Department III: Media and Information Society

Heads of Department: Dr. Jürgen Danyel and Prof. Dr. Dr. Annette Vowinckel

The availability of audiovisual media steadily increased throughout the twentieth century, changing the daily lives of people, as well as social communication and politics. Department III researches the process of media transformation in European societies and the changes brought by the advance of new information technologies and digitalization.

Another focus is historiography itself, the question of how scholarly communication, the working methods of historians, and the communication of historical knowledge have changed in the digital age. The department’s work is closely linked to its own Internet resources on contemporary history (et al. Zeitgeschichte-online, Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte and other topic portals).

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Online-Portal "Zeitgeschichte digital", Sceenshot

With Contemporary History Digital (Zeitgeschichte digital, www.zeitgeschichte-digital.de), the ZZF develops its own digital research infrastructure for contemporary history.

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Tamás Urbán, A team of the Hungarian TV channel MTV filming on a construction site in 1971.
© Fortepan/Tamás Urbán

In the field of science, image research has steadily increased in scope and importance since the mid-1980s. Photography played a key role here. This work area focuses on the actors and institutions involved in image production: the agents of the images. The subject of the research, in addition...

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Photo: Anna Laschke

Given the growing interest in images and objects, the material culture of everyday life has been accepted as an authentic source for historiography. Its significance for historical research, however, has been underrated on the part of professional historians. Thus, the project’s objective is to...

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American family watching television, 1958. Photo: Evert F. Baumgardner, Family watching television 1958, public domain, details on Wikimedia Commons

Since the late nineteenth century, modern mass media have increasingly shaped European societies. Whether politics, economics or culture, there is hardly an area of social life that has not been changed by the dissemination of newspapers, films, radio or the World Wide Web.

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Poster of the conference, 2012.

The projects analyse the changes of society because of the process of computerisation and the use of information technology.

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Modell of Ost-Berlin, Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, Photo: Hanno Hochmuth

Exhibitions supervised by staff members in Department III.
Online exhibition (since 30.6.2021) about the eventful history of the Bogensee site at:
...

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Pictorial Depiction of Migrants in Print Media – German (pop-)music - Advertising in the GDR - Das jüdische Auswandererlehrgut Groß-Breesen

 

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Der Arbeitsbereich spürt dem Pop in Form einer Zeitgeschichte des Populären nach. Wie beeinflussten politische, wirtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Veränderungen die Popkultur? Und wie brachte sie selbst Veränderungen hervor? Untersucht werden zum einen transnationale Effekte, die an der...

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Federal Ministry of the Interior - Avatare

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The BMBF joint project investigates the emergence, transformation and use of GDR-related media. Mass media and private media as well as their usage environments are analysed. In addition to the research projects, the network is developing...

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