TO THE BOOM OF MEDIA THEORIES

The article presents a historical and troubleshooting summary of the development of new media and their theoretical conceptualizations. In a connection with their advancement it formulates several theses: since 1950s the media theory arises as a phobic leftist reaction to the new media (Th. W. Adorno, G. Anders) criticizing the so-called cultural industry, although the leftist media theory was tolerant to the new media in the first half of the 20th century (S. Kracauer). The author places the rejection to debit of, among others, the one-sided interpretation of Benjamin's theses from his 'The Work of Art in the Age of its Technical Reproduction'. A compensation of the new media comes with M. McLuhan and his theorems that the media enlarge the possibilities of man, create autonomous messages, and change the world into a 'global village'. N. Postman followed McLuhan in sense of cultural-conservative criticism, and J. Meyrowitz derived a positive notion of a role of electronic media in his thesis on the implementation of the new social borders through media. The author considers theses stating that the new media implicitly include a power element and an element of violence, and he inclines to the opinion that elite criticism of the new media comes from misunderstanding of their capabilities and the late creation of the theories in view of the technical-civilization progress.