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In Homo videns, Italian philosopher Giovanni Sartori (1997) claims that small children growing up with television images rather than written texts ought to have a radically different way of thinking. He argues that only the reception of texts teaches consecutio, logical thinking that allows for a coherent argumentation and the intelligibility of abstract meanings.

The homo videns' primacy on viewing, on perceiving images, instead, leads to the incapability of understanding connotations and complex meanings. Consequently, Sartori fears a degeneration of rational thinking, and of the demos' abilities to profoundly judge political processes.

Sartori's "videomalaise theory" (Martinez, 2004) has been widely discussed in Italy and Southern America in terms of his prognosis regarding television's influence on the political landscape (e.g., Miguel & Simoes 2000; Paramio 2002). His basic assumption on the emergence of a new quality of the human being, though, remains scarcely noted.

The presentation gives an overview of Sartori's work and discusses it on multiple layers. As suggested by Schraube (1998), television as a technology needs to be theoretically approached from at least two perspectives: First, meanings television and its programmes produce and reproduce for and through society; second, meanings relevant to the individual in its everyday concrete life circumstances, as seen from the "standpoint of the subject" (Maiers 1999). Taking these perspectives into account, can a primacy of the image in young children's development really be postulated? If so, how does this primacy become manifest in everyday action and thought?

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