Book Series “Media in Action”

The open-access book series “Media in Action”, conceived by the DFG Collaborative Research Centre “Media of Cooperation”, examines the history and contemporary state of networked, data-intensive media and their social implications at the interdisciplinary interface of social and media sciences. In the tradition of science and technology studies and actor-network theory, the German and English-language monographs, anthologies, and dissertations in the series focus on the practices, (co-)operations and procedures in the use, production and analysis of old and new media. A central challenge facing the series is the development of appropriate ethnographic, digital, sensor-based, and design-orientated methods for a new conception of the description of distributed ‘agency’ between people, computers, bodies and environments.

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) – Project number 262513311 – SFB 1187 Media of Cooperation.

Kontakt: karina.kirsten[æt]uni-siegen.de

More information on the publisher’s site: Transcript.

Series’ editors:
Timo Kaerlein, Kustos at University of Bochum
Isabell Otto, Professor for Media Studies at the University of Konstanz
Tristan Thielmann, Professor for Science, Technology and Media Studies at the University of Siegen and deputy spokesperson of the DFG Collaborative Research Center “Media of Cooperation”

 

An Ethnography of Publicness, Transnational Cooperation and Mountain Tourism in Morocco

How do digital media technologies shape or restructure social practice? And which transitions and demarcations of different forms of publicness arise in this context? Simon Holdermann examines this question in his ethnography of everyday life in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. In order to approach the ongoing, historically situated social transformations of the region, he analyses a variety of media practices concerning the organizational work and transnational cooperation that take place there – in particular at the intersection of mountain tourism, NGO work, and local self-government.

 

Mit Adorno im Tonstudio: Zur Soziologie der Musikproduktion

Adorno and the Recording Studio: On the Sociology of Music Production

Recording music is rarely understood as a autonomous form of music making. In this theoretical and empirical study of the recording process, David Waldecker combines Theodor W. Adorno’s critical music sociology, themes from praxeology, and ethnographic research of hardcore and jazz recording sessions. This book demonstrates how the technical and spatial particularities of the recording studio shape production processes as a particular way of making music. Also, current music sociology and the relation of Adorno’s Negative Dialectics to ethnography as a research methodology are discussed.

 

Digitale Materialität: Eine Ethnografie arbeitsteiliger Visual-Effects-Produktion

Digital Materiality: An Ethnography of Visual Effects Production based on the Division of Labour

Das Digitale gilt als artifiziell, synthetisch, fluid. Was, wenn sich derart jede Stofflichkeit gestaltet, die es zu bearbeiten gilt? In der arbeitsteiligen, teilautomatisierten Herstellung von Filmbildern stellt digitale Materialität Projektteams vor allerlei praktische Probleme, die diese zu bewältigen wissen. Ronja Trischler beobachtet die schrittweise Entstehung medialer Bilder in Visual-Effects-Firmen in Deutschland und England und zeichnet grundlegende Praktiken des gemeinsamen digitalen Gestaltens nach. Ihr Fokus auf Alltagsvollzüge digitaler Arbeit eröffnet eine gehaltvolle Perspektive auf digitale Kreativarbeit — und deren Materialisierung ganzer Bilderwelten.

 

Interrogating Datafication: Towards a Praxeology of Data

What constitutes a data practice and how do contemporary digital media technologies reconfigure our understanding of practices in general? Autonomously acting media, distributed digital infrastructures, and sensor-based media environments challenge the conditions of accounting for data practices both theoretically and empirically. Which forms of cooperation are constituted in and by data practices? And how are human and nonhuman agencies distributed and interrelated in data-saturated environments? The volume collects theoretical, empirical, and historiographical contributions from a range of international scholars to shed light on the current shift from media to data practices.

 

Ethnomethodologie reloaded: Neue Werkinterpretationen und Theoriebeiträge zu Harold Garfinkels Programm

Ethnomethodology reloaded: New Work Interpretations and Theoretical Contributions to Harold Garfinkel’s Programme

Harold Garfinkels 1967 erschienene »Studies in Ethnomethodology« gelten als Gründungsdokument der Ethnomethodologie und haben längst den Status eines soziologischen Klassikers. Doch so bekannt dieses Buch ist, so wenig wurde es tatsächlich gelesen. Angesichts radikaler Veränderungen der Lebenswelt unterziehen die Beiträger*innen des Bandes die »Studies« gut 50 Jahre nach ihrer Ersterscheinung einer Relektüre. Sie decken bisher verborgene Bezüge auf, rekapitulieren methodologische und empirische Anschlüsse an Garfinkel, diskutieren Parallelen und Differenzen zu anderen soziologischen und kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschungsprogrammen und demonstrieren das kritische Potenzial der Ethnomethodologie.

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