Abstract

Ethics for media users face the problem how ordinary users can be empowered to play an active role as ethically responsible subjects. Constituting a free media user is thus based on what Hegel called »bestimmte Negation« of some clearly negative effects of medias like the danger of addiction, the manipulation of worldviews, the withdrawal of attention, virtual ubiquity, para-social relationships. This article argues for favoring bodily-dialogical reality over virtual, technically conserved, derived reality. This aspect, which is one-sided if considered on its own, is thus to be connected with an appreciation of media as means of real encounter that is founded in the teaching of the media salutis. Ethics for media users aims to enable the use of high quality media in an enjoyable way.