Abstract
The current debate as to whether media education or media competence is the more appropriate of the two terms is considered against the background of their respective theoretical conceptions. For this purpose, the example of education theory is used to examine which perspective it opens up on media interaction in comparison to competence theory: technical mediality creates distance from an immediately pressing, existential bindingness, so that communication with media can in principle be experienced aesthetically. Education through media must face up to the non-binding nature of media reception and interaction that this creates; interpretations and agreements made here must prove themselves in social interaction. The conclusion is that the guiding question should not be which term is the more sustainable, but in which context it is used in each case.
