MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

TRANSFORMATION OF THE MEDIA GARDEN
It‘s extremely interesting that in the intersection of DH and MS are
converging the digital nature of the MS „object of study“ as well as the
DH „research tools“. In many cases, MS has the opportunity to explore
the digital content by means of digital tools. It looks like an methodical
advantage.
However, it‘s often argued that MS is mostly passive in working with
digital tools: „In some other varieties of digital humanities, for instance
cybercultural, internet and media studies and internet studies, the
instrumental use of information technology does often not extend far
beyond standard tools. Here the tools used are mainly a means to an end
and do not necessarily carry much prominence. Neither is there typically
a strong interest to create and develop tools.“ 17 So, the initial phase of
MS/DH cooperation is characterized by the fact that MS scholars: „...
remain content to comment about technology and media, rather than to
participate more actively in constructing knowledge in and through our
objects of study.“ 18 There remains an open question whether it‘s caused
by the critical interpreting of digital media social dangers or by some
sense of incompetence to cope with the technological and computational
aspects of DH.
In any case, among the MS scholars are proliferating calls for the
multimodal research of the digital objects through the digital devices:
„I am here suggesting that we should reject this limited role for the
humanities scholar and instead fully engage with the platforms and
tools of the digital era. This will require new forms of collaboration and
engagement that may push us beyond our scholarly comfort zones.“ 19
Therefore, the most important task for MS/DH projects is to coordinate
the digital techniques with a suitable research question concerning the
digital object of study.
17 SVENSSON, P.: The Landscape of Digital Humanities. In Digital Humanities
Quarterly, 2010, Vol. 4, No. 1, p. 106. [online]. [2015-03-25]. Available at:
.
18 McPHERSON, T.: Introduction: Media Studies and the Digital Humanities.
In Cinema Journal, 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2, p. 120. [online]. [2015-03-25].
Available at: .
19 McPHERSON, T.: Introduction: Media Studies and the Digital Humanities.
In Cinema Journal, 2009, Vol. 48, No. 2, p. 120. [online]. [2015-03-25].
Available at: .
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