VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture
This article offers a comparative take on the ways audiovisual versus verbal digital archives mod... more This article offers a comparative take on the ways audiovisual versus verbal digital archives model our understanding of the past. We focus on content metadata schemas and their role in modeling histories and framing the uses of audiovisual databases. Our empirical corpus includes verbal and audiovisual objects from the five-year period just before the World War II (1935-1939) as presented in two digital databases – the Analytic Bibliography of Estonian Journalism and the Estonian Film Database. The article compares how the different metadata schemas for newspaper articles and newsreels model their objects. As a consequence, metadata schemas shape contemporary perceptions of historical realities in different ways.
For the past three years, the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics, Universit... more For the past three years, the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, has been developing open access online materials for supporting the teaching of humanities-related subjects in Estonian-and Russian-language secondary schools. This paper maps the theoretical and conceptual starting points of these materials. The overarching goal of the educational platforms is to support cultural coherence and autocommunication by cultivating literacies necessary for holding meaningful dialogues with cultural heritage. To achieve the goal, the authors have been seeking ways of purposeful harnessing of transmedial, crossmedial and other tools offered by the contemporary digital communication space. We have started with an understanding of culture as education-a model which is grounded in cultural semiotics and highlights the role of cultural experience and cultural self-description in learning literacies. From these premises we proceed to explicating the value of a transdisciplinary pedagogy for methodical translation of the theoretical concepts into practical solutions in teaching and learning culture. Maarja Ojamaa et el. The aim of this paper is to map the theoretical and contextual starting points for the online environment Education on Screen (EoS) created by the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu. The primary focus of the group has so far been application of cultural semiotic framework in creating study materials for humanities-related subjects and topics 1 Maarja Ojamaa also: Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School.
For the past three years, the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics, Universit... more For the past three years, the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, has been developing open access online materials for supporting the teaching of humanities-related subjects in Estonian-and Russian-language secondary schools. This paper maps the theoretical and conceptual starting points of these materials. The overarching goal of the educational platforms is to support cultural coherence and autocommunication by cultivating literacies necessary for holding meaningful dialogues with cultural heritage. To achieve the goal, the authors have been seeking ways of purposeful harnessing of transmedial, crossmedial and other tools offered by the contemporary digital communication space. We have started with an understanding of culture as education-a model which is grounded in cultural semiotics and highlights the role of cultural experience and cultural self-description in learning literacies. From these premises we proceed to explicating the value of a transdisciplinary pedagogy for methodical translation of the theoretical concepts into practical solutions in teaching and learning culture. Maarja Ojamaa et el. The aim of this paper is to map the theoretical and contextual starting points for the online environment Education on Screen (EoS) created by the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu. The primary focus of the group has so far been application of cultural semiotic framework in creating study materials for humanities-related subjects and topics 1 Maarja Ojamaa also: Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School.
Much writing on, first, analogue and, later, digital archives has focused on related power-dynami... more Much writing on, first, analogue and, later, digital archives has focused on related power-dynamics and the structuring effects of archives and their technologies on discursive freedom and cultural dynamics. In recent years, however, work within the media archaeology domain, especially by Wolfgang Ernst, has addressed how the specific materialities of digital archives, and the nature of their algorithms and particular functions, could be seen to facilitate dynamics in cultures. This article sets this work in dialogue with the cultural semiotics of Juri Lotman, whose late work focused on how communicative processes between and within different subsystems of culture facilitate their dynamic change and the production of new forms and cultural systems. The article suggests further interdisciplinary dialogue between media archaeology and cultural semiotics in order to understand the role of archives in facilitating communicative processes and interlinking in culture and the emergence of novelties – that is, for understanding the ‘creativity’ of archives.
This article first builds on the semiotics of culture approach and argues that the increasingly w... more This article first builds on the semiotics of culture approach and argues that the increasingly widespread transmedia practices may be valuable for contributing to the dynamics of how modern cultures are innovated. Transmedia practices facilitate inter- semiotic translations at all levels of cultures, which conditions increased dialogism and the feasible evolution of these cultures. In the second part of the article, we demonstrate that there are hindrances in the existing media systems that may prevent this potential being fulfilled. It is often argued that transmedia can empower micro-sized content providers to participate in such dialogues and in the production of culture. However, recent studies demonstrate that in a European context the transmedia era may instead enforce the oligopolistic structures of media markets.
In order to estimate the current situation of teaching materials available in the field of semiot... more In order to estimate the current situation of teaching materials available in the field of semiotics, we are providing a comparative overview and a worldwide bibliography of introductions and textbooks on general semiotics published within last 50 years, i.e. since the beginning of institutionalization of semiotics. In this category, we have found over 130 original books in 22 languages. Together with the translations of more than 20 of these titles, our bibliography includes publications in 32 languages. Comparing the authors, their theoretical backgrounds and the general frames of the discipline of semiotics in different decades since the 1960s makes it possible to describe a number of predominant tendencies. In the extensive bibliography thus compiled we also include separate lists for existing lexicons and readers of semiotics as additional material not covered in the main discussion. The publication frequency of new titles is growing, with a certain depression having occurred in the 1980s. A leading role of French, Russian and Italian works is demonstrated.
VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture
This article offers a comparative take on the ways audiovisual versus verbal digital archives mod... more This article offers a comparative take on the ways audiovisual versus verbal digital archives model our understanding of the past. We focus on content metadata schemas and their role in modeling histories and framing the uses of audiovisual databases. Our empirical corpus includes verbal and audiovisual objects from the five-year period just before the World War II (1935-1939) as presented in two digital databases – the Analytic Bibliography of Estonian Journalism and the Estonian Film Database. The article compares how the different metadata schemas for newspaper articles and newsreels model their objects. As a consequence, metadata schemas shape contemporary perceptions of historical realities in different ways.
For the past three years, the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics, Universit... more For the past three years, the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, has been developing open access online materials for supporting the teaching of humanities-related subjects in Estonian-and Russian-language secondary schools. This paper maps the theoretical and conceptual starting points of these materials. The overarching goal of the educational platforms is to support cultural coherence and autocommunication by cultivating literacies necessary for holding meaningful dialogues with cultural heritage. To achieve the goal, the authors have been seeking ways of purposeful harnessing of transmedial, crossmedial and other tools offered by the contemporary digital communication space. We have started with an understanding of culture as education-a model which is grounded in cultural semiotics and highlights the role of cultural experience and cultural self-description in learning literacies. From these premises we proceed to explicating the value of a transdisciplinary pedagogy for methodical translation of the theoretical concepts into practical solutions in teaching and learning culture. Maarja Ojamaa et el. The aim of this paper is to map the theoretical and contextual starting points for the online environment Education on Screen (EoS) created by the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu. The primary focus of the group has so far been application of cultural semiotic framework in creating study materials for humanities-related subjects and topics 1 Maarja Ojamaa also: Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School.
For the past three years, the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics, Universit... more For the past three years, the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, has been developing open access online materials for supporting the teaching of humanities-related subjects in Estonian-and Russian-language secondary schools. This paper maps the theoretical and conceptual starting points of these materials. The overarching goal of the educational platforms is to support cultural coherence and autocommunication by cultivating literacies necessary for holding meaningful dialogues with cultural heritage. To achieve the goal, the authors have been seeking ways of purposeful harnessing of transmedial, crossmedial and other tools offered by the contemporary digital communication space. We have started with an understanding of culture as education-a model which is grounded in cultural semiotics and highlights the role of cultural experience and cultural self-description in learning literacies. From these premises we proceed to explicating the value of a transdisciplinary pedagogy for methodical translation of the theoretical concepts into practical solutions in teaching and learning culture. Maarja Ojamaa et el. The aim of this paper is to map the theoretical and contextual starting points for the online environment Education on Screen (EoS) created by the Transmedia Research Group at the Department of Semiotics at the University of Tartu. The primary focus of the group has so far been application of cultural semiotic framework in creating study materials for humanities-related subjects and topics 1 Maarja Ojamaa also: Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School.
Much writing on, first, analogue and, later, digital archives has focused on related power-dynami... more Much writing on, first, analogue and, later, digital archives has focused on related power-dynamics and the structuring effects of archives and their technologies on discursive freedom and cultural dynamics. In recent years, however, work within the media archaeology domain, especially by Wolfgang Ernst, has addressed how the specific materialities of digital archives, and the nature of their algorithms and particular functions, could be seen to facilitate dynamics in cultures. This article sets this work in dialogue with the cultural semiotics of Juri Lotman, whose late work focused on how communicative processes between and within different subsystems of culture facilitate their dynamic change and the production of new forms and cultural systems. The article suggests further interdisciplinary dialogue between media archaeology and cultural semiotics in order to understand the role of archives in facilitating communicative processes and interlinking in culture and the emergence of novelties – that is, for understanding the ‘creativity’ of archives.
This article first builds on the semiotics of culture approach and argues that the increasingly w... more This article first builds on the semiotics of culture approach and argues that the increasingly widespread transmedia practices may be valuable for contributing to the dynamics of how modern cultures are innovated. Transmedia practices facilitate inter- semiotic translations at all levels of cultures, which conditions increased dialogism and the feasible evolution of these cultures. In the second part of the article, we demonstrate that there are hindrances in the existing media systems that may prevent this potential being fulfilled. It is often argued that transmedia can empower micro-sized content providers to participate in such dialogues and in the production of culture. However, recent studies demonstrate that in a European context the transmedia era may instead enforce the oligopolistic structures of media markets.
In order to estimate the current situation of teaching materials available in the field of semiot... more In order to estimate the current situation of teaching materials available in the field of semiotics, we are providing a comparative overview and a worldwide bibliography of introductions and textbooks on general semiotics published within last 50 years, i.e. since the beginning of institutionalization of semiotics. In this category, we have found over 130 original books in 22 languages. Together with the translations of more than 20 of these titles, our bibliography includes publications in 32 languages. Comparing the authors, their theoretical backgrounds and the general frames of the discipline of semiotics in different decades since the 1960s makes it possible to describe a number of predominant tendencies. In the extensive bibliography thus compiled we also include separate lists for existing lexicons and readers of semiotics as additional material not covered in the main discussion. The publication frequency of new titles is growing, with a certain depression having occurred in the 1980s. A leading role of French, Russian and Italian works is demonstrated.
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