Towards web history: sources, methods and challenges in the digital age ; an introduction

"The process of digitization represents a twofold challenge both for historiography in general and, in particular, for historical communication research. Digitization has deeply changed research practice as well as the inter-disciplinary communication and is likely to do so in future. The introduction to the HSR Focus presents the collected contributions, which address a twofold conceptual challenge. In a first part, problems and chances of a contemporary history of digital media are discussed. In the second part the authors leave the level of conceptual considerations and turn towards the already established practice of digitization and the supply of sources in the net." (author's abstract

The SPD, freedom of speech and the consequences of mass press in Imperial Germany

Mit dem Aufstieg der Massenpresse Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts geriet die SPD in einen Zwiespalt zwischen interner Meinungsfreiheit und dem Umgang mit abweichenden Stimmen. Einerseits konnte sie sich nicht zu Meinungsfreiheit bekennen, ohne diesen Grundsatz auch auf sich selbst anzuwenden, andererseits musste sie stärker als zuvor auf ein geschlossenes Auftreten in der Öffentlichkeit achten. Gestützt auf Medialisierungsforschung und Diskursiven Institutionalismus analysiert der Beitrag die Machtkämpfe innerhalb der Partei, die in öffentlichen Diskursen ausgetragen wurden und in die Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsstrukturen sowie politischen Kontexte im Kaiserreich eingebettet waren. Inhalts- und Dokumentenanalysen zeigen, dass sich die Kritik an mangelnder innerer Meinungsfreiheit in einer medialisierten Umwelt seit den 1890er Jahren verstärkte. Abweichler von der Parteilinie forderten Meinungsfreiheit, um Sichtbarkeit und Legitimation für ihre politischen Ideen und Anerkennung für die Parteiredakteure zu bekommen. Die Organisationsmehrheit hingegen stellte Außenwirkung über Meinungsfreiheit und reagierte damit auf die wachsende Bedeutung öffentlicher Kommunikation.The study analyzes the consequences of the emerging mass press for the Social Democratic Party of Germany with regard to the value of freedom of speech. It discusses how one of the largest and most successful political parties at that time dealt with the increasing significance of mass media as part of society’s functional differentiation in the late 19th century. In view of a more or less differentiated media system, public visibility became a main resource for actors in the German Empire as well as in other Western societies to legitimize their goals and mobilize consent. Earlier than other organizations, political parties realized the importance of public communication for gaining attention, acceptance and legitimation. However, the emergence of the mass press created a dilemma for the Social Democratic Party in particular. On the one hand, the party that was rooted in the oppressed labor movement demanded freedom of speech from the authoritarian state and therefore had to respect the right to communicate in its own ranks. Freedom of speech was an important value for the Social Democrats especially due to their experience of the oppressive Anti-Socialist-Laws and even ongoing suppression in the Wilhelmine era. On the other hand, the party was increasingly forced to keep a public image of unity in view of the changing media environment. The Social Democrats felt to be persecuted not only by the state but also by liberal, conservative or plain commercial—in the view of the labor movement bourgeois—newspapers. The study analyzes how freedom of speech became a problem for the Social Democratic Party, although the organization strongly identified with this value. The case of the Social Democratic Party is suitable to analyze the question of freedom of speech in view of the changing media environment in the late 19th century, because of the party’s organizational structures. The party significantly grew and even had one million members on the eve of World War I. This went along with the establishment of a party bureaucracy and different rules to communicate for officials and ordinary members. Furthermore, several factions of the party fought over power and influence of either revolutionary or reformist ideas. Against this background, the study analyzes the struggles over power within the party that were fought in public discourses. Therefore, the study builds on previous research on the Social Democratic press that highlighted the complicated relation to the bourgeois press as well as the Social Democratic journalists’ attempts to gain autonomy from the party administration. Theoretically, the study relies on the approaches of mediatization and discursive institutionalism. Mediatization depicts societal actors’ adaption to a growing importance of media as it can first be detected with the rise of the mass press in the late 19th century. Beyond that, the concept of discursive institutionalism allows describing how actors such as political parties dealt with changes of mediatization via discourses that were embedded in the structures of the press and the public sphere as well as politics in the German Empire. In order to analyze the internal party discourse about the individual right to communicate for Social Democrats, we conducted qualitative content and document analyses. The analyses are guided by categories derived from the theoretical assumptions. The period of investigation covers the time between the foundation of the first unified party of the German labor movement in 1875 and the last party conference before the outbreak of World War I in 1913. The sources comprise minutes of the annual party congresses and by the party steering committee, party journals, brochures and position papers as well as biographical material such as memoirs, (auto-)biographies or letters between party leaders and journalists. The analyses reveal that criticism of insufficient freedom of speech within the party increased in view of a mediatized environment since the 1890s. With the end of the Anti-Socialist-Laws that had united and radicalized the party members, the individual right to communicate became a recurring issue discussed in different contexts on the annual party conferences until 1913. Party members dissident from the official party line demanded freedom of speech in order to gain visibility as well as legitimation of their political ideas. Apart from that, editors of the party press claimed freedom of speech aiming to find recognition for their work and achieve better equipment of the editorial offices. In contrast, members of the organization’s majority put public image before freedom of speech and therefore reacted to the increasing importance of public communication. According to them, public criticism put damage to the party’s image. This view was interwoven with the idea of an own party press. Overall, even among critics the distinction between the Social Democratic party press and bourgeois newspapers remained dominant

Netzneutralität aus öffentlichkeitstheoretischer Sicht: Kommunikationswissenschaftliche Dimensionen der Debatte

Dieser Beitrag entwickelt eine öffentlichkeitstheoretische Perspektive auf Netzneutralität, erschließt den Forschungsstand aus dieser Sicht und zeigt Schnittstellen zur Kommunikationswissenschaft auf. Ausgangspunkt ist die Annahme, dass Eingriffe in die Architektur des Internets dazu dienen können, öffentliche Kommunikation zu ermöglichen, aber auch zu beschränken. Theoretische Grundlage ist das Öffentlichkeitsmodell des schwedischen Kommunikationswissenschaftlers Peter Dahlgren (2005). Die drei Analysedimensionen in diesem Modell machen auf Themenkomplexe in der Netzneutralitätsdebatte aufmerksam, die für die Kommunikationswissenschaft relevant sind: die technischen und ökonomischen Aspekte beim Zugang zur Internetinfrastruktur (Struktur) sowie der Zusammenhang von Netzneutralität und Online-Inhalten, insbesondere inhaltliche Vielfalt, Kontrolle und Zensur (Darstellung). Die Interaktionsdimension fragt, wie Dialog- und Vernetzungsmöglichkeiten durch eine bestimmte Internetarchitektur beeinflusst werden. Die Reinterpretation von Netzneutralität erlaubt es auch, auf kommunikationswissenschaftliche Forschung hinzuweisen, die die Debatte um Netzneutralität um wichtige Gesichtspunkte bereichert, auch wenn sie nicht explizit diesen Begriff verwendet.Our paper re-interprets the net neutrality debate from the perspective of public sphere theory. It is based on Peter Dahlgren’s (2005) concept of the public sphere. This concept is based on three analytical dimensions: the structural, the representational and the interactional dimension of public sphere. We apply these analytical dimensions to the body of research on net neutrality and use them as a heuristic framework that helps us to identify net neutrality areas that are relevant for communication studies. Each dimension serves as an entry point into a particular set of net neutrality issues, such as technical and economic implications for audiovisual content providers (structural dimension), content diversity and control (representational dimension), and the modes, cultures and spaces of social communication online, closed systems or “walled gardens” in particular (interactional dimension). This paper also illuminates how communication research, even if it does not explicitly refer to net neutrality, can inform this debate

The presencing of late GDR radio and television. An interview study from East Berlin

Mehr als 30 Jahre nach der Wende scheint der Deutungskampf um das Ende des DDR-Rundfunks nicht beigelegt zu sein. Einerseits werden die mangelnden Einflussmöglichkeiten Ostdeutscher bei der Gestaltung des Rundfunks nach 1989 kritisiert. Andererseits wird die Eingliederung in das westdeutsche Rundfunksystem als Erfolg gefeiert, wobei die verschiedenen Identifikationsmöglichkeiten hervorgehoben werden, die die neu gegründeten Landessender von Anfang an boten. Dieser Beitrag fragt, wie Ostdeutsche den DDR-Rundfunk und seine Abwicklung heute erinnern. Gestützt auf die Strukturations- und Identitätstheorie von Anthony Giddens und auf der Basis von 37 biographischen Interviews wird ein Spektrum von Deutungen aufgezeigt, die Menschen aus Ostberlin rückblickend mit dem Medienstrukturumbruch verbinden. Die Studie zeigt, dass neben einer Gruppe von Befragten, die den späten DDR-Rundfunk kaum oder gar nicht in ihre Selbsterzählungen eingebunden haben, die Vergegenwärtigung dieser Einrichtung über unterschiedliche Biographien hinweg im Modus einer Selbstvergewisserung stattfindet. Dabei werden Zuordnungen und Abgrenzungen zur DDR-Herkunft vorgenommen. Die DDR-Rundfunkgeschichte wird mit Identität aufgeladen, was zum einen auf die medial dominanten DDR- und Ost-Diskurse zurückzuführen ist, zum anderen auf die verschiedenen (Kollektiv‑)Erfahrungen und Lebensbedingungen der Ostdeutschen nach 1989.More than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall the debate about the end of the GDR TV and radio stations seems to have not been settled. On the one hand, it is criticized by scholars that East Germans lacked influence in the shaping of broadcasting structures and programmes after ’89, that their ideas were neglected and that decision makers had detached the GDR population from their past. On the other hand, the integration into the West German broadcasting system is celebrated as a success, emphasizing the numerous opportunities for East Germans to identify with the newly founded broadcasting stations. This article asks how East Berliners view the dissolution of GDR broadcasting and its end in retrospect. What are they thinking today about the programmes that were realized shortly after the wall came down? East Berlin is a fitting example for exploring the connections between East German memory and identity work and the media. Berlin was the central location of GDR broadcasting, and the person responsible for the dissolution and transfer was based in the Funkhaus on Nalepastrasse. Personal connections to people who worked in the media probably weren’t unusual. In Berlin television and radio programmes from the GDR and West Germany were in direct competition before the fall of the Wall, and media with roots in East and West were also in direct competition after ’89. This is why it is likely that debates about the media were particularly present in here. As we understand media use also as dealing with one’s own individual and collective experiences, we examine how the memories of the dissolution of GDR TV and radio are connected to the self-narratives and life contexts of people from East Berlin. We show how, 30 years after its end, GDR broadcasting still functions as a place of memory, or perhaps has only now become one. As a theoretical background we relied on Giddens’ theory of structuration and theory of identity. Giddens describes identity as one of the central problems in Western societies. Due to the reflexivity of life in the modern age and the numerous disembedding mechanisms, individuals are constantly confronted with the question of how they see themselves. In order to develop a somewhat stable identity, we have to incorporate certain events into the ongoing story about the self in a meaningful way. Identity therefore means the capacity to keep a particular narrative going. We assume that the media, not only specific contents, but media institutions themselves, are a means to do this. To keep the story about the self going, we require a certain continuity of experience, which we create by connecting the past, present and future. This means we remember the past in a way that it makes sense to us from today’s perspective. Our memory is an aspect of presencing. How the GDR TV and radio is made present today depends on various factors: past media experiences, frames of meaning, public media discourses and conversations with family/friends as well as the rules of social life and the resources we apply in the context of everyday life—which vary according to our social position. To answer the question about the presencing of GDR television and radio, we decided to conduct biographical interviews. The biographical approach allows us to contextualize individual memories of past media offerings, i.e. to analyze them in relation to their personal life path and thus in their social preconditions. Interviews give us access to structures of meaning and self-images. Interviews are subjective reflections of one’s own life and media history. Based on Giddens’ concepts of identity and structure, we developed a system of categories that guided the further research process. The interview guide derived from the system of categories consists of four sections: (1) Life course and attitude towards the GDR and FRG; (2) Life in the reunification/post-reunification period and today; (3) Media use, presencing of (post‑)GDR media offerings and the perception of media discourse on the GDR/East Germany; (4) Identity. The selection of interviewees was led by the goal of theoretical saturation. The sample includes 37 East Berliners who were born in or moved to the city, covering a range of different lifestyles. They were born between 1933 and 1970, most of them in the 1950s and 1960s. Key findings include that not all our interviewees, but across a broad spectrum of different biographies and pre- and post-reunification experiences, the interpretations of late GDR broadcasting are integrated into self-narratives in which the interviewees reassure themselves of their collective identity. In doing so, they define themselves along the distinction between East and West. We also found that GDR TV and radio before their dissolution and the newly founded regional broadcasters are integrated into the respective experience of continuity. This happens in different ways. There are those who emphasize that they only watched West German television in the GDR and were never interested in any kind of afterlife of GDR broadcasting. Even 30 years after reunification, they maintain the distinction from the GDR and the association with the West because their self-narrative is based on this. Then there are others for whom the reformed media offerings after the fall of the Wall as well as parts of the GDR television before ’89, are sources of identity references and in their memory constitute collective accomplishments. We demonstrate that the references to identity made within in the memories of GDR broadcasting developed in reaction to the dominant media discourses on the GDR and East Germany—although this is not the case for everyone. Besides the discourses, structures of legitimation and domination also influence the specific position in the social structure from which people weave their self-narratives. Whatever memories East Berliners have of GDR broadcasting and whatever significance they attribute to its end in retrospect, they have in common that they either experienced status-related declassification themselves after 1990 or witnessed how people lost their jobs and faced existential insecurities in their immediate environment and via the media. These findings indicate how the media heritage of the GDR lives on by serving self-assurance. But our study also sheds light on the issue that this heritage for some East Berliners is unimportant. Some of them have not connected their self-narratives to the late GDR broadcasting. These people, not much interested in politics and media, had experienced after 1989/90 only little change regarding work, family life, leisure

Editorial: Entangled history medial gedacht: Internationale und transkulturelle Kommunikationsgeschichte

Dieser Text führt in das Themenheft „Entangled history medial gedacht“ ein, das sich einer Kommunikationsgeschichte widmet, die den Nationalstaat als Bezugsrahmen historischer Kommunikationsprozesse erweitert und dafür internationale und transkulturelle Bezüge sowie Wechselwirkungen zwischen nationaler und globaler Ebene untersucht. Die Beiträge des Themenheftes werden hier systematisiert und vorgestellt. Sie wenden verschiedene Perspektiven, für die hier der Klammerbegriff „entangled history“ benutzt wird, auf die Geschichte der Kommunikationswissenschaft und der Kommunikationsgeschichtsschreibung, auf Erinnerungskulturen, Fernsehserien sowie auf historische Zeitzeugenschaft und das soziale Gedächtnis im Internet a