 This is implicit throughout Derrida’s work and is explicit in the opening of SEC with a
distinction between non-semiolinguistic and semiolinguistic communication, between
communication in the sense of bridging a gap, making close what was afar, and the
sense of communication as the transmission of meaning.
6 Except that the medium actually provides such a context when engaged with ritually. It
is precisely because the original context cannot be reproduced that we look to the
medium itself.
7 But also its inadequacy compared to the civic virtues of print (see Marc, 2000: 637).
Telephones have seldom met with the same kind of critique.
8 Alexander argues that news operates in a paradigm of truth-telling, but that when it
addresses an issue concerned with crisis, this function gives way to being a forum for
what he calls ‘a certain ritualized value experience’. In a case study of the reporting of
Watergate in the US media in 1973, Alexander argues that the media had become more
concerned with ‘“values” that define the meaning of nation, the nature of citizenship,
the duties of office, or the meaning of life itself. When truth is broadcast on such a gen-
eralized level, there is media ritual’ (245).
9 See Regis (1990) for a discussion of how postmodern technoscience rejoices in exceed-
ing and abjuring the body.
10 For an exemplary instance of this treatment of identity, see Donath (1999).
11 Using the example of television, Thompson illustrates this point (Thompson, 1995: 96).
12 Thus, as Thompson (1995) points out, it is possible to ‘communicate through television’ (92).
13 In a rare articulation of this form of integration that is conceptualized in the interests of
the promotion of talk shows, Couldry cites a television producer from Dominique
Mehl’s analysis of intimacy and television, who explains the attractions of TV for
self-disclosure. ‘It’s as if, in order to speak to those close to them, it’s necessary [for them]
to pass through TV. One could say that, in order that these people are reintroduced into
the social circuit, they must pass through television.... Which is their home’ (quotation
translated in Couldry, 2003: 124).
14 Thus reciprocity does not require the ‘logocentric’ here and now of interaction, but is
made possible by the anticipationthat it is at least possible to be in the position of an
interlocutor (as in the case of ‘para-social interaction’). Or as Walter Ong (1982) says: ‘In
real human communication, the sender has to be not only in the sender position but alsoInteraction versus Integration 165Holmes-05.qxd 2/15/2005 1:00 PM Page 165