Influologie et mediologie. Le devenir-force des idées Entretien entre Régis Debray et Thérence Carvalho

Abstract

This interview conducted by Thérence Carvalho with Régis Debray explores the relationship between influence, mediology, and literature. Starting from Debray’s long-standing reflection on the material, institutional, and symbolic conditions of transmission, the discussion examines how ideas move beyond books and minds to become historical forces. It situates mediology within the broader hypothesis of an “influology”, developed by Carvalho as a critical and interdisciplinary field of inquiry concerned with the agents, supports, mediations, institutions, and contexts of reception through which ideas circulate, gain authority, and produce social effects. Debray reflects on the historical figure of the intellectual, the decline of the written culture that sustained it, the rise of new media regimes, and the transformation of influence in the age of images and digital communication. The conversation also addresses the role of masters and literary models, the tension between the writer and the intellectual, the religious dimension of ideology, and the uncertain posterity of intellectual work. By confronting mediology with the question of influence, the interview contributes to a renewed understanding of the social life of ideas.

Keywords: Influence, Influology, History of Mediology, Intellectual History, Transmission of Ideas, Ideology