Abstract

István Hajnal is one of the most remarkable historians and a forerunner of research on the history of communication. He developed his radical theories on the connections between writing as a technique and social structure mainly in the first half of the twentieth century. He emphasized, in a unique way, the importance of technology for social development arguing that the transformation of social structures and the individual within stand in a mutual and interdependent relation with various technological systems. While doing so he reconsidered Max Weber's concepts of traditionalism and rationalism from a so to speak Heideggerian angle