Trace Factory

Yves Jeanneret is an Emeritus Professor at Sorbonne University, France. He has participated in the development of Information and Communication Sciences at both a national and international level. His main research interests are in the relationship between media and information devices, and the life of knowledge and culture.

• Introduction ixChapter 1. The Mediatized Trace of the Social World, the Object of Research 11.1. There are traces and traces 31.1.1. The avatars of a trace of use 41.1.2. Metamorphoses of the trace 81.1.3. Mediation, mediatization, device 101.2. The social trace as a problem: the legacy of the history of the book 121.2.1. From book to reading 121.2.2. A constellation of categories 151.2.3. Structural difficulties 181.3. Relevance and efficiency 211.3.1. The evasive relevance of the trace 221.3.2. An efficient figure of relevance 231.3.3. Trace as an interpretative schema 25Chapter 2. The Schema of the Trace, a Paradoxical Semiotics 312.1. The false evidence of the Peircian index 352.1.1. The concept of index and semiotic theory 352.1.2. The index as a commonplace category 392.1.3. The production of indexicality 422.1.4. Assessment: a problematic legacy 462.2. The trace, appearance and presence of the past in the present 472.2.1. The photographic scene, here, now and in the past 502.2.2. The theoretical issue of Barthes’ analysis 542.3. From the archetype of the trace to its theoretical status 562.3.1. Photography as a commonplace archetype 562.3.2. From the trace schema to the deployment of devices 602.3.3. Photography as a pretext 622.4. The mediatized trace, a complex info-communication device 692.4.1. Device 712.4.2. Text 732.4.3. Representation772.4.4. Competence 812.4.5. Format 84Chapter 3. The Complex Genesis of the Written Trace 873.1. The available inscription 913.1.1. Inscription as a framework for thought 923.1.2. Grammatology or philosophy in the camera obscura 953.1.3. Ichnology as radical logistics 973.2. The thickness of the traced-out 1033.2.1. Actualized presentification in absentia 1043.2.2. Between inscription device and graphic gesture 1063.2.3. The traced-out feature, a figure of mediation 1083.3. It has been… written 1143.3.1. Signature, a social act between identification and authentication 1163.3.2. Genetic criticism in the context of the trace/traced-out couple 1193.4. The written trace as an institutional fact 1303.4.1. The written trace, a scientific assumption 1313.4.2. The written trace, a device of social knowledge power 1413.4.3. The written trace, an educational mediation 145Chapter 4. The Emerging Trace of the Media Text 1514.1. The poetics of Mnemosyne: media forms and social memory 1544.1.1. A mediatized space of thought 1574.1.2. The trace schema questionned by the atlas of forms 1644.1.3. The poetics of Mnemosyne at work in media analysis 1714.2. Indexical reading of media texts 1834.2.1. The textual witness as a ferment 1844.2.2. The “index paradigm”, from its commonplace life to its heuristic scope 1894.2.3. Quotations, from second hand to guestimates 2024.3. Writing in the future perfect 2134.3.1. Mnemosyne struggling with Lethe 2174.3.2. Changes in authority, economy of writings and media genesis of traces 2224.3.3. Memorial writing in devices 228Conclusion 231References 241Index 259