Einleitung

Abstract

The current situation of media and communication practice and the academic disciplines concerned with these domains is characterized by a multiplicity of approaches specific to individual disciplines and schools. The methodological scope corresponds to the dynamics of transformation processes in media industry, society and in those fields of research engaged with these changes. The institutional establishment of media studies and media-oriented higher education curricula, and the extension or reorganization of philology and literature departments, as well as institutes for theatre, film and television studies into larger teaching and research departments under the heading of communication or media studies is currently in rapid progression. There is no doubt that the tendency of media studies to transgress disciplinary boundaries and to constitute itself as an autonomous field of studies has to be seen in the context of overarching developmental trajectories in media politics and media technology, and the respective social responses they provoke. On the other hand, this tendency demarcates a stage or an episode in the transformation process of the humanities, in particular their media-oriented branches which draw increasingly closer to the social sciences, adapting theories, methods and results from communication studies, psychology, sociology, education studies, or market research. These developments establish not only a significantly increased demand for academic research and data on specific media from the perspectives of all disciplines concerned but also a demand for research and data made available in a problem-oriented way, that is with relevance for both practice and application. These demands cannot be met by literary, television or music studies only, nor by (media-)psychology, (media-)sociology or any other ›hyphenated discipline‹ because in view of the current omnipresence and growing convergence of media as well as increasingly media-based constructions of reality, multimediality and multidimensionality are already inherent to the issues in question. This outline of the subject has been the guiding perspective of a conference titled ›Conceptions of Media Studies‹, held at University of Siegen from November 22nd to November 23rd, 2002, by the Institut für Medienforschung (Institute for Media Research), and sponsored by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Conceived as a contribution towards clarifying problematic issues and encouraging communication between the different fields of research, the conference offered a platform for presenting and debating different conceptions of media studies as already established in recent years at German universities. Since media-oriented approaches belong to different disciplines, the agenda was structured around existing research priorities and disciplines. The aim of the conference was to elucidate the conceptual frameworks of various forms of media research institutionalisation from the points of view of and informed by the interests of the respective disciplines and fields of practical application, and to show trajectories in the context of further transdisciplinary research and teaching. This volume documents the proceedings of the conference. The individual referents’ contributions represent, in their respective degrees of elaboration, positions and precise perceptions of those disciplines involved in the symposium. Each of the four panels — cultural studies, film and television studies, communication studies / social sciences, informatics / design — is introduced briefly by the panel chairs and the discussion leader, and supplemented by the main points of the subsequent discussions. Gebhard Rusch’s concluding essay summarizes the conference results.