The mediated dream: Paprika, digital subjectivity, and the culture industry

Abstract

This article offers a hermeneutic-cultural reading of Satoshi Kon’s Paprika (2006) as a work that critically examines the relationship among dreams, technology, culture industry, and digital subjectivity. Drawing on theories of representation, culture industry, audience studies, mediatization, and Maturana's reflections on language and relational domains, the article analyzes how technological mediations participate in the configuration of desires, imaginaries, and contemporary forms of self-perception. It argues that, although audiences retain margins for interpretation and resignification, these margins become more complex in a digital culture where the very contexts of reception are shaped by platforms, audiovisual flows, and algorithmic logics of visibility. Paprika is thus interpreted as a critical device for examining the dream as a territory mediated by narratives, screens, and cultural forms of subjective production.