Ort: Artur-Woll-Haus (Am Eichenhang 50, 57076 Siegen)
International Workshop at the University of Siegen | 05.&06. February 2015 | Artur-Woll-Haus | Am Eichenhang 50 | 57076 Siegen
A cooperation of the Mercator Research Group »Spaces of Anthropological Knowledge« with the DFG Training Research Group »Locating Media«
Overlapping lines of research in Media Research and STS have seen increasing scholarly interest over the last few years. Driven by a mutual interest in information and communication infrastructures and in processes of materiality and mediation, researchers from both fields have cut across the established boundaries of each area and have sketched out conceptual and empirical commonalities on a number of issues. STS and Media Research have largely converged by studying the messy and heterogeneous assemblages of modern media through ethnography and interviews or by historically tracing the co‐evolution of media and society. Both areas share a common interest in scientific visualisations or inscriptions and media theorists have not only focused on mass media, but on many different forms of media and cultural technologies. Likewise, STS scholars have studied musical instrumentsand have elaborated on concepts of mediation.
However, we also see that the mutual discussions have developed from individual and explorative tracks into broader and more established paths of interchange. There even seems to be a distinct pattern of exchange (or division of labour) between Media Research and STS. In particular STS has changed its empirical focus. Instead of concentrating on scientific instruments or novel technologies there is a growing interest in information and communication technologies. On the other hand, for Media Research the encounter with STS has provoked, conceptual discussions in a move from its emphasis upon analysis of media content towards a consideration of the material and situated aspects of media production, distribution and appropriation.
Whereas STS has mostly shifted its empirical focus, Media Researchers have reworked their conceptual orientations. However, there has been very little impact of media theories on STS and Media Research has made very few studies in traditional STS fields. STS scholars rarely talk about aesthetics or leisure and media scholars, typically, are less interested in issues of work or regulation. Against this background we call for papers that attempt to map some of these less explored connections between STS and Media Research. We would like to discuss to what extend STS can benefit from media theory and in what ways Media Research can be expanded into other empirical domains. We hope during the workshop to discover and travel paths less taken and thereby to enrich the mutual discussion of Media Research and STS.
A detailed itinerary and further information on the event can be obtained here:
http://www.uni-siegen.de/locatingmedia/aktuelles/roads_less_travelled.html?lang=de
Kontakt: Dr. Cornelius Schubert
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