從「道地」到「對道地的想像」：媒介社會中一種社會自我觀察的可能起點

What is ”authenticity”? Why do we need ”authenticity”? How do people know whether it is authentic or not? The questions mentioned above are concerned with the relationships between people, people and society, and connect closely to how people and society understand themselves. The experience of authenticity/inauthenticity implies not only subjective knowing but also objective formation and understanding of it. This essay examines the concept of authenticity and its opposite, and suggests an alternative to access it. Through the lens of Charles Taylor, Walter Benjamin, David Harvey, we extract some shared thoughts among their discussion of the concept of authenticity/inauthenticity. At the last part of this article we suggest that, pace Gianni Vattimo's questioning of the ”transparency” of modern/media society, there is no need to find or to testify ”authenticity”, rather there exists and requires only the ”imagination” of it. To a great extent influenced by technological advancements it is not unnecessary to access authenticity, instead the requirement of it has been broadens and deepens than ever before. The more we need to pursue authenticity, the more we fall into the production of inauthentic discourses. This will be another starting point in understanding how modern society describes and observes itself.