This is television

The conference "Das ist Fernsehen!" aims to link the debate on the medium of television to an international cultural and media studies discussion of the medium. It sees itself as a corrective to an academic perspective narrowed down to aspects of quality television or the digital transformation of the medium in order to bring the discussion back to a more in-depth examination of the history, technology, economics and reception of the medium. It seeks a dialogue between German-language media studies and international approaches to television studies and serves as a forum for the exchange of currently discussed positions and approaches.

Friday, 3 May 2013

15.00 - 16.30 Welcome and introduction

Greetings
Udo Hebel, Rector of the University of Regensburg
Christian Wolff, Dean of the Faculty of Linguistics, Literature and Cultural Studies, University of Regensburg

Understanding TV - On the process of television-theoretical curiosity
Bernhard Dotzler

This is television! - An introduction
Judith Keilbach/Herbert Schwaab/Thomas Waitz

16.30 - 18.30 Workshop 1 - Re-readings

Moderation: Thomas Waitz

All games, all goals! On the sustainability of classic television theories - or: a football weekend on German TV
Silke Roesler-Keilholz

The more things change, the more they stay the same? "Flow" and "parasocial interaction" put to the test
Anne Ulrich

True television. Figurations of the viewer in television art
Samantha Schramm

This side of good and evil: qualities of "jungle television"
Sebastian Scholz

18.30 - 19.00 Coffee break

19.00 - 20.00 Keynote

Musical Television. Glee, Smash and the Backstage Musical on TV
Jane Feuer

followed by a joint visit to the "Alte Linde" pub, Müllerstraße 1, next to the Stone Bridge

Saturday, 4 May 2013

10.00 - 12.00 Workshop 2 - Logics of Television

Moderation: Knut Hickethier

Televisual fields of experimentation and media logics of television on the internet
Ralf Adelmann

Outbidding as a serial form of television
Andreas Jahn-Sudmann

The television of sport
Markus Stauff

The aesthetics of reality TV as a communicative figuration
Thomas Weber

12.00 - 14.00 Lunch break

14.00 - 15.30 Workshop 3 - Seriality

Moderation: Lorenz Engell

Is this (still) seriality? Transmedia television series and the infinite expanses of spatial storytelling
Daniela Olek/Christine Piepiorka

Diagrams of the investigation. On the crime series
Daniela Wentz

The ends of the television series
Sven Grampp/Jens Ruchatz

15.30 - 16.00 Coffee break

16.00 - 17.45 Workshop 4 - Television and reality

Moderation: Judith Keilbach

This is documentary drama! On the return of a (forgotten) television form of the 1960s
Christian Hißnauer

Reality TV - the production of reality in and beyond television
Axel Schmidt/Daniel Klug

The reality of television: "begging", "stealing" and "cheating"
Hilde Hoffmann

17.45 - 18.15 Coffee break

18.15 - 19.15 Keynote

Following Television
Jennifer Gillan

followed by a champagne reception with snacks

Sunday, 5 May 2013

9.00 - 10.30 Workshop 5 - Beyond Television I

Moderation: Matthias Thiele

Television in context. New serial formats in the field of tension between production, institution and aesthetics
Susanne Eichner

Always possible differently: Televisual contingency 24/7
Kathrin Rothemund

Around the World. Transnational distribution and reception of television series
Michaela Wünsch

10.30 - 11.00 Coffee break

11.00 - 12.30 Workshop 6 - Beyond Television II

Moderation: Herbert Schwaab

#Television - The growing influence of social media services on TV programme content
Eric Buhse

Transmedia Story Production and its Challenges for the Television Industries
Berber Hagedoorn

The Mediatisation of the Televisual Experience
Eggo Müller

12.30 - 13.00 Closing discussion

Dr Ralf Adelmann

Senior lecturer at the Institute for Media Studies at Paderborn University.

Main research interests:

Knowledge and organisational structures of digital media, media economies of popular culture, mobile media, documentary image forms, visual cultures.

Publications:

• Adelmann, Ralf (2012) "There is no correct way to use the system." Database logics and media forms. In: Nohr, Rolf et al. (eds.): Sorting, collecting, searching, playing. The database as media practice. Berlin et al: LIT Verlag, pp. 253-267.
• Adelmann, Ralf (2012) "Total loss of communication". The crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia on live television. In: Knape, Joachim / Ulrich, Anne (eds.): Fernsehbilder im Ausnahmezustand. On the Rhetoric of the Televisual in War and Crisis. Berlin: Weidler, pp. 181-196.
• Basic texts on television studies. Edited by Ralf Adelmann, Jan-Otmar Hesse, Judith Keilbach, Markus Stauff, Matthias Thiele. 2002. Constance: UVK at UTB.

Eric Buhse M.A.

state-certified publishing specialist for newspapers and magazines, research assistant at the Chair of Digital Media at the Institute of Media Studies at Philipps University Marburg and employee of the Society for Media Studies.

Main areas of work:

audio-visual transformation processes (focus on television); media as economics systems (economic contexts of the creation, distribution and presentation of media products); digital media (social web, cross-media in the print media sector, political communication).

Prof Dr Bernhard Dotzler

Professor and holder of the Chair of Media Studies at the University of Regensburg

Main areas of work:

Media theory and comparative media studies, media archaeology, history of science and media, history of computing

Publications:

• Discourse and Medium II: The Argument of Literature, Munich 2010
• Discourse and Medium. On the Archaeology of Computer Culture, Munich 2006

Dipl.-Medienwiss. Susanne Eichner

research assistant for reception aesthetics at the Film and Television Academy "Konrad Wolf", Potsdam-Babelsberg.

Main areas of work:

Game studies, reception theory and research, film, television and computer game analysis, genre theory, media convergence, online media, cultural studies.

Publications:

• Eichner, Susanne/Mikos, Lothar/Winter, Rainer (eds.) Transnational Series Culture: Theory, Aesthetics, Narration and Reception of New Television Series. Springer Verlag 2013.
• Eichner, Susanne (2007): The Sims - Socially acceptable and relationship-orientated? In: TV Diskurs 42, 4, Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Fernsehen (ed.), Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, pp.60-65.
• Mikos, L./Eichner, S./Prommer, E./Wedel, M. (2007): The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy
• Attraction and fascination of a popular cultural phenomenon. UVK Verlags GmbH
• Eichner, Susann (2006): Children as media users in the media network - media effects and media competence. In: The art of the viewer. Youth sociology, children's film and media competence. Festschrift for Dieter Wiedemann. Hans-Jörg Stiehler and Lothar Mikos (ed.), Leipziger Universitätsverlag.

Prof. Dr Lorenz Engell

Professor of Media Philosophy at the Faculty of Media at the Bauhaus University Weimar. He has also been Director of the International Centre for Cultural Technology Research and Media Philosophy in Weimar since 2008.

Main research interests:

Film and television as philosophical apparatuses and agencies; as media historiographies; as sign systems.

Publications:

• From contradiction to boredom. Logical and temporal justifications of television. Peter Lang, Frankfurt/M. et al. 1989Fromcontradiction to boredom. Logical and temporal justifications of television. Peter Lang, Frankfurt/M. et al. 1989
• Fundamental philosophical issues in theology of television. Fink, Munich 2005
• Journal for Media and Cultural Research. ed. with Bernhard Siegert, Meiner Verlag Hamburg

Professor Jane Feuer

Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

Main research interests:

popular culture, television, cultural studies.

Publications:

since the 1980s, Jane Feuer has published numerous works on film and television studies

• (with Tise Vahimagi/ Paul Kerr) Mtm Quality Television. BFI Publishing, 1985.
• The Hollywood Musical (2nd ed. 1993) and Seeing Through the Eighties: Television and Reaganism (1995).

Prof Jennifer Gillan

Associate Professor of English and Media Studies at Bentley University.

Research:

Television & New Media Industries Film and Media Studies; Spectatorship and Fan Studies; American Literary and Cultural Studies; Gender Studies; Comparative Ethnicity Studies; Native American Studies

Publications:

• Gillan, J. L. (2010). Double Heart. Paterson Literary Review, 38.
• Gillan, J. L. Television and New Media: Must-Click TV. Routledge, 2010.

Dr Sven Grampp

Assistant professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Main research interests:

Media theory, media and boredom, television series, space race

Publications:

• Into the universe of technical reproducibility. The printing press as a historiographical reference figure in media theory, Konstanz 2009.
• Marshall McLuhan. An Introduction, Konstanz (UTB) 2011.
• (Together with Jens Ruchatz) Die Fernsehserie. Eine medienwissenschaftliche Einführung, Bielefeld 2013 (in preparation)

Berber Hagedoorn M.A.

is a lecturer and PhD candidate in Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Researches:

Hagedoorn researches multiplatform television, transmedia storytelling, cultural memory and the re-use of archival footage in a variety of media platforms, particularly documentary and historical programming.

Publications:

• Studies in Documentary Film, Rundfunk und Geschichte and Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis (Journal of Media History).
• Hagedoorn is the guest editor together with Jérôme Bourdon of the third issue of VIEW: Journal of European Television History and Culture (forthcoming 2013).

Prof. Dr Knut Hickethier

Professor of media studies at the Institute for Media and Communication at the University of Hamburg until his retirement in 2010.

Main areas of work: Media studies; film and television analysis, programme history and theory of television; film history and film theory, television drama, television series, children's programmes, news programmes, sports programmes and other genres, theory and history of media studies, film and television criticism.

publications:

• Film and Television Analysis. Stuttgart: Metzler 1993
• History of German Television. Stuttgart: Metzler 1998
• Introduction to media studies. Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler 2003

Dr Christian Hißnauer

Assistant professor in the DFG research group "Aesthetics and Practice of Popular Seriality" at the Georg-August-University Göttingen.

Main research interests:

Television history, theory, history and aesthetics of documentary and hybrid forms in film and television, popularisation of contemporary history, seriality research.

Publications:

• Landmarks of Television Documentarism: The Hamburg Pupils. (together with Bernd Schmidt) Konstanz, UVK-Verlag 2013.
• Classics of the television series. (ed. together with Thomas Klein) Stuttgart: Reclam 2012.
• The German Television Drama of the 1960s and 1970s. Issue 3-4/2011 of the journal Rundfunk und Geschichte. (guest editor)
• Television documentarism. Theoretical approximations, pragmatic delimitations, conceptual clarifications. Constance, UVK-Verlag 2011.

Dr Hilde Hoffmann

Assistant professor at the Institute for Media Studies at the Ruhr University Bochum. 2013 Visiting Professor for Media Studies, University of Minnesota.

Main research interests:

Documentary film, history and theory of television, visual culture and media and memory.

Publications:

• Television and Political Event. The Mediatisation of 'Wende' and 'Wiedervereinigung' Series Medien'welten, Lit Verlag (in print)
• GDR - remember, forget. The visual memory of the documentary film (together with Tobias Ebbrecht, Jörg Schweinitz, 2009).

Dr Andreas Jahn-Sudmann

DFG Research Unit "Aesthetics and Practice of Popular Seriality" Georg-August University Göttingen

Main research areas:

Media theory / epistemology, media history / archaeology, media aesthetics, television studies, popular culture / (popular) seriality

publications:

• Jahn-Sudmann, Andreas. Überbietung als serielle Dynamik des Populären (AT). In preparation (2013).
• The Taming of the Shrew? On the Politics of Representation in Contemporary US-American Independent Film. Bielefeld: transcript, 2006.
• Dogma 95: The renunciation of the constraint of the possible. Hanover: Offizin-Verlag, 2001. (Culture and Society Vol.2).

Dr Judith Keilbach

Assistant Professor of Television Studies in the Media and Cultural Studies Department of Utrecht University

Main research interests:

Television theory and television history, image archives, animals as moving media

Publications:

• The Present of the Past. Documentary film, television and history. Edited by Eva Hohenberger and Judith Keilbach. 2003. Berlin: Vorwerk 8.
• Basic texts on television studies. Edited by Ralf Adelmann, Jan-Otmar Hesse, Judith Keilbach, Markus Stauff, Matthias Thiele. 2002. Constance: UVK at UTB.
• (with Markus Stauff) When old media never stopped being new. Television's history as an ongoing experiment. In: De Valck, Marijke/ Teurlings, Jan (eds.) After the Break. Television Theory Today. Amsterdam University Press, 2013.
• Co-editor of aktuelle montage AV 21/1/2012, [neues fernsehen]

Dr Daniel Klug

Member of the teaching staff at the Seminar for Media Studies, Basel; organises conferences on popular music and reality TV.

Main areas of work:

Qualitative media research, media sociology, music television and music clips, YouTube and video clips, reality TV, popular music, computer-aided media analysis

Publications:

• Lip Synching in Music Clips. On the construction of audio vision through music-related representational acts (Short Cuts | Cross Media Volume 6) (2013). Baden-Baden: Nomos.
• Computer-assisted analysis of audiovisual media products (Series Qualitative Social Research, Volume 22) (2013). Wiesbaden: Springer VS (with C. Jost, A. Schmidt, A. Reautschnig, K. Neumann-Braun).
• "(In)coherences. On the representational practice of lip synching in the audio vision of the music clip".In: Jost, C./Klug, D./Schmidt, A./Neumann-Braun, K. (eds.) (2011): Popular music, media music?
• Transdisziplinäre Beiträge zu den Medien der populären Musik (Short Cuts | Cross Media Volume 3).Baden-Baden: Nomos. S. 201-230.
• "Two become one? The original(s) in the audio vision of the music clip". In: Grosch, N./Hörner, F. (eds.) (2011): Lied und populäre Kultur / Song and Popular Culture. Yearbook of the German Folk Song Archive (Volume 56: Original and Copy). Münster: Waxmann. S. 43-61.

Prof. Eggo Müller

is Professor of Media and Communication at the Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University (NL) and co-ordinator of the EU-funded project EUscreenXL - Creating Access to Europe's Audiovisual Heritage.

Researches:

His research and teaching centres on the transformation of television, entertainment, and participatory cultures.

Publications:

• Müller, Eggo (2012) The Voice: On the 'social' of social television. In: montage AV 21/1/2012, [neues fernsehen] (edited by Kristina Köhler and Judith Keilbach), 63-84.
• Not Only Entertainment: Studies on the Pragmatics and Aesthetics of Television Entertainment. Colgne: Herbert von Halem

Daniela Olek M.A.

Researcher at the Institute for Media Studies at the Ruhr University Bochum. She is currently writing her doctoral thesis on transmedia characters in current US-American television series.

Main research interests:

Transmedia narratology, theory of perception, visual communication

Publications:

• Lost and the Future of Television: The Transformation of Serial Narrative in the Age of Media Convergence: 17. Ibidem, 2011.
• (Dis)Orienting Media and Narrative Mazes. Julia Eckel, Bernd Leiendecker, Daniela Olek, Christine Piepiorka, transcript 2012.

Christine Piepiorka M.A.

Graduate media economist, member of the teaching staff and doctoral candidate at the Ruhr University Bochum

Publication:

• Lost in Narration, Ibidem 2011
• (Dis)Orienting Media and Narrative Mazes. Julia Eckel, Bernd Leiendecker, Daniela Olek, Christine Piepiorka, transcript 2012.

Dr Silke Roesler-Keilholz

Assistant professor at the Chair of Media Studies at the University of Regensburg. She is currently working on her habilitation project on surveillance spaces of the media.

Main research interests:

Spatial theory, media geography and the interrelationship between media and architecture(s).

Publications:

• (ed.) James Gray: The filmic space between proximity and distance. Marburg 2012.
• Doing City. New York in the field of tension of media practices. Marburg: Schüren Verlag 2010.
• "Identity Switch" in cyberspace - A form of self-staging. Series: Studies on Theatre, Film and Television. No. 43. ed. by Renate Möhrmann. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang 2007.

Dr Kathrin Rothemund

Assistant professor at the Chair of Audiovisual Media at the University of Bayreuth. She is currently working together with Prof. Dr Matthias Christen on an international project on "Cosmopolitan Cinema and Television".

Publications:

• 2013: Complex Worlds. Narrative strategies in US-American television series. Berlin: Bertz + Fischer. (Dissertation)
• 2013: The Aesthetics of Murder - Variance and Repetition in the Series Dexter. In: Susanne Eichner, Lothar Mikos, Rainer Winter (eds.): Transnational Serial Culture. Theory, Aesthetics, Narration and Reception of New Television Series. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 169-186.
• 2012: Ants, Games, Brains - The Complexity of Reality in Aronofsky's Pi. In: Julia Eckel, Bernd Leiendecker, Daniela Olek, Christine Piepiorka (eds.): (Dis)Orienting Media and Narrative Mazes. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 221-235.

Prof. Dr Jens Ruchatz

Professor of media studies specialising in audiovisual transfer processes at the University of Marburg

Main research areas:

Discourse history of the media, media difference and media comparison, media reflection in film, media history of individuality, genre history of the interview, star research, theory and history of photography, media and memory, temporality of the series, theory of the popular, media of love

Publications:

• On the Critique of the Archaeology of Cinema, Siegen: Universität-GH 1996 [=MuK, Nr. 101/102].
• Light and Truth. Eine Mediumgeschichte der fotografischen Projektion, Munich: Fink 2003.
• Early film and media sociology. Emilie Altenloh's study Zur Sociologie des Kino von 1914, Siegen: universi - Universitätsverlag Siegen 2007 [=MuK 164/165] (together with Christian Filk).

PD Dr Axel Schmidt

Lecturer at the Department of Media Studies; Privatdozent at the Department of Sociology at the University of Basel.

Main research interests:

Cultural, media and communication sociology, popular culture research, group and youth sociology; youth communication, methods of qualitative social research, educational sociology and theories of professionalisation

Publications:

• Computer-aided analysis of music clips. Baden-Baden: Nomos. (2011/ forthcoming) (together with C. Jost, D. Klug and K. Neumann-Braun).
• Media | Interaction. On the connection between action and representation using the example of factual television formats. Baden-Baden:Nomos (2011).
• Popular music, media music? Transdisciplinary contributions to the media of popular music. Series: Short Cuts | Cross Media, Volume 3. Baden-Baden: Nomos (2011) (co-edited with C. Jost, D. Klug and K. Neumann-Braun).

Dr Samantha Schramm

Assistant professor in the field of media studies at the University of Konstanz

Main research interests:

Image and media theories, image pragmatics and site specificity in art since the 1960s

Publication:

• Samantha Schramm: "Versuchsanordnungen in Echtzeit: Sich selbst sehende Zuschauer in Closed Circuit Videoinstallationen", in: Augenblick 51 (2012), pp. 25-36.

Dr Herbert Schwaab

Senior lecturer for special tasks at the Chair of Media Studies at the University of Regensburg

Main areas of work:

Film and television studies, sitcoms, art by people with autism

Publications:

• Experience of the Ordinary. Stanley Cavell's film philosophy as a theory of popular culture Münster: LitVerlag 2010
• Focus: The series. In: zfm-Zeitschrift für Medienstudien 7, Zurich: Diaphanes 2012, Diaphanes, 10-89 (edited with Benjamin Beil, Lorenz Engell, Jens Schröter, Daniela Wentz)
• Metal Matters. Heavy Metal as culture and world. Münster: LITverlag 2011 (edited with Rolf F. Nohr)
• 'Unreading' contemporary television. In: De Valck, Marijke/ Teurlings, Jan (eds.) After the Break. Television Theory Today. Amsterdam University Press, 2013.
• Schwaab, Herbert (2012) "I don't know what I'm looking for." In: montage AV 21/1/2012, [neues fernsehen] (edited by Kristina Köhler and Judith Keilbach), 115-132.
• Wentz, Daniela/ Schwaab, Herbert/ Beil, Benjamin (eds.) Lost in Media. Münster: LIT Verlag (forthcoming)

Dr Markus Stauff

Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam. Markus Stauff has been a member of the board of the Society for Media Studies since October 2007.

Main research interests:

Television theory, cultural studies, digital media

Publications:

• Basic texts on television studies. Edited by Ralf Adelmann, Jan-Otmar Hesse, Judith Keilbach, Markus Stauff, Matthias Thiele. 2002. Constance: UVK at UTB.
• (with Judith Keilbach) When old media never stopped being new. Television's history as an ongoing experiment. In: De Valck, Marijke/ Teurlings, Jan (eds.) After the Break. Television Theory Today. Amsterdam University Press, 2013.
• The new television. Power analysis, governmentality and digital media, Münster, LIT 2005
• Film genres: Sports film. (ed.) Stuttgart: Reclam 2010

Dr Anna Ulrich

Academic counsellor at the Seminar for General Rhetoric at the University of Tübingen

Main research interests:

Visual rhetoric and television rhetoric, media theory and media rhetoric, mass communication and media effects, symbolic politics and contemporary forms of 'eloquence' in the information age

Publications:

• Contested credibility. Visual Strategies of Television Journalism in the 2003 Iraq War. Berlin: Weidler 2012 (neue rhetorik 9).
• with Joachim Knape (ed.): Television images in a state of emergency? Limits and perspectives of televisualisation. Berlin: Weidler 2012 (new rhetoric).

Thomas Waitz M.A.

University assistant at the Institute for Theatre, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna and editor of ZfM - Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft.

Main research interests:

Aesthetics, theory and politics of media, 'traffic' in cultural theory and art, television as agency of the social, hacking as media and self-technology

Publications:

• Andrea Seier, Thomas Waitz (eds.): Klassenproduktion. Television as an agency of the social. Münster: Lit 2013 (in preparation).
• Topic "Against the cinema: Guy Debord". Schnitt - Das Filmmagazin 50, 2/2008 (Edition).
• Franziska Heller, Elke Rentemeister, Bianca Westermann, Thomas Waitz (eds.): Paradoxien der Langeweile (= Augenblick. Beiträge zu Film, Fernsehen, Medien. Nr. 41). Marburg 2008.

Prof. Dr Thomas Weber

Professor of media studies specialising in film and television at the University of Hamburg

Main research interests:

History of documentary film; European cinema (focus on France); recent television developments; theories of the correlation of different media; intercultural comparison of media.

Publications:

• Keitz, Ursula von / Weber, Thomas (eds.): Medial Transformations of the Holocaust. Berlin 2013.
• Mediality as a borderline experience. Futurische Medien im Kino der 80er und 90er Jahre. Bielefeld 2008 (transcript)
• Mediology as method. (ed. with Birgit Mersmann; author of the foreword and the contribution: "Mediologie und Medienwissenschaft"), Berlin 2008
• The entertaining enlightenment. Ideology-critical interpretations of West German television crime series. Bielefeld 1992 (Aisthesis)

Dipl.-Kult. Daniela Wentz

Assistant professor at the Chair of Media Philosophy, Faculty of Media, Bauhaus University Weimar.

Main research interests: History and theory of television, gender theory, relationship between gender and media

Publications:

• Wentz, Daniela/ Schwaab, Herbert/ Beil, Benjamin (eds.) Lost in Media. Münster: LIT Verlag (forthcoming)
• Authenticity as a problem of representation in politics. An investigation into the legitimisation of political staging. Ibidem, Stuttgart: 2005.
• André Wendler/ Daniela Wentz (eds.): Die Medien und das Neue. Marburg, Schüren (forthcoming).

Dr Michaela Wünsch

Media scholar from Berlin, Research Fellow at the University of California

Main research interests:

New media, cultural studies, fundamental philosophical issues in theology, psychoanalysis

Publications:

• In the inner outside. The serial killer as a medium of the unconscious. Kadmos 2010
• Anxiety. Readings on Jacques Lacan's Seminar X. Turia + Kant 2012.