- University of Luxembourg
Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History
Maison des Sciences Humaines
11, Porte des Sciences
L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette - (+352) 46 66 44 9324
- Université du Luxembourg, FLSHASE - Histoire, Faculty Memberadd
- Digital History, Digital Humanities, European History, Cultural History, Media History, History of Science and Technology, and 34 moreTransnational and World History, Media Studies, History, Technology, German speaking minority Belgium, Media and Cultural Studies, Political History, Television Studies, Comparative History, Media Convergence, Transnational History, Standardization, Television History, History of Mass Media, History of Broadcasting, Americanization, Mediengeschichte, Experts in the 20th century, Télévision, Histoire Des Médias, Fernsehgeschichte, Bruno Latour, New Media, First World War, Radio, History of Technology, Museum Studies, Media Archaeology, Epistemology, Science and Technology Studies, Computer Networks, Databases, Software, and Big Dataedit
- I'm Professor of Contemporary and Digital History at Luxembourg University and Director of the Luxembourg Centre for ... moreI'm Professor of Contemporary and Digital History at Luxembourg University and Director of the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (www.c2dh.uni.lu). After finishing highschool in Belgium, I studied history, philosophy and sociology at the universities of Aachen (G) and Reims (F), specializing on the history of science and technology and the sociology and philosophy of knowledge. I rejoined Aachen University as research and teaching assistant in contemporary history after practical courses at the German Museum for science and technology in Munich and Bonn. My interest in media technologies resulted in a deeper concern for media history (especially radio and television).
In 2003 I was appointed Assistant Professor for television history at the department for Media and Culture at Utrecht University, and set up a broader research agenda for a comparative European history of television. Between October 2007 and August 2013 I worked as Associate Professor for Comparative Media History at Maastricht University and was a member of the department of Arts and Culture and the research group Science, Technology and Society. Since September 2013 I am Professor for Contemporary History at Luxembourg University with a special focus on epistemological and methodological issues concerning digital historiography. Recently (September 2016) I was appointed Director of the third Interdisciplinary Centre of Luxembourg University, the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH). The Centre aims at developing new tools and technologies in the field of contemporary digital history and to promote a hands-on approach in experimenting with - and critically reflecting on - the hermeneutic dimension of doing history contemporary history in the digital age. This is also the focus of the Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) on "Digital History and Hermeneutics" - a 4-year project funded by the Fonds National de Recherche (FNR) that enables 13 PhD students and 1 Post-Doc to do fascinating research projects in a unique interdisciplinary "trading zone". For more information on the DTU see https://dhh.uni.lu
My scholarly ambition is to bridge theoretical and methodological approaches from various disciplines (especially from history of technology, media and cultural studies) in order to further develop my ideas of a cultural history of media technologies in the digital age.
I'm engaged in several European research networks, such as the Tensions of Europe network (www.tensionsofeurope.eu) and the European Television History Network. Have a look at our open access e-journal on European television history and culture (www.viewjournal.eu) to see our latest experiment in setting up a European multi-media platform for television research! Another project I'm doing deals with the relationship of technology and memory in amateur film making called "Changing Platforms of Ritualized Memory Production". Have a look at our webblog: www.homemoviesproject.com In May 2017 we officially launched the tri-national Doctoral School "Internationale Geschichte interdisziplinär: Deutsch-französisch-europäische Perspektiven im 20. Jahrhundert / L’histoire internationale par l’interdisciplinarité. Perspectives franco-allemandes et européennes au XXe siècle", a joint venture by the Universität des Saarlandes (Prof. Dietmar Hüser), Université Paris-Sorbonne (Prof. Hélène Miard-Delacroix) and Luxembourg University (myself). The Doctoral School (www.docteuropa.eu) is funded by the German-French University and a great opportunity for transnational doctoral education and intellectual exchanges. I'm principal investigator of an FNR-funded project on experimental media archaeology (https://dema.uni.lu) and a bilateral research group between the University of Saarland and the University of Luxembourg on popular culture during the long sixties (https://popkult60.eu). Recently we launched the new Journal of Digital History (https://journalofdigitalhistory.org/en) aiming at promoting a new form of data-driven publishing and digital hermeneutics in history.edit
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This anniversary brochure highlights the interesting work happening at the C²DH. The many projects presented in this brochure are imbued with this experimental C²DH mindset and demonstrate the centre's ambition to explore new ways of... more
This anniversary brochure highlights the interesting work happening at the C²DH. The many projects presented in this brochure are imbued with this experimental C²DH mindset and demonstrate the centre's ambition to explore new ways of thinking, doing and narrating history in the digital age.
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The Journal of Digital History (JDH) is a joint initiative of the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) at the University of Luxembourg and the De Gruyter publishing group. The journal is intended to serve as a... more
The Journal of Digital History (JDH) is a joint initiative of the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) at the University of Luxembourg and the De Gruyter publishing group.
The journal is intended to serve as a forum for critical debate and discussion in the field of digital history by offering an innovative publication platform and promoting a new form of data-driven scholarship and of transmedia storytelling in the historical sciences. As an international peer-reviewed open access journal, the JDH will set new standards in history publishing based on a novel multi-layered approach. Each article will include:
- a narration layer involving transmedia storytelling;
- a hermeneutic layer exploring the methodological implications of using digital tools and data;
- a data layer providing access to data and code by means of a professional infrastructure. A key tool for this layer will be code notebooks.
Please watch the presentation of the Journal at the Historikertag in München on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvS5l1moG3E
The journal is intended to serve as a forum for critical debate and discussion in the field of digital history by offering an innovative publication platform and promoting a new form of data-driven scholarship and of transmedia storytelling in the historical sciences. As an international peer-reviewed open access journal, the JDH will set new standards in history publishing based on a novel multi-layered approach. Each article will include:
- a narration layer involving transmedia storytelling;
- a hermeneutic layer exploring the methodological implications of using digital tools and data;
- a data layer providing access to data and code by means of a professional infrastructure. A key tool for this layer will be code notebooks.
Please watch the presentation of the Journal at the Historikertag in München on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvS5l1moG3E
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www.zeitschichten.be / Erkundungen eines Zwischenraums (Ostbelgien 1920-2020) ist eine virtuelle Ausstellung über die Geschichte der Region Eupen-Malmedy-Sankt Vith seit dem Staatenwechsel von 1920. Das Projekt ist das Resultat einer... more
www.zeitschichten.be / Erkundungen eines Zwischenraums (Ostbelgien 1920-2020) ist eine virtuelle Ausstellung über die Geschichte der Region Eupen-Malmedy-Sankt Vith seit dem Staatenwechsel von 1920. Das Projekt ist das Resultat einer Zusammenarbeit zwischen der Deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft Belgiens, dem Zentrum für Ostbelgische Geschichte und des C²DH.
Am 20. September 1920 erkannte der Völkerbund die belgische Souveränität über die Kantone Eupen-Malmedy an. Eine virtuelle Ausstellung des Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) wird dieses Jahrhundert ostbelgischer Geschichte nun dauerhaft für Benutzer mit unterschiedlichen Interessen und Kenntnissen präsentieren.
Die virtuelle Ausstellung zeitschichten.be lädt dazu ein, die bewegte Geschichte des ostbelgischen Zwischenraums interaktiv zu erkunden. Zentrale Fragen an die ostbelgische Geschichte werden problemorientiert aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven beleuchtet. Eine reiche Auswahl an digitalisierten Quellen (Fotos, Texte, Videos, Archivdokumente) steht zur Erforschung bereit! Die Ausstellung ist in vier Sprachen (Deutsch, Französisch, Englisch und Niederländisch) abrufbar.
Am 20. September 1920 erkannte der Völkerbund die belgische Souveränität über die Kantone Eupen-Malmedy an. Eine virtuelle Ausstellung des Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) wird dieses Jahrhundert ostbelgischer Geschichte nun dauerhaft für Benutzer mit unterschiedlichen Interessen und Kenntnissen präsentieren.
Die virtuelle Ausstellung zeitschichten.be lädt dazu ein, die bewegte Geschichte des ostbelgischen Zwischenraums interaktiv zu erkunden. Zentrale Fragen an die ostbelgische Geschichte werden problemorientiert aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven beleuchtet. Eine reiche Auswahl an digitalisierten Quellen (Fotos, Texte, Videos, Archivdokumente) steht zur Erforschung bereit! Die Ausstellung ist in vier Sprachen (Deutsch, Französisch, Englisch und Niederländisch) abrufbar.
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Les Postes luxembourgeoises sont nées le 2 août 1842. Dans un premier temps, des services postaux sont organisés. Les facteurs commencent à sillonner le pays par temps de soleil, de pluie ou de neige en transportant le courrier, les... more
Les Postes luxembourgeoises sont nées le 2 août 1842. Dans un premier temps, des services postaux sont organisés. Les facteurs commencent à sillonner le pays par temps de soleil, de pluie ou de neige en transportant le courrier, les paquets et les journaux. La télécommunication quant à elle n’en est qu’à son balbutiement avec l’installation d’un premier télégraphe électrique. Lorsque le premier réseau téléphonique national est mis en service, il comprend 91 abonnés. Au début du XXe siècle, les diligences postales disparaissent progressivement au profit de l’automobile et en 1933 un premier vol postal a lieu entre Luxembourg et Bruxelles. Un bureau de dessin est chargé de la représentation du réseau dont les plans dépassent largement la taille d’un homme.
L’exposition virtuelle, réalisée par Aurélia Lafontaine, doctorante au C²DH, vous permet ainsi de revivre l’épopée pionnière des postes luxembourgeoises avec des cartes, des photos, des documents historiques sans oublier la chanson du facteur… Mais vous y apprendrez également comment les postes et télécommunications ont réussi à positionner le Luxembourg en tant que global-player en misant sur l’industrie satellitaire. De même, l’exposition retrace les défis de la digitalisation des réseaux jusqu’au développement de la téléphonie mobile et d’internet.
L’exposition peut être explorée via la ligne du temps retraçant les grandes étapes de l’histoire des P&T, mais également par le biais d’une collection de près de 500 documents originaux, d’une carte interactive et des dossiers thématiques suivants :
La digitalisation des réseaux
L’introduction du standard GSM au Luxembourg
Le bureau de dessin- Maître des plans
Les radiocommunications au Luxembourg (1964-1980)
Les radiocommunications au Luxembourg (1981-1994)
Les différents métiers de POST courrier
Le quotidien d’un facteur
Le central EMD de Luxembourg-Gare
L’ère des satellites - aspects techniques
L’ère des satellites - aspects juridiques
L’exposition virtuelle, réalisée par Aurélia Lafontaine, doctorante au C²DH, vous permet ainsi de revivre l’épopée pionnière des postes luxembourgeoises avec des cartes, des photos, des documents historiques sans oublier la chanson du facteur… Mais vous y apprendrez également comment les postes et télécommunications ont réussi à positionner le Luxembourg en tant que global-player en misant sur l’industrie satellitaire. De même, l’exposition retrace les défis de la digitalisation des réseaux jusqu’au développement de la téléphonie mobile et d’internet.
L’exposition peut être explorée via la ligne du temps retraçant les grandes étapes de l’histoire des P&T, mais également par le biais d’une collection de près de 500 documents originaux, d’une carte interactive et des dossiers thématiques suivants :
La digitalisation des réseaux
L’introduction du standard GSM au Luxembourg
Le bureau de dessin- Maître des plans
Les radiocommunications au Luxembourg (1964-1980)
Les radiocommunications au Luxembourg (1981-1994)
Les différents métiers de POST courrier
Le quotidien d’un facteur
Le central EMD de Luxembourg-Gare
L’ère des satellites - aspects techniques
L’ère des satellites - aspects juridiques
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Educação, além de diretor do Centro de História Contemporânea e Digital (C2DH) da Universidade de Luxemburgo. O Centro visa a desenvolver novas ferramentas e tecnologias no campo da história digital contemporânea e promover uma abordagem... more
Educação, além de diretor do Centro de História Contemporânea e Digital (C2DH) da Universidade de Luxemburgo. O Centro visa a desenvolver novas ferramentas e tecnologias no campo da história digital contemporânea e promover uma abordagem prática na experimentação e reeexão criativa sobre a dimensão hermenêutica da história contemporânea e da história na era digital.
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Le troisième centre interdisciplinaire de l’Université du Luxembourg s’est présenté lundi, près de huit mois après sa naissance effective le 1er octobre. «Le C2DH est le résultat d’un processus de négociations politiques et... more
Le troisième centre interdisciplinaire de l’Université du Luxembourg s’est présenté lundi, près de huit mois après sa naissance effective le 1er octobre. «Le C2DH est le résultat d’un processus de négociations politiques et institutionnelles, et consiste en une réflexion sur les tensions, les défis, les opportunités et les chances de la pratique historique, tenant en une hybridité entre tradition scientifique et tâtonnements heuristiques avec les nouvelles technologies», résume Andreas Fickers, directeur du C2DH, dans une allocution en français et en allemand, pour ce Belge de la Communauté germanophone, spécialisé dans l’histoire digitale et des médias, et adepte de «la raison critique historique et de la science pour produire de l’incertitude», afin de questionner le passé dans ses contingences.
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Andreas Fickers im Interview mit FORUM / Dez. 2016
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Andreas Fickers hat eine Vision. Der Direktor des neuen "Institut für Zeitgeschichte" will an der Universität zugleich eine Plattform für kritische Debatten und einen Hort für digitale Innovation schaffen. Im Interview mit dem... more
Andreas Fickers hat eine Vision. Der Direktor des neuen "Institut für Zeitgeschichte" will an der Universität zugleich eine Plattform für kritische Debatten und einen Hort für digitale Innovation schaffen. Im Interview mit dem "Luxemburger Wort" spricht er darüber, wie die Geschichtswissenschaft stärker in den öffentlichen Raum getragen werden soll und das digitale Zeitalter die Arbeit des Historikers revolutioniert.
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Die Geschichte neu erfinden...
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The Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) is the University's third interdisciplinary research centre, focusing on high-quality research, analysis and public dissemination in the field of contemporary Luxembourgish... more
The Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) is the University's third interdisciplinary research centre, focusing on high-quality research, analysis and public dissemination in the field of contemporary Luxembourgish and European history. It promotes an interdisciplinary approach to the field of contemporary history with a particular focus on new digital methods and tools for historical research and teaching.
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Taking Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium as a starting point for a conversation about the epistemic virtues in the Digital Humanities, Andreas Fickers and Annie van den Oever discuss a rejection of the normative tradition... more
Taking Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium as a starting point
for a conversation about the epistemic virtues in the Digital Humanities,
Andreas Fickers and Annie van den Oever discuss a rejection of the normative
tradition of honing an ideal-typical definition of what makes “good
science” in favor of an exploration in the phenomenological descriptive
tradition of epistemic norms (values) as internalized by scientists. They
reflect on the six epistemic virtues that could be instrumental in prompting
a new “style of reasoning” that combines the epistemological, political, and
ethical dimensions of Digital Humanities practices in the global knowledge
ecosystem. The Tokyo 2023 workshop on the “Integrative Potential of
Epistemic Virtues in Digital Humanities” is a source of inspiration.
for a conversation about the epistemic virtues in the Digital Humanities,
Andreas Fickers and Annie van den Oever discuss a rejection of the normative
tradition of honing an ideal-typical definition of what makes “good
science” in favor of an exploration in the phenomenological descriptive
tradition of epistemic norms (values) as internalized by scientists. They
reflect on the six epistemic virtues that could be instrumental in prompting
a new “style of reasoning” that combines the epistemological, political, and
ethical dimensions of Digital Humanities practices in the global knowledge
ecosystem. The Tokyo 2023 workshop on the “Integrative Potential of
Epistemic Virtues in Digital Humanities” is a source of inspiration.
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Despite a variety of theoretical and practical undertakings, there is no coherent understanding of the concept of scale in digital history and humanities, and its potential is largely unexplored. A clearer picture of the whole spectrum is... more
Despite a variety of theoretical and practical undertakings, there is no coherent understanding of the concept of scale in digital history and humanities, and its potential is largely unexplored. A clearer picture of the whole spectrum is needed, from large to small, distant to close, global to local, general to specific, macro to micro, and the in-between levels.
The book addresses these issues and sketches out the territory of Zoomland, at scale. Four regions and sixteen chapters are conceptually and symbolically depicted through three perspectives: bird’s eye, overhead, and ground view. The variable-scale representation allows for exploratory paths covering areas such as: theoretical and applicative reflections on scale combining a digital dimension with research in history, media studies, cultural heritage, literature, text analysis, and map modelling; creative use of scale in new digital forms of analysis, data organisation, interfaces, and argumentative or artistic expressions.
Zoomland provides a systematic discussion on the epistemological dimensions, hermeneutic methods, empirical tools, and aesthetic logic pertaining to scale and its innovative possibilities residing in humanities-based approaches and digital technologies
The book addresses these issues and sketches out the territory of Zoomland, at scale. Four regions and sixteen chapters are conceptually and symbolically depicted through three perspectives: bird’s eye, overhead, and ground view. The variable-scale representation allows for exploratory paths covering areas such as: theoretical and applicative reflections on scale combining a digital dimension with research in history, media studies, cultural heritage, literature, text analysis, and map modelling; creative use of scale in new digital forms of analysis, data organisation, interfaces, and argumentative or artistic expressions.
Zoomland provides a systematic discussion on the epistemological dimensions, hermeneutic methods, empirical tools, and aesthetic logic pertaining to scale and its innovative possibilities residing in humanities-based approaches and digital technologies
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The digital interferes in multiple ways in our current day practice of history. This article argues that it not only impacts the way we search, store, analyze, and visualize historical sources and how we tell our stories, but the dynamic,... more
The digital interferes in multiple ways in our current day practice of history. This article argues that it not only impacts the way we search, store, analyze, and visualize historical sources and how we tell our stories, but the dynamic, real-time, and connected nature of digital research infrastructures and the Internet has a deep influence on how we think about history. As a new temporal regime, the digital age shapes our memory practices and changes the way we imagine and experience the past. By mobilizing the concept of digital hermeneutics, the chapter proposes a conceptual framework that helps to understand the various interferences of the "D" and to use the critical potential of humanities to deconstruct and contextualize our data-driven present.
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This volume aims to situate itself in the current debate on the so-called laboratory turn of digital humanities by offering experience-based insights into the learnings and failures, intellectual gains and conceptual struggles, and... more
This volume aims to situate itself in the current debate on the so-called
laboratory turn of digital humanities by offering experience-based insights
into the learnings and failures, intellectual gains and conceptual struggles, and practical challenges and opportunities of a laboratory-like training environment: the Doctoral Training Unit “Digital History and Hermeneutics” (DTU-DHH), affiliated to the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) at the University of Luxembourg. The contributions to this volume reflect on the methodological and epistemological challenges and tensions that this DTU faced as a four-year interdisciplinary research program. As a laboratory setting, the DTU created an interdisciplinary home base for researchers from various epistemic cultures and disciplinary traditions. Framed by the concept of digital hermeneutics, the chapters offer a broad portfolio of reflexive approaches to the field of digital history, combining the individual research experiences of PhD students
with more general reflections on the validity and heuristic potential of central
concepts and methods in the field of digital humanities.
laboratory turn of digital humanities by offering experience-based insights
into the learnings and failures, intellectual gains and conceptual struggles, and practical challenges and opportunities of a laboratory-like training environment: the Doctoral Training Unit “Digital History and Hermeneutics” (DTU-DHH), affiliated to the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) at the University of Luxembourg. The contributions to this volume reflect on the methodological and epistemological challenges and tensions that this DTU faced as a four-year interdisciplinary research program. As a laboratory setting, the DTU created an interdisciplinary home base for researchers from various epistemic cultures and disciplinary traditions. Framed by the concept of digital hermeneutics, the chapters offer a broad portfolio of reflexive approaches to the field of digital history, combining the individual research experiences of PhD students
with more general reflections on the validity and heuristic potential of central
concepts and methods in the field of digital humanities.
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The digitalbe it in forms of data, infrastructures, or toolsinterferes at all levels in the practice of doing public history. This chapter argues that digital public historians have to reflect more deeply on the epistemological... more
The digitalbe it in forms of data, infrastructures, or toolsinterferes at all levels in the practice of doing public history. This chapter argues that digital public historians have to reflect more deeply on the epistemological consequences of their digital practices. It proposes the concept of "digital hermeneutics" as a conceptual framework for this reflection. As a "hermeneutics of in-betweenness," digital hermeneutics investigates the trading zone of digital public history where new digital methods and approaches meet disciplinary traditions and epistemic cultures of history.
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This chapter investigates how digitality has affected the idea, concept, and meaning of authenticity of historical sources. A key question in media history is that of the historical authenticity of mediated representation of the past.... more
This chapter investigates how digitality has affected the idea, concept, and meaning of authenticity of historical sources. A key question in media history is that of the historical authenticity of mediated representation of the past. Digitization affects the indexical relationship between past realities and their digital "appresentation" and therefore asks for a critical understanding of how digital infrastructures, tools, and technologies affect historical methodology and claims for a new multi-modal literacy.
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Since Robert Darnton’s 1999 essay sketched a broad vision of what could become historical scholarship, many scholars have tried to put into practice new ways to publish in the digital era. Inspired by the concept of digital hermeneutics,... more
Since Robert Darnton’s 1999 essay sketched a broad vision of what could become historical scholarship, many scholars have tried to put into practice new ways to publish in the digital era. Inspired by the concept of digital hermeneutics, the Journal of Digital History – a joint venture between the C2DH and De Gruyter Publishing group – proposes to put Darnton’s vision into reality by offering a multi-layered publication platform for data-driven scholarship in the field of digital history.
For a full online version of the article please visit the website of the Journal of Digital History: https://journalofdigitalhistory.org/en/article/jXupS3QAeNgb
For a full online version of the article please visit the website of the Journal of Digital History: https://journalofdigitalhistory.org/en/article/jXupS3QAeNgb
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The dominant economy of the traces of each era are based on agents of different ages. Within the framework of slow-moving institutions whose role is precisely to make the system stagnate, the rules of this economy change at the faster... more
The dominant economy of the traces of each era are based on agents of different ages. Within the framework of slow-moving institutions whose role is precisely to make the system stagnate, the rules of this economy change at the faster pace of social changes, which it adjusts with technologies that change even faster-and which can produce unexpected or contrary effects on the logic of the first two levels. This stratification of collective equilibriums induces an interweaving of technical environments and innovative societal projects with older or even archaic beliefs or hierarchies. (Merzeau 1998, our translation)
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The goal of this article is to critically reflect on the practical and epistemological challenges of doing historical research in the digital age. The analysis is based on a case study of the Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) "Digital History... more
The goal of this article is to critically reflect on the practical and epistemological challenges of doing historical research in the digital age. The analysis is based on a case study of the Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) "Digital History and Hermeneutics", an interdisciplinary research and training programme that was established at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) of the University of Luxembourg. The DTU is designed as interdisciplinary trading zone that applies the method of "thinkering"-the tinkering with technology combined with the critical reflection on the practice of doing digital history. Based on this case study, the article addresses the question of how to constitute an interdisciplinary trading zone in practice and how to situate this trading zone in physical working environments, like a Digital History Lab and shared office space.
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»[…] wenn ›die Quelle‹ die Reliquie historischen Arbeitens ist – nicht nur Überbleibsel, sondern auch Objekt wissenschaftlicher Verehrung –, dann wäre analog ›das Archiv‹ die Kirche der Geschichtswissenschaft, in der die heiligen... more
»[…] wenn ›die Quelle‹ die Reliquie historischen Arbeitens ist – nicht nur Überbleibsel, sondern auch Objekt wissenschaftlicher Verehrung –, dann wäre analog ›das Archiv‹ die Kirche der Geschichtswissenschaft, in der die heiligen Handlungen des Suchens, Findens, Entdeckens und Erforschens vollzogen werden.« Achim Landwehr wirft in seinem geschichtstheoretischen Essay den Historikern ihren »Quellenglauben« vor – diese Kritik ließe sich im digitalen Zeitalter leicht auf die Heilsversprechen der Apostel der »Big Data Revolution« übertragen. Zwar regen sich mittlerweile vermehrt Stimmen, die den »Wahnwitz« der digitalen Utopie in Frage stellen, doch wird der öffentliche Diskurs weiterhin von jener Revolutionsrhetorik dominiert, die standardmäßig als Begleitmusik neuer Technologien ertönt. Statt in der intellektuell wenig fruchtbaren Dichotomie von Gegnern und Befürwortern, »First Movers« und Ignoranten zu verharren, welche die Landschaft der »Digital Humanities« ein wenig überspitzt auch heute noch kennzeichnet, ist das Ziel dieses Beitrages eine praxeologische Reflexion, die den Einfluss von digitalen Infrastrukturen, digitalen Werkzeugen und digitalen »Quellen« auf die Praxis historischen Arbeitens zeigen möchte. Ausgehend von der These, dass ebenjene digitalen Infrastrukturen, Werkzeuge und »Quellen« heute einen zentralen Einfluss darauf haben, wie wir Geschichte denken, erforschen und erzählen, plädiert der Beitrag für ein »Update« der klassischen Hermeneutik in der Geschichtswissenschaft. Die kritische Reflexion über die konstitutive Rolle des Digitalen in der Konstruktion und Vermittlung historischen Wissens ist nicht nur eine Frage epistemologischer Dringlichkeit, sondern zentraler Bestandteil der Selbstverständigung eines Faches, dessen Anspruch als Wissenschaft
sich auf die Methoden der Quellenkritik gründet.
sich auf die Methoden der Quellenkritik gründet.
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Seit Beginn der Geschichtsschreibung haben Historiker, Philosophen und Dichter uber das komplexe Verhältnis von Geschichte und deren sprachliche Repräsentation, von Erzählung und der in ihr zum Ausdruck gebrachten Faktizität, von textlich... more
Seit Beginn der Geschichtsschreibung haben Historiker, Philosophen und Dichter uber das komplexe Verhältnis von Geschichte und deren sprachliche Repräsentation, von Erzählung und der in ihr zum Ausdruck gebrachten Faktizität, von textlich formuliertem Wahrheitsanspruch und stilistischer oder rhetorischer Überzeugungsarbeit nachgedacht. Über Jahrhunderte, ja mehr als zwei Jahrtausende drehte sich diese Debatte letztlich immer um ein zentrales erkenntnistheoretisches
Problem, welches der französische Historiker Ivan Jablonka kürzlich
wie folgt zusammengefasst hat: »Comment peut-on dire du vrai dans et par un texte«? Ziel dieses kleinen geschichtstheoretischen Grenzganges ist es, über das Verhältnis von Erzählen, Schreiben, Interpretieren und Argumentieren in der Geschichtsschreibung nachzudenken, insbesondere darüber, wie sich diese Dimensionen des historischen Denkens und Arbeitens im Laufe der Zeit verändert haben, vor allem durch die Herausbildung des ›modernen Ideals‹ objektiver
Geschichtserzählung im 19. Jahrhundert. Anschließend wird kurz auf das
komplexe Verhältnis von historischer Wirklichkeit und deren Repräsentation in Quellen und Medien eingegangen, um schließlich mit einer eher allgemeinen Reflexion über die Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen digitaler Darstellungsformen von Geschichte zu enden.
Problem, welches der französische Historiker Ivan Jablonka kürzlich
wie folgt zusammengefasst hat: »Comment peut-on dire du vrai dans et par un texte«? Ziel dieses kleinen geschichtstheoretischen Grenzganges ist es, über das Verhältnis von Erzählen, Schreiben, Interpretieren und Argumentieren in der Geschichtsschreibung nachzudenken, insbesondere darüber, wie sich diese Dimensionen des historischen Denkens und Arbeitens im Laufe der Zeit verändert haben, vor allem durch die Herausbildung des ›modernen Ideals‹ objektiver
Geschichtserzählung im 19. Jahrhundert. Anschließend wird kurz auf das
komplexe Verhältnis von historischer Wirklichkeit und deren Repräsentation in Quellen und Medien eingegangen, um schließlich mit einer eher allgemeinen Reflexion über die Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen digitaler Darstellungsformen von Geschichte zu enden.
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This article argues that the contemporary hype in digitization and dissemination of our cultural heritage – especially of audiovisual sources – is comparable to the boom of critical source editions in the late 19th century. But while the... more
This article argues that the contemporary hype in digitization and dissemination of our cultural heritage – especially of audiovisual sources – is comparable to the boom of critical source editions in the late 19th century. But while the dramatic rise of accessibility to and availability of sources in the 19th century went hand in hand with the development of new scholarly skills of source interpretation and was paralleled by the institutionalization of history as an academic profession, a similar trend of an emerging digital historicism today seems absent. This essay aims at reflecting on the challenges and chances that the discipline of history – and the field of television history in particular – is actually facing. It offers some thoughts and ideas on how the digitization of sources and their online availability affects the established practices of source criticism.
Research Interests: History, Media Studies, New Media, Digital Libraries, Digital Humanities, and 12 moreTelevision Studies, Open Access, Media History, Historiography, Historicism, Digital History, Digital Culture, Digitization, Technology Enhanced Learning, Source Criticism, Audiovisual History, and Contextualization
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"Veins filled with the dilluted sap of rationality. A critical reply to Rens Bod". This article argues – in contradiction to the thesis developed by Rens Bod – that the hermeneutic tradition of humanities is not obsolete, especially... more
"Veins filled with the dilluted sap of rationality. A critical reply to Rens Bod".
This article argues – in contradiction to the thesis developed by Rens Bod – that the hermeneutic tradition of humanities is not obsolete, especially when trying to understand the opportunities and challenges of using digital technologies for future research. The practice of digital history will have to be based on the critical analysis of the creation, enrichment, editing and retrieval of digital data as much as on the application of classical source criticism and historical contextualisation. If 'content' or rather 'data' is king in digital humanities, as imagined by Bod, context is its crown – at least for digital historians.
This article argues – in contradiction to the thesis developed by Rens Bod – that the hermeneutic tradition of humanities is not obsolete, especially when trying to understand the opportunities and challenges of using digital technologies for future research. The practice of digital history will have to be based on the critical analysis of the creation, enrichment, editing and retrieval of digital data as much as on the application of classical source criticism and historical contextualisation. If 'content' or rather 'data' is king in digital humanities, as imagined by Bod, context is its crown – at least for digital historians.
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Ein Beitrag zum Diskussionsforum "Historische Grundwissenschaften und die digitale Herausforderung" auf H-Soz-Kult (siehe: http://www.hsozkult.de/text/id/texte-2890)
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The aim of this chapter is to outline experimental media archaeology as an alternative method to a sense and object-oriented technology and media historiography. The epistemological potential of an object and sense-oriented experimental... more
The aim of this chapter is to outline experimental media archaeology as an alternative method to a sense and object-oriented technology and media historiography. The epistemological potential of an object and sense-oriented experimental access to the field of history of media and technology will be discussed on the basis of experiences in the history of science and historically informed music performances. The heart of the chapter is formed by a discussion of a series of media archaeological experiments executed by the authors in search for alternative was to draft historical statements on past media practices. In these experiments, they focus on the materiality of past media devices, beyond their function as sign and evidence of the past, and on the heuristic possibilities offered by an experimental approach to these devices.
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This article looks at the materiality of past media devices, beyond its function as sign and evidence of the past, and on the heuristic possibilities offered by an experimental approach to these devices.
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The history of media archaeology has been a history of discourse-oriented analysis. Friedrich Kittler, the intellectual father of media archaeology, inspired a focus on the materiality of the medium from the early 1980s onwards to lay... more
The history of media archaeology has been a history of discourse-oriented analysis. Friedrich Kittler, the intellectual father of media archaeology, inspired a focus on the materiality of the medium from the early 1980s onwards to lay bare the epistemological structures underpinning studies in the humanities. While this tradition has produced interesting studies focusing on the discursive construction and symbolic meaning of different media technologies, the materiality of media technologies and the practices of use need more attention. Media are widely acknowledged as utterly important in the formation of knowledge, cultures, and media-saturated every-day life, and urgently in need of further study. While media archaeology positively helped to constitute the field of media studies, and contributed considerably to the broader awareness of how important media are and have been in the past, we feel though that a further step is needed now in terms of studying the materiality of the medium to live up to the expectations raised. Instead of investing our energies in discursive enterprises, we opt for an investment in experimental media archaeology. Experimental media archaeology is inspired by the idea of historical re-enactment, acknowledging the historian’s (the experimenter’s) role as co-constructor of the epistemic object. Experimental media archaeology is driven by a desire to produce experimental knowledge regarding past media usages, developments, and practices. To do so, it will be practical as well as philosophical, empirical as well as theoretical, conceptual as well as experimental, drawing from psychology as well as sociology, ethnography as well as cultural anthropology, image theory as well as history. Lastly, experimental media archaeology has an archival drive; it aspires to use the immense collections of media apparatuses (l’appareil de base) waiting in film and other archives for further research.
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Inspired by experiences with doing experimental research in the fields of history of science, archaeology and musicology this essay aims at reflecting on the heuristic potential of experimental media archaeology for a history of... more
Inspired by experiences with doing experimental research in the fields of history of science, archaeology and musicology this essay aims at reflecting on the heuristic potential of experimental media archaeology for a history of technology interested in the sensorial dimension of technology. Based on the concept of re-enactment, experimental media archaeology tries to explore new ways of experiencing and understanding the materiality of media technologies by interacting with these objects in a playful manner. In order to do so, the article argues, we need to de-auratize historical objects and turn the historian – which to often remains within the textual realm when studying the past media practices – into an experimenter and the museum into a laboratory.
Ziel dieses Essays ist es, experimentelle Medienarchäologie als alternative Methode einer sinnes- und objektorientierten Technik- und Mediengeschichtsschreibung zu skizzieren. Basierend auf den Erfahrungen im Bereich experimenteller Wissenschaftsgeschichte, der experimentellen Archäologie sowie
der historisch informierten Aufführungspraxis in der Musik soll das erkenntnistheoretische Potenzial eines objekt- und sinnesorientierten experimentellen Zugangs im Bereich der Medien- und Technikgeschichte diskutiert werden. In bewusster Abgrenzung von klassischen medienarchäologischen Arbeiten,
deren methodologisches Repertoire sich meist in der Diskursanalyse erschöpft, zielt die experimentelle Medienarchäologie auf eine spielerische Heuristik,
in deren Mittelpunkt die Methode des „re-enactment“ steht.
Ziel dieses Essays ist es, experimentelle Medienarchäologie als alternative Methode einer sinnes- und objektorientierten Technik- und Mediengeschichtsschreibung zu skizzieren. Basierend auf den Erfahrungen im Bereich experimenteller Wissenschaftsgeschichte, der experimentellen Archäologie sowie
der historisch informierten Aufführungspraxis in der Musik soll das erkenntnistheoretische Potenzial eines objekt- und sinnesorientierten experimentellen Zugangs im Bereich der Medien- und Technikgeschichte diskutiert werden. In bewusster Abgrenzung von klassischen medienarchäologischen Arbeiten,
deren methodologisches Repertoire sich meist in der Diskursanalyse erschöpft, zielt die experimentelle Medienarchäologie auf eine spielerische Heuristik,
in deren Mittelpunkt die Methode des „re-enactment“ steht.
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Trotz der zentralen Bedeutung, die Medien als Spiegeln und Akteuren der Geschichte in der modernen Historiographie zugeschrieben wird, ist Mediengeschichte als historische Subdisziplin ein eher randständiges Phänomen. Zwar hat sich... more
Trotz der zentralen Bedeutung, die Medien als Spiegeln und Akteuren
der Geschichte in der modernen Historiographie zugeschrieben wird,
ist Mediengeschichte als historische Subdisziplin ein eher randständiges
Phänomen. Zwar hat sich Mediengeschichte als eigenständiges
wissenschaftliches Feld international erfolgreich etabliert – mit eigenen
Fachgesellschaften1, Zeitschriften und Tagungen –, doch fehlt es an
einer Institutionalisierung von Lehrstühlen und Professuren mit gezielt
medienhistorischer Denomination. Seit dem Beginn medienhistorischer
Forschung im akademischen Umfeld Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts zeichnet
sich das Feld durch breite disziplinäre Verortungen und entsprechend
vielfältige thematische wie methodologische Schwerpunkte und Zugänge
aus, die im Folgenden kursorisch dargestellt werden. Des Weiteren zielt
der Beitrag auf eine Einordnung der medienhistorischen Forschungsfragen
und Schwerpunkte in übergreifende wissenschaftliche Debatten
und «turns», welche die Geistes- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften in
den letzten Jahrzehnten maßgeblich geprägt haben. Schließlich werden
aktuelle Herausforderungen der Mediengeschichtsschreibung beleuchtet,
die sich im Kontext des «digital turn» darstellen.
der Geschichte in der modernen Historiographie zugeschrieben wird,
ist Mediengeschichte als historische Subdisziplin ein eher randständiges
Phänomen. Zwar hat sich Mediengeschichte als eigenständiges
wissenschaftliches Feld international erfolgreich etabliert – mit eigenen
Fachgesellschaften1, Zeitschriften und Tagungen –, doch fehlt es an
einer Institutionalisierung von Lehrstühlen und Professuren mit gezielt
medienhistorischer Denomination. Seit dem Beginn medienhistorischer
Forschung im akademischen Umfeld Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts zeichnet
sich das Feld durch breite disziplinäre Verortungen und entsprechend
vielfältige thematische wie methodologische Schwerpunkte und Zugänge
aus, die im Folgenden kursorisch dargestellt werden. Des Weiteren zielt
der Beitrag auf eine Einordnung der medienhistorischen Forschungsfragen
und Schwerpunkte in übergreifende wissenschaftliche Debatten
und «turns», welche die Geistes- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften in
den letzten Jahrzehnten maßgeblich geprägt haben. Schließlich werden
aktuelle Herausforderungen der Mediengeschichtsschreibung beleuchtet,
die sich im Kontext des «digital turn» darstellen.
Research Interests:
This essay aims at reflecting on the multiple exchanges and co-operations in the field of television broadcasting between different actors from Eastern and Central Europe and Western Europe during the Cold War period. Based on the... more
This essay aims at reflecting on the multiple exchanges and co-operations in the field of television broadcasting between different actors from Eastern and Central Europe and Western Europe during the Cold War period. Based on the assumption that binary Cold War narratives of divided communication spaces between the so-called socialist bloc countries and the capitalist “West” have to be revised, I will focus on different levels of cross-border interactions in specific arenas of transnational collaboration. I argue in favour of a complex model of multi-level historical analysis, describing Cold War European communication spaces as a relational set of asymmetrical interdependencies. Instead of following the classical paths of methodological nationalism or the Cold War rational of ideological bloc oppositions, I propose to investigate the multiple and manifold cross-border interactions and overlapping zones of televisual exchange and transfer as a structural and characteristic phenomenon of the Cold War European broadcasting landscape.
In doing so, I want to argue in favour of a longue durée perspective on transnational co-operations and collaborations in the field of broadcasting, interpreting the Cold War phase as a continuation rather then disruption of transnational cultural transfers in European broadcasting, both on level of technical collaboration, as on the level of economic trade and cultural exchanges. Questioning the Cold War specificities of transnational transfers and exchanges in the field of European broadcasting in terms of cross-border interdependencies also implies to revisit common assumptions about hegemonic television cultures both in “the West” and “the East”. The deconstruction of a supposedly “capitalist” television culture in Western Europe and an imagined “socialist” television culture in Central and Eastern Europe shows that the patterns of television development in terms of programming and symbolic engineering look much the same in all European countries. Despite diverging political and ideological framing, both technological and economic rationalities have had similar structural impacts on the emergence and gradual expansion of television as a medium in Cold War Europe. When looking East, one discovers in fact quite similar patterns of televisual developments as in the West – albeit with diverging temporalities and spatial dynamics.
Yet despite the many similarities in television development in both East and West Europe during the period of the Cold War, I propose to describe the relationship between the two spheres as asymmetrical. The balance of television programme exchanges and trade between East and West European countries shows a clear asymmetry when it comes to the technical quality and amount of imports and exports of television products. While one could be tempted to interpret this imbalance in terms of television output and export as an argument demonstrating the economic and cultural dominance of “the West” and thereby underpinning the thesis of the “irresistible power” of capitalism, this article aims at emphasizing the structural similarities and interdependencies of this phenomenon. Both in East and West Europe, the long 1970s mark a period of dramatic extension of national television schedules due to the start of second channels and/or regional television services. The resulting need for new programmes to fill the schedules was a financial and organizational challenge for television services all over Europe – regardless on which side of the Iron curtain they operated. Both in East and West Europe, importing cheap American programmes was seen as the main remedy for this problem, but enhancing trans-border exchanges and trade in both directions was clearly another strategy to be followed. To grasp this complex phenomenon of structural similarities in a context of technological and economic imbalances, the concept of asymmetrical interdependencies is put forward as a new analytical framework.
In doing so, I want to argue in favour of a longue durée perspective on transnational co-operations and collaborations in the field of broadcasting, interpreting the Cold War phase as a continuation rather then disruption of transnational cultural transfers in European broadcasting, both on level of technical collaboration, as on the level of economic trade and cultural exchanges. Questioning the Cold War specificities of transnational transfers and exchanges in the field of European broadcasting in terms of cross-border interdependencies also implies to revisit common assumptions about hegemonic television cultures both in “the West” and “the East”. The deconstruction of a supposedly “capitalist” television culture in Western Europe and an imagined “socialist” television culture in Central and Eastern Europe shows that the patterns of television development in terms of programming and symbolic engineering look much the same in all European countries. Despite diverging political and ideological framing, both technological and economic rationalities have had similar structural impacts on the emergence and gradual expansion of television as a medium in Cold War Europe. When looking East, one discovers in fact quite similar patterns of televisual developments as in the West – albeit with diverging temporalities and spatial dynamics.
Yet despite the many similarities in television development in both East and West Europe during the period of the Cold War, I propose to describe the relationship between the two spheres as asymmetrical. The balance of television programme exchanges and trade between East and West European countries shows a clear asymmetry when it comes to the technical quality and amount of imports and exports of television products. While one could be tempted to interpret this imbalance in terms of television output and export as an argument demonstrating the economic and cultural dominance of “the West” and thereby underpinning the thesis of the “irresistible power” of capitalism, this article aims at emphasizing the structural similarities and interdependencies of this phenomenon. Both in East and West Europe, the long 1970s mark a period of dramatic extension of national television schedules due to the start of second channels and/or regional television services. The resulting need for new programmes to fill the schedules was a financial and organizational challenge for television services all over Europe – regardless on which side of the Iron curtain they operated. Both in East and West Europe, importing cheap American programmes was seen as the main remedy for this problem, but enhancing trans-border exchanges and trade in both directions was clearly another strategy to be followed. To grasp this complex phenomenon of structural similarities in a context of technological and economic imbalances, the concept of asymmetrical interdependencies is put forward as a new analytical framework.
Research Interests:
In 1985, Melvin Kranzberg, then professor for history of technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology and founding editor of the journal Technology and Culture, delivered the presidential address at the annual meeting of the Society... more
In 1985, Melvin Kranzberg, then professor for history of technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology and founding editor of the journal Technology and Culture, delivered the presidential address at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology in which he explained what had already come to be known as Kranzberg’s Laws—“a series of truisms,” according to Kranzberg, “deriving from a longtime immersion in the study of the development of technology and its interactions with sociocultural change” (Kranzberg 1986, 544).
The aim of this article is to reflect on Kranzberg’s first law, which basically says that technology is—in sociological terminology—an actor category. Conceptualizing technology as actor category means that to think about the agency of technology and technological artefacts and to reflect upon the social and cultural meaning of technology and what it does to those using it for specific purposes—for example for journalists producing television news, documentaries or radio features. As historian of technology
and media, I’m especially interested in how technology is co-producing our perception of reality and how we can study and conceptualize the complex relationship between media technologies and mediated realities.
The aim of this article is to reflect on Kranzberg’s first law, which basically says that technology is—in sociological terminology—an actor category. Conceptualizing technology as actor category means that to think about the agency of technology and technological artefacts and to reflect upon the social and cultural meaning of technology and what it does to those using it for specific purposes—for example for journalists producing television news, documentaries or radio features. As historian of technology
and media, I’m especially interested in how technology is co-producing our perception of reality and how we can study and conceptualize the complex relationship between media technologies and mediated realities.
Research Interests:
Ziel des Aufsatzes ist es, die vielfältigen und komplexen intermedialen Bezüge, die zwischen "alten" und "neuen" Medien bestehen, aus der Perspektive einer integralen Mediengeschichtsschreibung zu problematisieren. Mit Hilfe des Begriffs... more
Ziel des Aufsatzes ist es, die vielfältigen und komplexen intermedialen Bezüge, die zwischen "alten" und "neuen" Medien bestehen, aus der Perspektive einer integralen Mediengeschichtsschreibung zu problematisieren. Mit Hilfe des Begriffs der Genealogie wird versucht, die theoretisch anspruchsvollen Konzepte "Intermedialität" und "Intertextualität" in eine für Medienhistoriker fruchtbare Forschungsperspektive zu übersetzen. Konkret wird argumentiert, dass die in der Mediengeschichtsschreibung vorherrschende diachrone Erzählperspektive, meist kombiniert mit einer "Einzelmediumgeschichte", durch stärker synchron orientierte Fragestellungen und Analyseperspektiven ergänzt und erweitert werden sollen.
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This chapter considers the radio receiver and, more specifically, the radio dial as a mediating interface. Usually the radio dial is thought of as mediating between the operator—the listener—and the radio stations tuned in by turning the... more
This chapter considers the radio receiver and, more specifically, the radio dial as a mediating interface. Usually the radio dial is thought of as mediating between the operator—the listener—and the radio stations tuned in by turning the dial. Here we look at mediation in a wider sense—between a European regulatory regime of frequency allocation and the imagined European broadcasting landscape of the listener. My argument thus develops a triangular relationship between the rise of a European regime of frequency regulation, the materiality of the radio set, and the symbolic appropriation of the European broadcasting landscape. This approach requires an analysis of the material, institutional, and symbolic dimensions of a concrete technical innovation: the calibrated radio station scale. In analyzing the iconological and semantic meanings of this technical artifact, I emphasize the importance of material objects as sources for a cultural history of technology in general and of radio listening in particular.
Research Interests: History, European History, History of Science and Technology, Media Studies, Design, and 11 moreTransnational and World History, Innovation statistics, Computer Networks, Radio, Sound studies, Design Innovation, User Interface, Databases, Software, Radio Frequency, and Science and Technology Studies
This book aims at emphasizing the important role of broadcasting as central actor in the creation of a transnational and European communication space during the period of the Cold War. Its methodological design aims at linking the study... more
This book aims at emphasizing the important role of broadcasting as central actor in the creation of a transnational and European communication space during the period of the Cold War. Its methodological design aims at linking the study of the circulation and appropriation of cultural performances with awareness for the crucial role of broadcast technologies as mediators and catalysts of cultural transfers. In studying Europe as a Cold War broadcasting space by describing and analyzing different transmission and reception technologies and by questioning their specific contribution to the medial construction of a transnational communication space in constantly changing political and cultural environments we hope to enlarge our understanding of the role of civil and institutional actors in the creation of transnational communities and European networks. It addresses media historians as well as historians of international relations, especially regarding the Cold War and European integration.
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This is a chapter of the book "Soundscapes of the Urban Past. Staged Sound as Mediated Cultural Heritage", edited by Karin Bijsterveld (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2013, pp.77-116). It aims at studying the intermedial references between... more
This is a chapter of the book "Soundscapes of the Urban Past. Staged Sound as Mediated Cultural Heritage", edited by Karin Bijsterveld (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2013, pp.77-116). It aims at studying the intermedial references between the original novel "Berlin Alexanderplatz" by Alfred Döbin and its adaptation as radio play, film and television series.
Research Interests: Creative Writing, Critical Theory, History, Gender Studies, Philosophy, and 11 moreArt History, Media Studies, Literature, Film Music And Sound, Urban Studies, Contemporary Poetry, Visual Arts, Alfred Döblin, Berlin, Intermddiality, Media History, History, and Philosophy and Sociology of Human/animal Relations
This article claims that the emergence of television in the 1950s must be interpreted as a conservative media revolution. It aims at revisiting some of the popular narratives about the emergence of television as a revolutionary moment in... more
This article claims that the emergence of television in the 1950s must be interpreted as a conservative media revolution. It aims at revisiting some of the popular narratives about the emergence of television as a revolutionary moment in media history and questions the newness of television in the European mass media ensemble. Focusing on a set of privileged sites of negotiation where the tensions between the conservative and modernising agencies of the medium became most visible or explicit, the article emphasizes the ambiguous and contested nature of television as a new medium. Finally, the author pleas for an integral approach to media history that studies the intermedial relationships and interdependencies between television and other mass media.
Research Interests: History, European History, Cultural History, Media Studies, Television Studies, and 20 moreTransnational and World History, Innovation statistics, Transnationalism, Media History, Comparative History, Conservative Revolution (Revolutions), Radio, Modernization, Culture, 1950s (U.S. history), History of Mass Media, Television History, Creative City, Media Convergence, Mass media, Remediation, Cinema Studies, Cultural Industry, Media Revolution, and Public Communication. Political Communication
European Television History brings together television historians and media scholars to chart the development of television in Europe since its inception. The volume interrogates the history of the medium in divergent political, economic,... more
European Television History brings together television historians and media scholars to chart the development of television in Europe since its inception. The volume interrogates the history of the medium in divergent political, economic, cultural and ideological national contexts.
Taking a comparative approach to the topic, the volume is organized around a set of common questions, themes, and methodological reflections. It deals with European television in the context of television historiography and transnational traditions. Case study chapters written by scholars from different European countries to reflect their specific areas of expertise
Taking a comparative approach to the topic, the volume is organized around a set of common questions, themes, and methodological reflections. It deals with European television in the context of television historiography and transnational traditions. Case study chapters written by scholars from different European countries to reflect their specific areas of expertise
Research Interests: European History, Media Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, Television Studies, Media History, and 13 moreComparative History, Political History, Transnational History, Historical Institutionalism, Americanization, History of Mass Media, Television History, Media Convergence, History of Broadcasting, Mediengeschichte, Fernsehgeschichte, Histoire Des Médias, and Télévision
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This chapter reconstructs the fascinating story of the first commercial television station in Europe: Tele-Saar. Funded by the French occupational government in the Saar region, the station aimed at promoting the French high-definition... more
This chapter reconstructs the fascinating story of the first commercial television station in Europe: Tele-Saar. Funded by the French occupational government in the Saar region, the station aimed at promoting the French high-definition television system (819 lines) in Germany. In order to finance this act of technopolitical diplomacy, the French started a commercial radio station (Europe nr.1) which became one of the most popular French speaking radio stations in post-war Europe.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
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This chapter examines the meaning of and nostalgic yearning for transistor radios in the lyrics of popular songs. Popular music provides a treasure of lyrics that deal explicitly with the transistor radio as a cultural phenomenon – a... more
This chapter examines the meaning of and nostalgic yearning for transistor radios in the lyrics of popular songs. Popular music provides a treasure of lyrics that deal explicitly with the transistor radio as a cultural phenomenon – a neglected
topic in scholarly work on the history of radio so far. From Chuck Berry’s “Oh Baby Doll” to Buck Owens’ “Made in
Japan,” the Beach Boys’ “Magic Transistor Radio” to Kraftwerk’s “Transistor,” a broad range of popular music genres reflects the transistor radio’s deep cultural impact in youth culture and popular entertainment. In analyzing both contemporary lyrical reflections and nostalgic echoes of the transistor radio in popular music, this chapter provides an unorthodox take on the rich and fascinating sound souvenirs of a technology that blazed the trail of mobile electronic devices.
topic in scholarly work on the history of radio so far. From Chuck Berry’s “Oh Baby Doll” to Buck Owens’ “Made in
Japan,” the Beach Boys’ “Magic Transistor Radio” to Kraftwerk’s “Transistor,” a broad range of popular music genres reflects the transistor radio’s deep cultural impact in youth culture and popular entertainment. In analyzing both contemporary lyrical reflections and nostalgic echoes of the transistor radio in popular music, this chapter provides an unorthodox take on the rich and fascinating sound souvenirs of a technology that blazed the trail of mobile electronic devices.
Research Interests:
The essay pleas for a critical reassessment of the nation as long lasting paradigm of historical research on mass media. By presenting the transnational perspective as a useful framework for seeing the familiar strange, the author... more
The essay pleas for a critical reassessment of the nation as long lasting paradigm of historical research on mass media. By presenting the transnational perspective as a useful framework
for seeing the familiar strange, the author introduces the three interrelated concepts of actants, actors and arenas as critical tools for the study of transnational media flows. Based
on three historical short stories dealing with the emergence of a telegraph infrastructure for news reporting in Sweden, the establishment of a transnational „pirate“ radio and television station in the Saar region, and subversive viewing practices of the Romanian television audience in the 1980s, the author aims at problematizing the complex spatial and topological nature of transnational mediascape by using an integral media historical
approach.
for seeing the familiar strange, the author introduces the three interrelated concepts of actants, actors and arenas as critical tools for the study of transnational media flows. Based
on three historical short stories dealing with the emergence of a telegraph infrastructure for news reporting in Sweden, the establishment of a transnational „pirate“ radio and television station in the Saar region, and subversive viewing practices of the Romanian television audience in the 1980s, the author aims at problematizing the complex spatial and topological nature of transnational mediascape by using an integral media historical
approach.
Research Interests:
The tendency to focus on television as a national medium has led to a relative neglect not only of the transnational flows of television across national borders, but also of the place of the regional and the local in histories of... more
The tendency to focus on television as a national medium has led to a relative neglect not only of the transnational flows of television across national borders, but also of the place of the regional and the local in histories of television. This section brings together four short articles by different authors all addressing the history of regional and local
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This (manuscript version) article was written for the Handbook of Communication History (edited by Peter Simonson, Janice Peck, Robert T. Craig and John P. Jackson), published by Routledge: New York (2013), pp. 239-256. It offers a... more
This (manuscript version) article was written for the Handbook of Communication History (edited by Peter Simonson, Janice Peck, Robert T. Craig and John P. Jackson), published by Routledge: New York (2013), pp. 239-256.
It offers a radical historicisation of television both as technology and cultural form and as as object of academic study (television studies).
It offers a radical historicisation of television both as technology and cultural form and as as object of academic study (television studies).
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This article traces the history of the first commercial television station on European ground: the Tele-Saar station (1953-1958). Located in the Saarland, then under French protectorate, the history of Tele-Saar offers an interesting... more
This article traces the history of the first commercial television station on European ground: the Tele-Saar station (1953-1958). Located in the Saarland, then under French protectorate, the history of Tele-Saar offers an interesting perspective on the techno-diplomatic nature of early transnational television in the French-German border region.
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European television has a double connotation: it characterizes both the history and current existence of multiple television institutions and channels across Europe as well as the phenomenon of transnational, European television.... more
European television has a double connotation: it characterizes both the history and current existence of multiple television institutions and channels across Europe as well as the phenomenon of transnational, European television. Reaffirming the concept of Europe as “unity in diversity” and acknowledging the contested nature of Europe as a discursive character, both television and Europe can best be defined as projects that need to be continuously renegotiated and reinvented. Both “Europe” and “television” as concepts are constructed entities whose identities vary depending on the topic of inquiry and the roster of questions of those investigating the phenomena. Europe as a discursive construction has been instrumentalized from a multitude of angles (historical, religious, geographical, political, and cultural), and television has been approached as being essentially a technology, an institution, an art, or simply a form of popular entertainment. Historically speaking, the first regular television services started before World War II in Germany (1935) and Great Britain, but the late 1950s and early 1960s marked the real take off of television as a mass medium in most European countries. Transnational television in Europe started with the launch of Eurovision, the organization for the exchange of television programs within the European Broadcasting Union. Until the advent of the so-called dual broadcasting systems in the 1980s, most European countries had public service television institutions, financed by broadcasting fees. The start of commercial television and the advent of satellite broadcasting in the 1980s radically changed the European television landscape. This bibliography aims at offering guidance to the technical, economic, political, and cultural factors that shaped European television since its emergence in the late 1930s. It tries to pay equal attention to both important transnational developments and to specificities of national television cultures.
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This article aims at studying the history of Europe centred on the idea of broadcast communication being the most powerful and influential means for both national and transnational communication in the 20th century. The central objective... more
This article aims at studying the history of Europe centred on the idea of broadcast communication being the most powerful and influential means for both national and transnational
communication in the 20th century. The central objective is to problematize Europe as a broadcasting space by describing and analyzing European radio and television broadcasts originating from the International Broadcasting Union and the European
Broadcasting Union and by questioning their specific contribution to the medial construction of European and international communication spaces in constantly changing political
and cultural environments. In retracing both sound and audiovisual broadcast transmissions in the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1950’s we will link the development of different broadcast
technologies (radio and television) to visions of European broadcasting spaces and their role in the continuous re-invention of Europe or re-imagination of European identities.
The need to embed “Europe” as a discursive construction into changing material, legal and institutional maps makes an over-arching geographical definition of Europe obsolete.
Here again, the very nature of broadcasting as a transnational or transborder phenomenon with its inevitable spill-over effects challenges the classic ways of mapping Europe.
communication in the 20th century. The central objective is to problematize Europe as a broadcasting space by describing and analyzing European radio and television broadcasts originating from the International Broadcasting Union and the European
Broadcasting Union and by questioning their specific contribution to the medial construction of European and international communication spaces in constantly changing political
and cultural environments. In retracing both sound and audiovisual broadcast transmissions in the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1950’s we will link the development of different broadcast
technologies (radio and television) to visions of European broadcasting spaces and their role in the continuous re-invention of Europe or re-imagination of European identities.
The need to embed “Europe” as a discursive construction into changing material, legal and institutional maps makes an over-arching geographical definition of Europe obsolete.
Here again, the very nature of broadcasting as a transnational or transborder phenomenon with its inevitable spill-over effects challenges the classic ways of mapping Europe.
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Research Interests: Languages, History, Cultural History, Communication, Media Studies, and 14 moreJournalism, Television Studies, Media History, Development communication, Media Education, Media Literacy, Media, Translation, Media Research, Television News, Social Communication, Media Impact and Effects and Usages, Alternate Media, and Boradcast News
Bei dem 1866 gegründeten Kreisblatt für den Kreis Malmedy, das 1905 in Malmedy-St.Vither Volkszeitung und 1934 in St.Vither Volkszeitung umbenannt wurde, handelt es sich um eine für den Regionalhistoriker ausgesprochen wichtige und... more
Bei dem 1866 gegründeten Kreisblatt für den Kreis Malmedy, das 1905 in Malmedy-St.Vither Volkszeitung und 1934 in St.Vither Volkszeitung umbenannt wurde, handelt es sich um eine für den Regionalhistoriker ausgesprochen wichtige und interessante Quelle. Als offizielles Verkündungsorgan amtlicher Bekanntmachungen für den preußischen Verwaltungsbezirk Malmedy kam dem Kreisblatt eine wichtige politisch-informative Funktion unter preußischer, reichsdeutscher und belgischer Herrschaft zu. Gerade diese Staatenwechsel mit ihren mannigfachen politisch-administrativen wie kulturellen Verflechtungen lassen sich mit der Analyse des Kreisblattes beispielhaft rekonstruieren.
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This chapter aims at sketching the birth of transnational television exchanges in Europe in a historical perspective. With a focus on early Eurovision programs and initiatives, it questions common narratives about the mediated... more
This chapter aims at sketching the birth of transnational television exchanges in Europe in a historical perspective. With a focus on early Eurovision programs and initiatives, it questions common narratives about the mediated construction of imagined communities on a European level and highlights the importance of infrastructures in the "hidden integration" of Europe.
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De introductie van televisie was een complex en langdurig proces – niet alleen in Nederland. Er ligt 75 jaar tussen de eerste experimenten met bewegende beeldtelegrafie tot de institutionalisering van een televisieomroep begin jaren... more
De introductie van televisie was een complex en langdurig proces – niet alleen in Nederland. Er ligt 75 jaar tussen de eerste experimenten met bewegende beeldtelegrafie tot de institutionalisering van een televisieomroep begin jaren vijftig. Dat is een ongelofelijk lange tijd in een periode die vaak wordt getypeerd als fase van versnelde modernisering en dynamisering van de Westerse wereld. De film en de radio vestigen
zich gedurende die jaren als massamedium. De televisie bereikt deze status pas eind jaren zestig, begin jaren zeventig. Het is inmiddels algemeen erkend in de mediageschiedschrijving
dat de ‘imaginaire televisie’ als idee veel ouder is dan het idee van
de media film en radio, maar de redenen voor deze trage introductie van een snel medium zijn minder duidelijk.
Materiële, institutionele en culturele factoren zijn bepalend geweest bij dat lange domesticatieproces. Een langetermijnperspectief is nodig om de veranderlijkheid en
dynamiek van een medium in wat Axel Schildt het ‘massamediaal ensemble’ heeft genoemd te kunnen begrijpen.
zich gedurende die jaren als massamedium. De televisie bereikt deze status pas eind jaren zestig, begin jaren zeventig. Het is inmiddels algemeen erkend in de mediageschiedschrijving
dat de ‘imaginaire televisie’ als idee veel ouder is dan het idee van
de media film en radio, maar de redenen voor deze trage introductie van een snel medium zijn minder duidelijk.
Materiële, institutionele en culturele factoren zijn bepalend geweest bij dat lange domesticatieproces. Een langetermijnperspectief is nodig om de veranderlijkheid en
dynamiek van een medium in wat Axel Schildt het ‘massamediaal ensemble’ heeft genoemd te kunnen begrijpen.
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Wir wollen im Folgenden einerseits verschiedene, wiederkehrende topoi in den vom Erfin-dungsprozess handelnden Erzählungen identifizieren und andererseits deren politische oder kulturelle Instrumentalisierung im Rahmen... more
Wir wollen im Folgenden einerseits verschiedene, wiederkehrende topoi in den vom Erfin-dungsprozess handelnden Erzählungen identifizieren und andererseits deren politische oder kulturelle Instrumentalisierung im Rahmen techno-nationalistischer Diskurse als „Erfindung einer Tradition“ untersuchen, wobei wir unsere Untersuchung auf Frankreich, Großbritanni-en, Deutschland und die USA konzentrieren. Das hier verwendete Quellenmaterial besteht sowohl aus verschiedenen Aussagen und Interventionen der Erfinder selbst, als auch aus bio-graphischen, film- bzw. fernsehhistorischen, populärwissenschaftlichen oder journalistischen Darstellungen. Wir konzentrieren uns dabei vor allem auf relativ frühe Zeugnisse und mehr oder weniger kritische historische Darstellungen, doch soll an dieser Stelle auch darauf hin-gewiesen werden, dass eine ausführlichere Studie verschiedener Nacherzählungen der Erfin-dungsprozesse in verschiedenen historischen Phasen unter Einschluss auch der populären Medien wie Comics, Radio, Film oder Fernsehen bis hin zum Internet von großem mentali-tätsgeschichtlichen Interesse sein dürfte.
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Science and technology are at the very heart of the European project. But how to write a history of Europe in the making when using technology as an actor category and lens of analysis? This is the driving narrative behind Making Europe:... more
Science and technology are at the very heart of the European project. But how to write a history of Europe in the making when using technology as an actor category and lens of analysis? This is the driving narrative behind Making Europe: Technology and Transformations (1850-2000) – a six volume series on the history of Europe in the «long twentieth century».
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Transnational infrastructures have long been an integral part of projects to unite Europe. From the first ceremonial train of the European Coal and Steel Community to the new border signs that have replaced checkpoints along motorways,... more
Transnational infrastructures have long been an integral part of projects to unite Europe. From the first ceremonial train of the European Coal and Steel Community to the new border signs that have replaced checkpoints along motorways, such technologies of connection have served as powerful symbols of European unification. In interpreting infrastructures as mediating interfaces of European projects, this book aims to analyze the complex histories of network technologies in their material, institutional and symbolic performances. Taking material networks as the focal point of study allows the authors to tell a truly transnational history, broadening fruitfully our perspectives on a number of historical narratives. It expands the time frame for exploring European integration by pointing to the longer processes of international connection and co-operation. These broadened spatial and temporal horizons allow to de-centre the processes of formal integration surrounding the EU after WWII to reveal a broader range of actors and forces in European history.
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Research Interests: European History, Information Technology, Television Studies, Media History, History of Technology, and 13 moreComputer Networks, Social Constructionism/ Constructivism, Databases, Standardization, Software, Mediengeschichte, Franco-German Relations, Technopolitics, Colour Television, Farbfernsehen, Technikgeschichte, deutsch-französische Beziehungen, and Science and Technology Studies
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In 1950 and 1952, the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) and Radio Télévision Française (RTF) realized the first transnational television transmissions ever. The so called ‘Calais Experiment’ (1950) and the ‘Paris Week’ (1952) were... more
In 1950 and 1952, the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) and Radio Télévision Française (RTF) realized the first transnational television transmissions ever. The so called ‘Calais Experiment’ (1950) and the ‘Paris Week’ (1952) were celebrated as historic landmarks in European television and celebrated as a new ‘entente cordiale’ between the two countries. This article aims at highlighting some of the tensions that surrounded the realization of these first experiments in transnational television by embedding the historic events into the broader context of television development in Europe and by emphasizing the hidden techno-political interests at stake. In line with current trends in transnational and European television historiography, the article analyses transnational media events as performances that highlight the complex interplay of the technical, institutional and symbolic dimension of television as a transnational infrastructure.
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In sketching the political instrumentalisation of the SECAM-system under de Gaulle (1958-1969) and its predecessor Georges Pompidou (1969-1974), this article aims at analysing the political promotion of the SECAM system to the East,... more
In sketching the political instrumentalisation of the SECAM-system under de Gaulle (1958-1969) and its predecessor Georges Pompidou (1969-1974), this article aims at analysing the political promotion of the SECAM system to the East, especially to the Soviet Union. In setting Pompidou’s activity within the course of a European policy “from the Atlantic to the Ural” charted by de Gaulle, this article is intended to present the promotion of the French colour television system SECAM to Eastern Europe as a case of Cold War techno-political diplomacy. This techno-political diplomacy reflected the ambitious positioning of France as an independent technological and industrial player in a divided Europe and aimed at strength-ening the strategic cooperation between France and the Soviet Union in a high technology domain. In addition and by focussing on the French industrial policy “between pragmatism and ambition,” the chapter also shows that the selling of the SECAM system was not only a symbol techno-political diplomacy, but that the project had a pronounced industrial and commercial character too.
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1972 veröffentlichte der Club of Rome in seinen "Grenzen des Wachstums" düstere Visionen für die Zukunft des Planeten Erde. Das neuentdeckte Bewusstsein für das Thema Natur und Umweltschutz fand auch in Ostbelgien seinen Widerhall:... more
1972 veröffentlichte der Club of Rome in seinen "Grenzen des Wachstums" düstere Visionen für die Zukunft des Planeten Erde. Das neuentdeckte Bewusstsein für das Thema Natur und Umweltschutz fand auch in Ostbelgien seinen Widerhall: Anti-Atomkraft-Bewegung, Müllentsorgung, Grüne Bewegung, Tierschutz, Renaturierung, Biohöfe und erneuerbare Energien entwickelten sich ab diesem Jahrzehnt auch in Ostbelgien ganz allmählich zu Phänomenen mit gesellschaftlicher Bedeutung.
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Im Sommer des Jahres 1987 ereignet sich eines der spektakulärsten Medienereignisse in der jüngeren Zeitgeschichte Ostbelgiens. Der überraschende Rücktritt von Lorenz Paasch als Sankt Vither Schöffe und sein beruflicher Wechsel als... more
Im Sommer des Jahres 1987 ereignet sich eines der
spektakulärsten Medienereignisse in der jüngeren
Zeitgeschichte Ostbelgiens. Der überraschende
Rücktritt von Lorenz Paasch als Sankt Vither Schöffe
und sein beruflicher Wechsel als Geschäftsführer
der in Düsseldorf angesiedelten Hermann-Niermann-
Stiftung inspiriert BRF-Journalist Freddy
Derwahl zu einer folgenschweren Spekulation über
eine angebliche Nachbarschaft der Stiftung zu
rechtsradikalen Kreisen. Die „Niermann-Affäre“
sorgt national und international für Aufregung,
provoziert in Ostbelgien eine hitzige Debatte über
PDB-Parteispenden und weckt längst totgeglaubte
Gespenster der Vergangenheit zu neuem Leben.
spektakulärsten Medienereignisse in der jüngeren
Zeitgeschichte Ostbelgiens. Der überraschende
Rücktritt von Lorenz Paasch als Sankt Vither Schöffe
und sein beruflicher Wechsel als Geschäftsführer
der in Düsseldorf angesiedelten Hermann-Niermann-
Stiftung inspiriert BRF-Journalist Freddy
Derwahl zu einer folgenschweren Spekulation über
eine angebliche Nachbarschaft der Stiftung zu
rechtsradikalen Kreisen. Die „Niermann-Affäre“
sorgt national und international für Aufregung,
provoziert in Ostbelgien eine hitzige Debatte über
PDB-Parteispenden und weckt längst totgeglaubte
Gespenster der Vergangenheit zu neuem Leben.
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Geschichte wird anhand von Quellen unterschiedlicher Herkunft erzählt und interpretiert. Die Fragen der Historiker entwickeln sich auch auf Grundlage ihrer verinnerlichten familiären Erzählungen über erlebte Geschichte. Können diese... more
Geschichte wird anhand von Quellen unterschiedlicher Herkunft erzählt und interpretiert. Die Fragen der Historiker entwickeln sich auch auf Grundlage ihrer verinnerlichten familiären Erzählungen über erlebte Geschichte. Können diese Perspektive und ihre Konfrontation mit der archivalischen Überlieferung neue Sichtweisen auf die Vergangenheit ermöglichen? Wie können Historiker das Konzept des situativen Opportunismus nutzen, um die Entscheidungen der Zeitgenossen zu verstehen? Ein Denkanstoß.
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Die heutige Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft ist eine junge Demokratie. Dies liest sich beispielhaft an der Entwicklung der Medienlandschaft ab. Freie Meinungs bildung und kritischer Journalismus wurden erst ab Ende der 1960er Jahre... more
Die heutige Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft ist eine
junge Demokratie. Dies liest sich beispielhaft an der
Entwicklung der Medienlandschaft ab. Freie Meinungs
bildung und kritischer Journalismus wurden erst ab
Ende der 1960er Jahre ostbelgische Medienrealität. Wie
ist das zu erklären? Inwiefern wurde die Presse durch
politische Druckgruppen beeinflusst? Waren Presse
und Rundfunk lediglich Spiegel der gesellschaftlichen
Entwicklungen oder haben sie als Akteure in die Auto
nomie debatte eingegriffen? Einige Thesen zu einer
Entwicklung, die das Zusammenleben in der Deutsch
sprachigen Gemeinschaft bis heute prägt.
junge Demokratie. Dies liest sich beispielhaft an der
Entwicklung der Medienlandschaft ab. Freie Meinungs
bildung und kritischer Journalismus wurden erst ab
Ende der 1960er Jahre ostbelgische Medienrealität. Wie
ist das zu erklären? Inwiefern wurde die Presse durch
politische Druckgruppen beeinflusst? Waren Presse
und Rundfunk lediglich Spiegel der gesellschaftlichen
Entwicklungen oder haben sie als Akteure in die Auto
nomie debatte eingegriffen? Einige Thesen zu einer
Entwicklung, die das Zusammenleben in der Deutsch
sprachigen Gemeinschaft bis heute prägt.
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Veränderungen lagen in der Luft – so könnte man die gesellschaftliche Stimmung Ende der 1960er, Anfang der 1970er Jahre wohl am besten beschreiben. International trat der Generationenkonflikt zwischen der Nachkriegsgeneration, den... more
Veränderungen lagen in der Luft – so könnte man die gesellschaftliche Stimmung Ende der 1960er, Anfang der
1970er Jahre wohl am besten beschreiben. International trat
der Generationenkonflikt zwischen der Nachkriegsgeneration,
den sogenannten „Baby-Boomern“, und jener Generation, die den Zweiten Weltkrieg als Jugendliche oder junge Erwachsene erlebt
hatte, in Form von Studentenprotesten, Antikriegsbewegungen und neuen Lebensentwürfen zutage. Es ist wohl kaum ein Zufall, dass sich zu dieser Zeit auch in Ostbelgien der Protest regte.
Oder doch? Wo gegen lehnten sich die „jungen Wilden“ in unserer
Gegend auf? Vom Geist der 68er beseelt, so die These, schlugen vor allem junge Eifler neue Töne an, die die politische Landschaft – mehr denn die sozialen oder kulturellen Milieus Ostbelgiens – nachhaltig prägen sollte. Ein Essay.
1970er Jahre wohl am besten beschreiben. International trat
der Generationenkonflikt zwischen der Nachkriegsgeneration,
den sogenannten „Baby-Boomern“, und jener Generation, die den Zweiten Weltkrieg als Jugendliche oder junge Erwachsene erlebt
hatte, in Form von Studentenprotesten, Antikriegsbewegungen und neuen Lebensentwürfen zutage. Es ist wohl kaum ein Zufall, dass sich zu dieser Zeit auch in Ostbelgien der Protest regte.
Oder doch? Wo gegen lehnten sich die „jungen Wilden“ in unserer
Gegend auf? Vom Geist der 68er beseelt, so die These, schlugen vor allem junge Eifler neue Töne an, die die politische Landschaft – mehr denn die sozialen oder kulturellen Milieus Ostbelgiens – nachhaltig prägen sollte. Ein Essay.
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Der Begriff des Zeitraums ist eine Besonderheit der deutschen Sprache. Zeit und Raum müssen in der historischen Betrachtung gemeinsam gedacht werden. Doch über welche Zeit reden wir in diesem Band? Wie können historische Brüche und... more
Der Begriff des Zeitraums ist eine Besonderheit der deutschen Sprache. Zeit und Raum müssen in der historischen Betrachtung gemeinsam gedacht werden. Doch über welche Zeit reden wir in diesem Band? Wie können historische Brüche und Kontinuitäten erfasst werden und als Teil einer globalen Geschichte gedeutet werden? Über welchen Raum reden wir? Waren die Grenzregionen zwischen Maas und Rhein nur Randregionen, deren Bedeutung allein aus dem Blickwinkel der Zentren deutlich wird? Oder waren sie eher Zwischenräume, deren Potenzial aus dem Mitainander über alle Grenzen hinweg gelesen werden kann? Grundsätzliche Fragen, zahlreiche Anregungen und Beispiele über Zeit und Raum im langen 19. Jahrhundert und das Konzept dieses Bandes.
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Wenn die Großregion zwischen Rhein und Maas 1910 anders aussah als 1780, dann war die wichtigste Ursache der Verwandlung dieses Natur- und Kulturraums die Industrie. Das 19. Jahrhundert war die Epoche der Ausbreitung der industriellen... more
Wenn die Großregion zwischen Rhein und Maas 1910 anders aussah als 1780, dann war die wichtigste Ursache der Verwandlung dieses Natur- und Kulturraums die Industrie. Das 19. Jahrhundert war die Epoche der Ausbreitung der industriellen Produktionsweise sowie der damit verbundenen Gesellschaftsformen über große Teile der Welt. Die Kreise Eupen und Malmedy waren zwischen den industriellen Zentren von Ruhrgebiet und Maastal eine Zwischenregion, in der alte Wirtschaftsformen und ein tranditionelles soziales Miteinander auf neue Produktionstechniken, Fabrikarbeit und beschleunigte Lebensformen prallten. Der Blick auf diese Zeit offenbart Spuren höchst unterschiedlicher Welten, die für die Menschen vor Brüche in überlieferten Lebensformen provozierten und hohe Anpassungsleistungen erforderten.
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"This chapter examines the meaning of and nostalgic yearning for transistor radios in the lyrics of popular songs. Popular music provides a treasure of lyrics that deal explicitly with the transistor... more
"This chapter examines the meaning of and nostalgic yearning for transistor radios in the lyrics of popular songs. Popular music provides a treasure of lyrics that deal explicitly with the transistor radio as a cultural phenomenon – a neglected topic in scholarly work on the history of radio so far. From Chuck Berry’s “Oh Baby Doll” to Buck Owens’ “Made in Japan,” the Beach Boys’ “Magic Transistor Radio” to Kraftwerk’s “Transistor,” a broad range of popular music genres reflects the transistor radio’s deep cultural impact in youth culture and popular entertainment. In analyzing both contemporary lyrical reflections and nostalgic echoes of the transistor radio in popular music, this chapter provides an unorthodox take on the rich and fascinating sound souvenirs of a technology that blazed the trail of mobile electronic devices."
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In sketching the political instrumentalisation of the SECAM-system under de Gaulle (1958-1969) and its predecessor Georges Pompidou (1969-1974), this article aims at analysing the political promotion of the SECAM system to the East,... more
In sketching the political instrumentalisation of the SECAM-system under de Gaulle (1958-1969) and its predecessor Georges Pompidou (1969-1974), this article aims at analysing the political promotion of the SECAM system to the East, especially to the Soviet Union. In setting Pompidou’s activity within the course of a European policy “from the Atlantic to the Ural” charted by de Gaulle, this article is intended to present the promotion of the French colour television system SECAM to Eastern Europe as a case of Cold War techno-political diplomacy. This techno-political diplomacy reflected the ambitious positioning of France as an independent technological and industrial player in a divided Europe and aimed at strength-ening the strategic cooperation between France and the Soviet Union in a high technology domain. In addition and by focussing on the French industrial policy “between pragmatism and ambition,” the chapter also shows that the selling of the SECAM system was not only a symbol techno-political diplomacy, but that the project had a pronounced industrial and commercial character too.
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Page 1. 3 Andreas Fickers Der Transistor" als technisches und kulturelles Phänomen Die Transistorisierung der Radio-und Fernsehempfänger in der deutschen Rundfunkindustrie 1955 bis 1965 Bassum 1998 Verlag für Geschichte der... more
Page 1. 3 Andreas Fickers Der Transistor" als technisches und kulturelles Phänomen Die Transistorisierung der Radio-und Fernsehempfänger in der deutschen Rundfunkindustrie 1955 bis 1965 Bassum 1998 Verlag für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik ...
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»[…] wenn ›die Quelle‹ die Reliquie historischen Arbeitens ist – nicht nur Uberbleibsel, sondern auch Objekt wissenschaftlicher Verehrung –, dann ware analog ›das Archiv‹ die Kirche der Geschichtswissenschaft, in der die heiligen... more
»[…] wenn ›die Quelle‹ die Reliquie historischen Arbeitens ist – nicht nur Uberbleibsel, sondern auch Objekt wissenschaftlicher Verehrung –, dann ware analog ›das Archiv‹ die Kirche der Geschichtswissenschaft, in der die heiligen Handlungen des Suchens, Findens, Entdeckens und Erforschens vollzogen werden.« Achim Landwehr wirft in seinem geschichtstheoretischen Essay den Historikern ihren »Quellenglauben« vor – diese Kritik liese sich im digitalen Zeitalter leicht auf die Heilsversprechen der Apostel der »Big Data Revolution« ubertragen. Zwar regen sich mittlerweile vermehrt Stimmen, die den »Wahnwitz« der digitalen Utopie in Frage stellen, doch wird der offentliche Diskurs weiterhin von jener Revolutionsrhetorik dominiert, die standardmasig als Begleitmusik neuer Technologien ertont. Statt in der intellektuell wenig fruchtbaren Dichotomie von Gegnern und Befurwortern, »First Movers« und Ignoranten zu verharren, welche die Landschaft der »Digital Humanities« ein wenig uberspitzt auch heute noch kennzeichnet, ist das Ziel dieses Beitrages eine praxeologische Reflexion, die den Einfluss von digitalen Infrastrukturen, digitalen Werkzeugen und digitalen »Quellen« auf die Praxis historischen Arbeitens zeigen mochte. Ausgehend von der These, dass ebenjene digitalen Infrastrukturen, Werkzeuge und »Quellen« heute einen zentralen Einfluss darauf haben, wie wir Geschichte denken, erforschen und erzahlen, pladiert der Beitrag fur ein »Update« der klassischen Hermeneutik in der Geschichtswissenschaft. Die kritische Reflexion uber die konstitutive Rolle des Digitalen in der Konstruktion und Vermittlung historischen Wissens ist nicht nur eine Frage epistemologischer Dringlichkeit, sondern zentraler Bestandteil der Selbstverstandigung eines Faches, dessen Anspruch als Wissenschaft sich auf die Methoden der Quellenkritik grundet.
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"This (manuscript version) article was written for the Handbook of Communication History (edited by Peter Simonson, Janice Peck, Robert T. Craig and John P. Jackson), published by Routledge: New York (2013), pp. 239-256. It... more
"This (manuscript version) article was written for the Handbook of Communication History (edited by Peter Simonson, Janice Peck, Robert T. Craig and John P. Jackson), published by Routledge: New York (2013), pp. 239-256. It offers a radical historicisation of television both as technology and cultural form and as as object of academic study (television studies). "
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Seit nunmehr 100 Jahren ist das heutige Ostbelgien Teil des Belgischen Königreichs. Diesen Jahrestag haben die beiden Historiker Christoph Brüll und Andreas Fickers zum Anlass genommen, gemeinsam mit dem BRF in 8 Radioessays in die... more
Seit nunmehr 100 Jahren ist das heutige Ostbelgien Teil des Belgischen Königreichs. Diesen Jahrestag haben die beiden Historiker Christoph Brüll und Andreas Fickers zum Anlass genommen, gemeinsam mit dem BRF in 8 Radioessays in die ostbelgische Vergangenheit hineinzuhorchen. Die bislang kaum erforschten Tonarchive des BRF haben sich als herausragende Quelle erwiesen, um Zwischentöne hörbar zu machen und so Stimmen und Stimmungen aus der bewegten ostbelgischen Vergangenheit wieder zu beleben. Die in diesem Band versammelten Sendemanuskripte bieten keine ostbelgische Chronik. Vielmehr sollen sie zum Nachdenken über Geschichte anregen, darüber, wie historische Deutungen entstehen und auch, warum es sich lohnt, sich mit der Geschichte des ostbelgischen Zwischenraums als europäische Geschichte en miniature zu beschäftigen
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In Episode fünf der Sendereihe "100 Jahre Ostbelgien" befassen sich die Historiker Andreas Fickers und Christoph Brüll mit Sprachpolitik und Identitätsdebatten zwischen 1962 und 1980. „Sag mir, wie du sprichst, und ich sage dir,... more
In Episode fünf der Sendereihe "100 Jahre Ostbelgien" befassen sich die Historiker Andreas Fickers und Christoph Brüll mit Sprachpolitik und Identitätsdebatten zwischen 1962 und 1980. „Sag mir, wie du sprichst, und ich sage dir, wer du bist“ – so lautet ein vielzitiertes Bonmot. Ohne Zweifel zählt die Sprachenfrage zu den zentralen Themen der Geschichte unserer Region, durchzieht sie doch gleichermaßen die politischen, sozialen wie kulturellen Dimensionen dessen, was wir als Identität bezeichnen. Diese Episode von „100 Jahre Ostbelgien“ ist der engen Verzahnung von Sprachenpolitik und Identitätsdiskursen gewidmet, deren zahlreiche Facetten und Wendungen problemlos eine eigene Sendereihe füllen könnten
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textabstractThis video documents the authors' journey back to the origins of transnational television in Europe. Inspired by the idea of experimental media archaeology (EMA), the trip to original locations of the transnational media... more
textabstractThis video documents the authors' journey back to the origins of transnational television in Europe. Inspired by the idea of experimental media archaeology (EMA), the trip to original locations of the transnational media event known as ‘Paris-week’ in 1952 illustrates a new approach to media historiography, which aims to sensitize television historians for the material remains, topography and physical spaces of early television transmissions. Readers /viewers are invited to watch the different episodes of the authors' journey by clicking on the figures.
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Research Interests: History, European History, Media Studies, Television Studies, Transnationalism, and 13 moreMedia History, Historiography, Digital History, Politics, Broadcast & Multimedia Technology, Transnational History, Television History, BBC, Calais, Eurovision, Experimental Film and Television., Experimental Media Archaeology, and RTF
The progress made in the development of television gives us reason to believe that television will soon become of as great cultural importance as broadcasting is at present. Realizing that television is not merely a future business for a... more
The progress made in the development of television gives us reason to believe that television will soon become of as great cultural importance as broadcasting is at present. Realizing that television is not merely a future business for a few manufacturers and businessmen but that television concerns everybody in Germany, the Deutsche Reichspost has taken up to the rule itself all matters concerning television. Being at that time encouraged by the impulses rising from the national socialistic idea, the development of television was encouraged with the aim to bring these valuable means of communication to as complete a state as possible and to place it as soon as it may be at the service of the whole nation.
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The tendency to focus on television as a national medium has led to a relative neglect not only of the transnational flows of television across national borders, but also of the place of the regional and the local in histories of... more
The tendency to focus on television as a national medium has led to a relative neglect not only of the transnational flows of television across national borders, but also of the place of the regional and the local in histories of television. This section brings together four short articles by different authors all addressing the history of regional and local television within a range of national contexts in order to stimulate discussion and research into the place of the regional in transnational television history. Benoît Lafon examines the centralizing tendencies of the development of regional television in France, Edgar Lersch explores how German television was initially developed as a federal system, Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano examines the uneven development of regional television in Spain, and Sarita Malik looks at the ways in which national broadcasters and, more recently, transnational channels, have attempted to address diasporic communities. Together these articles demonstrate the important role of the regional in the construction of a range of different national contexts, while also pointing to the instability and variety of the ‘regional’ within and across these contexts.
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The digitalbe it in forms of data, infrastructures, or toolsinterferes at all levels in the practice of doing public history. This chapter argues that digital public historians have to reflect more deeply on the epistemological... more
The digitalbe it in forms of data, infrastructures, or toolsinterferes at all levels in the practice of doing public history. This chapter argues that digital public historians have to reflect more deeply on the epistemological consequences of their digital practices. It proposes the concept of "digital hermeneutics" as a conceptual framework for this reflection. As a "hermeneutics of in-betweenness," digital hermeneutics investigates the trading zone of digital public history where new digital methods and approaches meet disciplinary traditions and epistemic cultures of history.
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Studying the role of broadcasting in the making of Europe can help to emphasize technology’s role as central actor in the story of Europe’s hidden integration, and — here’s the other side of the story — its fragmentation. This chapter... more
Studying the role of broadcasting in the making of Europe can help to emphasize technology’s role as central actor in the story of Europe’s hidden integration, and — here’s the other side of the story — its fragmentation. This chapter aims to study the history of Europe by starting with the idea that broadcast communication was the most powerful and influential means for both national and transnational communication in the twentieth century. The central objective is to problematize Europe as a broadcasting space by describing and analysing European radio and television broadcasts originating from the International Broadcasting Union and the European Broadcasting Union and by questioning their specific contribution to the medial construction of European and international communication spaces in constantly changing political and cultural environments. In retracing both sound and audiovisual broadcast transmissions in the 1920s, 1930s and 1950s we will link the development of different broadcast technologies (radio and television) to visions of European broadcasting spaces and their role in the continuous reinvention of Europe or re-imagination of European identities. Starting with an a priori geographical definition of Europe is futile given the need to embed the discursive construction of ‘Europe’ into changing material, legal and institutional maps. Here again, the very nature of broadcasting as a transnational or transborder phenomenon with its inevitable spillover effects challenges the classic ways of mapping Europe.
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Dans une perspective comparatiste, cet article analyse des discours de promotion de la télévision comme attraction technique et futur média de masse aux expositions universelles de Paris (1937) et New York (1939). Malgré une démonstration... more
Dans une perspective comparatiste, cet article analyse des discours de promotion de la télévision comme attraction technique et futur média de masse aux expositions universelles de Paris (1937) et New York (1939). Malgré une démonstration presque identique du potentiel de la télévision comme moyen de communication et de divertissement aux deux expositions, les discours auréolant le nouveau média en Europe et aux États-Unis se distinguent très sensiblement. Basé sur des réflexions sur les processus d'innovation dans le domaine des technologies de communication, l'article s'intéresse spécialement à l'influence des discours publics et publicitaires sur l'identité d'un média
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Since the early years of telegraphy, modernity at large generated and has depended upon technologies of electrical/electronic communication and information circulation: from telephone, radio, and television to the internet. This volume... more
Since the early years of telegraphy, modernity at large generated and has depended upon technologies of electrical/electronic communication and information circulation: from telephone, radio, and television to the internet. This volume reveals these connecting technologies’ geopolitical importance and their crucial relationships with culture, commerce, and communities. Also the authors critically examine their spatial dimensions and transnational implications – as material objects with particular qualities, as elements in institutional complexes, and as ‘vehicles’ carrying complex symbolic meanings. Through in-depth assessments of critical, as well as mundane, events in the history of communications and information, these analyses will significantly alter conventional perspectives both on communications and on modern European history
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Research Interests: Art and Topos theory
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This lecture discusses the heuristic potential of "thinkering" - a playful and critical approach to using digital tools, technologies and infrastructures for doing digital history. It sketches a program for digital hermeneutics.
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In this media archaeological performance, three "classical" dispositifs of home movie making and screening are staged. This performance is a creative output of the NWO funded research project "Changing Platforms of Ritualized Memory... more
In this media archaeological performance, three "classical" dispositifs of home movie making and screening are staged. This performance is a creative output of the NWO funded research project "Changing Platforms of Ritualized Memory Practices: The Cultural Dynamics of Home Movies", which is a collaboration between Luxemburg University (Prof. Andreas Fickers), Maastricht University (Dr. Jo Wachelder, Tim van der Heijden M.A.) and Groningen University (Dr. Susan Aasman, Tom Slootweg M.A.). This performace was presented during the 9th edition of the International Orphan Film Festival at EYE Film Institute Amsterdam (31st March 2014).
Concept & performance: Andreas Fickers, Susan Aasman, Guy Edmonds, Tom Slootweg, Tim van der Heijden
Stage director: Marjan Sonke
Cinematography: Charlotte Storm van ‘s Gravesande
Montage: Tim van der Heijden
Many thanks to: Jaukje van Wonderen (production assistant), Jo Wachelder (advisor), Facilitair Camerabedrijf Team ENG, support staff EYE Film Institute, Stichting Amateurfilm, Audio Visual Archive Groningen (GAVA).
Concept & performance: Andreas Fickers, Susan Aasman, Guy Edmonds, Tom Slootweg, Tim van der Heijden
Stage director: Marjan Sonke
Cinematography: Charlotte Storm van ‘s Gravesande
Montage: Tim van der Heijden
Many thanks to: Jaukje van Wonderen (production assistant), Jo Wachelder (advisor), Facilitair Camerabedrijf Team ENG, support staff EYE Film Institute, Stichting Amateurfilm, Audio Visual Archive Groningen (GAVA).
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Here are some thoughts about the challenges of doing digital history that I presented at the DH research colloquium in Trier in January 2014.
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The lecture presents my thoughts on how to challenge the visual bias in exhibition making in thinking about an "ears-on" approach.
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The aim of this key-note lecture at the "Screen Media and Memory" confernce of the NECS network (Network of European Cinema Studies) was to problematize the notion of "technostalgia" by using the example of sonic memories of the... more
The aim of this key-note lecture at the "Screen Media and Memory" confernce of the NECS network (Network of European Cinema Studies) was to problematize the notion of "technostalgia" by using the example of sonic memories of the transistor radio. It is also a speculative reflection on the question whether the current boom in mediated memories can be explained by a phenomenon that I have tentatively called "analogue melancholia".
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A workshop on the history of the International Telecommunication Union with presenters from Europe, US and Asia. The history of transnational telecommunications from the telegraph to the internet
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This book focuses on the history of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), from its origins in the mid-19th century to nowadays. ITU was the fi rst international organization ever and still plays a crucial role in managing... more
This book focuses on the history of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), from its origins in the mid-19th century to nowadays. ITU was the fi rst international organization ever and still plays a crucial role in managing global telecommunications today. Putting together some of the most relevant scholars in the fi eld of transnational communications, the book covers the history of ITU from 1865 to digital times in a truly global perspective, taking into account several technologies like the telegraph, the telephone, cables, wireless, radio, television, satellites, mobile phone, the internet and others. The main goal is to identify the long-term strategies of regulation and the techno-diplomatic manoeuvres taken inside ITU, from convincing the majority of the nations to establish the offi cial seat of the Telegraph Union bureau in Switzerland in the 1860s, to contrasting the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance (supported by US and ICANN). History of the International Telecommunication Union is a trans-disciplinary text and can be interesting for scholars and students in the fi elds of telecommunications, media, international organizations, transnational communication, diplomacy, political economy of communication, STS, and others. It has the ambition to become a reference point in the history of ITU and, at the same time, just the fi rst comprehensive step towards a longer, inter-technological, political and cultural history of transnational communications to be written in the future.
Research Interests: Diplomatic History, International Relations, Communication, Media Studies, International Communication, and 15 moreMedia History, International organizations, History of Technology, Telecommunications, Diplomacy, Satellite Communications, The Internet, International Telecommunications Policy, History of Media and Communication, Diplomacy and international relations, Telecommunications International Relations International organizations Global Governance, International Telecommunications Union, International Telecommunication Union, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and Union internationale des télécommunications
Grenzen und Grenzziehungen sind in den letzten Jahrzehnten in den Fokus der Geschichtsschreibung gerückt. Dies bezieht sich nicht nur auf räumliche Grenzen, sondern auch auf die Grenzen zwischen Geschlechtern, Kulturen und... more
Grenzen und Grenzziehungen sind in den letzten Jahrzehnten in den Fokus der Geschichtsschreibung gerückt. Dies bezieht sich nicht nur auf räumliche Grenzen, sondern auch auf die Grenzen zwischen Geschlechtern, Kulturen und Alltagspraktiken oder die Entgrenzung von Gewaltphänomenen. Gleichzeitig sind etablierte Grenzen – etwa zwischen akademischen Disziplinen – in Bewegung geraten und ungewiss geworden. Beides ermöglicht spielerische Methoden, Fragestellungen und Erzählformen. Die Beiträge in diesem Band liefern Beispiele für die Beschäftigung mit und die Übertretung von Grenzen. Als Festschrift für Armin Heinen spiegeln sie zugleich dessen vielfältiges und grenzüberschreitendes Forschungs- und Vermittlungsinteresse.
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Im Mai 2017 wurde im Brüsseler Leopoldpark, im Zentrum des Europaviertels, das Haus der europäischen Geschichte eröffnet. Zehn Jahre nach seiner Initiierung durch den damaligen Präsidenten des Europäischen Parlaments, den deutschen... more
Im Mai 2017 wurde im Brüsseler Leopoldpark, im Zentrum des Europaviertels, das Haus der europäischen Geschichte eröffnet. Zehn Jahre nach seiner Initiierung durch den damaligen Präsidenten des Europäischen Parlaments, den deutschen CDU-Politiker Hans-Gert Pöttering, erwartet den Besucher eine Ausstellung, die als geradezu idealtypische Inkarnation EU-europäischer Kompromisslogik gedeutet werden kann.
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The aim of this chapter is to outline experimental media archaeology as an alternative method to a sense and object-oriented technology and media historiography. The epistemological potential of an object and sense-oriented experimental... more
The aim of this chapter is to outline experimental media archaeology as an alternative method to a sense and object-oriented technology and media historiography. The epistemological potential of an object and sense-oriented experimental access to the field of the history of media and technology will be discussed here on the basis of experiences in the history of science and historically informed music performances. The heart of the chapter is formed by a discussion of a series of media archaeological experiments executed by the authors in search for alternative ways to draft historical statements on past media practices. In these experiments, they focus on the materiality of past-media devices, beyond their function as sign and evidence of the past, and on the heuristic possibilities offered by an experimental approach to these devices.
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1This issue of Signata aims to address the question of the archive from a semiotic and semio-pragmatic perspective. By “semiotics”, we do not mean a single discipline, but rather a plurality of approaches by which to question meaning,... more
1This issue of Signata aims to address the question of the archive from a semiotic and semio-pragmatic perspective. By “semiotics”, we do not mean a single discipline, but rather a plurality of approaches by which to question meaning, forms, and values within the historical, sociological, philosophical, linguistic, media, and artistic disciplines. The aim of this issue is thus the constitution of a cartography that embraces the different approaches that, in the archival field, can elicit reflections pertaining to meaning.