Bøger af Andreas Fickers

Over the last few years, 'media archaeology' has evolved from a marginal topic to an academic approach en vogue. In large part, media archaeology has been a history of discourse-oriented analysis. 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 have lacked academic attention. These volumes aim at taking the materiality of past media devices seriously and explore the heuristic possibilities of an experimental study of these devices. In short, to systematically develop a hands-on approach to experimental media archaeology. So far, experimental media archaeology was lacking practical experiments and systematic reflections on the methodological underpinnings of this new approach. In a unique format, the twoe volumes of "Doing Experimental Media Archaeology (DEMA): Theory & Practice" offer both a sophisticated reflection on the epistemological and heuristic potential of hands-on media historical research and describe a series of basic, media-technological and performative media archaeological experiments with great detail, as such exploring the potential of hands-on media experiments for media education in universities and museums. The hands-on and experimental approach of DEMA offers the unique opportunity to 'grasp' media and communication technologies in their concrete materiality and tangibility and to (re)-sensitize historians and communication scholars for the material qualities and performative dimension of past media devices and practices.

As a result of rapid advancements in computer science during recent decades, there has been an increased use of digital tools, methodologies and sources in the field of digital humanities. While opening up new opportunities for scholarship, many digital methods and tools now used for humanities research have nevertheless been developed by computer or data sciences and thus require a critical understanding of their mode of operation and functionality.The novel field of digital hermeneutics is meant to provide such a critical and reflexive frame for digital humanities research by acquiring digital literacy and skills. A new knowledge for the assessment of digital data, research infrastructures, analytical tools, and interpretative methods is needed, providing the humanities scholar with the necessary munition for doing critical research. The Doctoral Training Unit "Digital History and Hermeneutics" at the University of Luxembourg applies this analytical frame to 13 PhD projects. By combining a hermeneutic reflection on the new digital practices of humanities scholarship with hands-on experimentation with digital tools and methods, new approaches and opportunities as well as limitations and flaws can be addressed.

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.