On November 11th, Dr. Jens Schröter (University of Bonn) joined our colloquium series with a paper entitled “Money and Media Theory.” As the title suggests, Professor Schröter’s research brings together theories of money and media, investigating the central question of whether media theory can contribute something to the discussion of money that other disciplines dealing with money, such as economics, sociology, political theory, and philosophy, cannot. Professor Schröter argued for interfaces between economic and media-theoretical discourses, situating money not only as core subject matter for economic and media theories but also as an area of intersection between them.
Professor Schröter began his argument by contrasting theories of money as commodity and money as sign. Referencing Marx’s Grundrisse and Das Kapital, he stated that even though media theory seems to be tending towards sign theories of money, both sign and commodity theories of money can be understood as different formulations of a more fundamental media theory. Professor Schröter also discussed money’s purported neutrality in neoclassical theory, examining what such a notion would entail for a media theory of money. He concluded that a description of money as a medium in the sense of media theory is incompatible with certain assumptions about the neutrality of money.
Based on these arguments on media and money, Professor Schröter sketched out a new media-historical perspective, namely, “monetary media archaeology”. Such a perspective would allow for the examination of how media are shaped by their attachment to a “primordial media economy” of money, as well as how processes of monetary creation can give rise to concepts of media that are shaped by money. Professor Schröter argued that the aim of a monetary media archaeology must be the development of a hitherto underexposed history of economy and economics that would ultimately ensure the renewed visibility of money as the “medium par excellence.”
Professor Schröter’s paper gave rise to a lively discussion. Questions revolved around the specific role Marx plays in Professor Schröter’s argumentation, as well as around aspects of money’s stability, materiality, and digitality. Other questions touched upon the intersections of a media theory of money with politics, social media, and history. The discussion continued at a warm reception following the event. (Isabel Choinowski)
