Media influence works through formal rather than efficient causation

Evidence

The particular effect of media enthralments has less to do with efficient causation than it has with formal causation. Among the four causes distinguished by Aristotle, besides the ‘material’ cause (the marble the statue is made of), the ‘final’ cause (the payment or glory the sculptor hopes to obtain through his work) and the ‘efficient’ cause (the gestures he makes with his hammer and chisel), the ‘formal’ cause designates the import of a pre-existing form on the development of a procedure. But, as Thierry Bardini, following Marshall McLuhan and Lance Strate, rightly highlights, the formal cause relates to environmental permeability and recursive circularity: it is difficult to prove (and to admit) that I bought a Nespresso coffee machine because I fell into the crude trap of identifying myself with George Clooney, who does their commercials; on the other hand, it is reasonable enough to think that it is because we are all submerged in Nestlé’s huge marketing campaign that my friends learned of the existence of such a machine, tried a sample, were seduced by its taste or design, spoke to me about it, etc. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 98

Categorization

• DEFINE: Recasts Aristotle’s formal cause as the operative mechanism of media influence, distinguishing it sharply from direct manipulation.
• XREF: Bridges Aristotle through McLuhan to the reader’s digital-media focus; contrasts with the naive manipulation model often read into Frankfurt.