Alterity — A Category of Practice and Analysis

Preliminary Remarks

“Media exist because there is alterity” — so reads the first sentence of an introduction to media theories. [1] We need media to ensure that the position of alterity (the different, the Other) can be articulated, because “[a]lterity means an ‘other’ that initially denies access, that requires a third party to guarantee its conveyance, symbolization, preservation, transfer or communication.” [2] At first, a position of alterity seems to resist being made accessible. […]

Otherness in the Context of Martin Luther King’s Assassination in Les Actualités Françaises of 1968

Alterity relies on identity. There is no Other without any kind of self-conception — neither for an individual, nor for a culture. [1] Various concepts of alterity, as well as research projects focusing on alterity and the concept of otherness, speak for an increasing interest in the approach to alterity as related to identity. [2]