Transnational Media Relations in Europe: International Program Exchange and Cultural Transfer as Component of an European Media Culture

Completed research project

Ever since the existence of electronic media, its transgressive character has triggered great fascination but also fears. Political attempts were accordingly substantial in the twentieth century to immunise one’s own territory where possible from within against external influences and to enlist the media for the integration of mostly nationally-defined communities. Of interest here is the relationship between the inherent transnationality of modern mass media on the one hand and attempts at the creation of identity and political containment on the other hand.

Projektverbünde

Radio Télévision Luxembourg (RTL) in its Role as a Transnational Programme Supplier (1955–1980)

Completed research project

This project aims to analyse and compare to what extent the Luxembourgian programme supplier and commercial company of RTL has contributed to the transformation of media cultures in the Federal Republic of Germany and France. In this way, the cultural and social, historically-formative transition from shortage to prosperity society experienced by both countries will be addressed.

Crossing Frontiers. International programme exchange as a form of intercultural communication between Western and Eastern Europe at the example of GDR television

Completed research project

From a media-historical perspective, the cultural communication between Eastern and Western Europe within the system of the Cold War from the mid-1950s via the phase of peaceful coexistence to the breakup of the two power blocs in 1990 will be examined, using the example of the international exchange of GDR television programmes.