Presentation of the current
Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft 29 „Test“

Research Forum of the
CRC1187 Media of Cooperation

As part of the research forum of the CRC 1187 Media of Cooperation, we will present the current ZfM 29 “Test” on November 29. Our guests are contributors to the thematic focus: Oliver Heise, David Bucheli, Gabriele Schabacher, Sophie Spallinger, Daniela Holzer and Philippe Sormani. The editors Sebastian Gießmann and Carolin Gerlitz will introduce the focus topic before individual contributions and their development process are discussed and presented by the authors. We invite all interested parties to a lively exchange about media testing practices, habits and histories, especially under the conditions of artificial intelligence.

This issue asks how media and tests are mutually constituted, paying special attention to the politics of testing. We propose to understand tests as open situations in which socio-technical evaluations and decisions are accomplished either along established standards, or along emerging evaluative criteria. We propose an account of testing that is informed by media and cultural studies: Within the micro-decisions of distributed and distributive testing, the Social itself is put to the test. The contributions gathered in this issue emphasise that there is no test without media – and no medium without a test.

ZfM 29 „Test“: https://zfmedienwissenschaft.de/heft/archiv/29-22023-test