The authors consider protomediality as a key characteristic of media history. The problems of the socio-cultural functionality of the zones and spaces of ancient settlements have been partially addressed in anthropological research, but the development of the theory of media communication creates opportunities for identifying new interdisciplinary fields. The authors proceed from the fact that the history of media can be considered as media anthropology, which allows combining the categorical series of media theory and qualitative anthropological studies of ancient cultures. Protomediality in this perspective relies on a broad understanding of media as a mediator of any nature that makes possible the transmission of social meanings. Protomediality is seen as a communication characteristic of ancient societies, set by the conjugation of social communication and the configuration of habitable space. The palace and temple architecture of the Ancient World centers the figure of the deified king as a key mediator between gods and people, initiating the design of the symbolic structure of social space. In the polities of Ancient Greece, consisting of conflicting and competing social groups, there was a need for a special environment that allows converting each other's internal group codes and identities into a single socio-political whole. Its types are special forms of middle public spaces, the structuring of which the authors consider using the example of a symposium. Representing the institution of a house party organized in the conditions of andronous urban houses, the symposium formed a narrow community of equals (regardless of their real or absent civil status outside the walls of the house) through their inclusion in agonal, hedonistic and demonstrative practices. The authors show how the synchronization of local cultural codes, necessary for the formation of a common civil identity, was carried out within the symposium framework, and come to the conclusion that it constitutes the content of the protomediality of the symposium.
The authors consider protomediality as a key characteristic of media history. The problems of the socio-cultural functionality of the zones and spaces of ancient settlements have been partially addressed in anthropological research, but the development of the theory of media communication creates opportunities for identifying new interdisciplinary fields. The authors proceed from the fact that the history of media can be considered as media anthropology, which allows combining the categorical series of media theory and qualitative anthropological studies of ancient cultures. Protomediality in this perspective relies on a broad understanding of media as a mediator of any nature that makes possible the transmission of social meanings. Protomediality is seen as a communication characteristic of ancient societies, set by the conjugation of social communication and the configuration of habitable space. The palace and temple architecture of the Ancient World centers the figure of the deified king as a key mediator between gods and people, initiating the design of the symbolic structure of social space. In the polities of Ancient Greece, consisting of conflicting and competing social groups, there was a need for a special environment that allows converting each other's internal group codes and identities into a single socio-political whole. Its types are special forms of middle public spaces, the structuring of which the authors consider using the example of a symposium. Representing the institution of a house party organized in the conditions of andronous urban houses, the symposium formed a narrow community of equals (regardless of their real or absent civil status outside the walls of the house) through their inclusion in agonal, hedonistic and demonstrative practices. The authors show how the synchronization of local cultural codes, necessary for the formation of a common civil identity, was carried out within the symposium framework, and come to the conclusion that it constitutes the content of the protomediality of the symposium.