"There is no culture without transmission, the incessant transfer of a past towards a future. But there is no transmission that is not constituted by heritage, within conditions fixed by the means of transmission, where technical vectors and political bodies meet. Transmission is attached to rendering an account of this complex process, because it is both a material and an institutional process, and it is not exaggerating to say that it is the principle of all civilized history.This book inaugurates a collection entitled "Le Champ Médiologique" (The Mediological Field"). This is the crucial zone, still shadowy, whereTechnique and culture intersect, thus forming our knowledge. "Mediology" : under this new term looks to clarify mediations - which are sometimes underestimated, even unseen - and upon which our religious, artistic, ideological or political lives depend."(Régis Debray)