Media History

Sport, manhood and empire: British responses to the New Zealand rugby tour of 1905

by John Nauright

This article analyzes British responses to the successes of the 1905 New Zealand All Black rugby team in the context... more This article analyzes British responses to the successes of the 1905 New Zealand All Black rugby team in the context of fears of racial degeneration in Britain. It further explores how the British viewed the New Zealand team's innovative style of play including changes to standard formations used in the game as well as specialized positional play. Finally concepts of colonial robust masculinity suggested to British experts that the British "race" was not necessarily in decline in the colonies of settlement as evidenced both by troop performance in the South African War of 1899-1902 and on the playing fields.

Writing and reading American football: culture, identity and sports studies.

by John Nauright

Published in Sporting Traditions, 13:1 (1996), 109-127.

Under the Counter, Under the Radar? The Business and Regulation of the Pornographic Press in Sweden 1950–1971

by Klara Arnberg

published in Enterprise & Society (2012), 13 (2)

In this article, the process leading to decriminalization of pornography in Sweden in 1971 is analyzed. The interplay... more In this article, the process leading to decriminalization of pornography in Sweden in 1971 is analyzed. The interplay between the structural institutional level and company behavior is stressed, with an emphasis on business strategies. The article shows that the division between hard-core and soft-core pornographic magazines in Sweden was quite different than the development in the United Kingdom and the United States. It also shows how the business strategies used by hard-core pornographers challenged the obscenity legislation and regulation of national distribution, making them obsolete. Even though there was fierce competition between the pornography companies, producers formed joint alternative distribution channels crucial to the survival of the industry.

Historia digital, historia de los medios ditales: antiguos dilemas para nuevos paradigmas

by Matilde Eiroa San Francisco

Conexiones. Revista iberoamericana de Comunicación, Volumen 3, nº 2, 2011, pp. 21-36

Anonymity, Authorship, and Recirculation: A Civil War Episode

by Ellen Gruber Garvey

What Happened to the Ads in Turn-of-the-Century Bound Magazines, and Why

by Ellen Gruber Garvey

Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Appropriation: Scrapbooks and Extra-Illustration

by Ellen Gruber Garvey

Published in the online history journal Common-Place

Extra-illustration or grangerizing, the remaking of printed books by adding illustrations and other matter according... more Extra-illustration or grangerizing, the remaking of printed books by adding illustrations and other matter according to the owner's tastes, shared with nineteenth-century scrapbook making the attempt to take ownership of a book.

“Resist the Usual": Young & Rubicam’s Soft Sell Strategies in Radio Comedy Programming

by Cynthia B. Meyers

Paper presented at the Society of Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Boston, MA, 22 March 2012, as a part of "Time to Smile" panel.

Although most ad agencies producing radio programming in the 1930s used hard sell advertising strategies, Young &... more Although most ad agencies producing radio programming in the 1930s used hard sell advertising strategies, Young & Rubicam followed soft sell principles, including the use of humor, emotional appeals, and advertising integration into program texts, in order to avoid alienating audiences.

Troubleshooting the Wayback Machine: When Radio Goes Online

by Tona Hangen

Presented at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Conference, March 2012

A Short History of Superimposition: From Spirit Photography to Early Cinema

by Simone Natale

Early Popular Visual Culture 10.2 (2012): 125-145

Free download in the Francis&Taylor site (only available for a limited time):
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/9ZVBXSfGTn7xhzsTdMmw/full

As several scholars have noted, the use of superimposition effects in cinema to conjure such apparitions as ghosts,... more As several scholars have noted, the use of superimposition effects in cinema to conjure such apparitions as ghosts, fairies, devils, and other fantastic creatures finds a significant precedent in spirit photography, a spiritualist practice by which the image of one or more spirits was ‘magically’ captured on a photographic plate. However, arguing for a relationship of direct filiation between spirit photography and the tricks employed in film remains problematic, especially given that spirit pictures were entangled with matters of religious belief. This article calls for a more solid insertion of spiritualism’s visual culture into the pre-history of film practice, giving three main cases in support of the relationship between spirit photography and early cinema. Firstly, the commercial use of spirit photographs within the spiritualist movement suggests that the circulation of these images was not exclusively informed by matters of belief. Secondly, the popularization of exposures of spirit photography operated by numerous stage magicians in the late nineteenth century can contribute towards explaining the insertion of multiple-exposure techniques in the technical expertise of early filmmakers. Thirdly, a documented case in which spirit photographs were presented to a paying public in the vein of magic lantern entertainments demonstrates that the spiritualist visual culture intersected the nineteenth-century tradition of the projected image, too. Thus, by sketching a history of superimposition effects in photography, stage magic, magic lantern, and cinema, this article claims that visual representations of ghosts in the nineteenth century constantly wavered between religion and spectacle, fiction and realism, and still and moving pictures.

Between Public Service and Commercial Venture: The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation on the Web 1994-2000

by Hallvard Moe

Chapter in Maureen Burns and Niels Brügger (eds) Histories of Public Service Broadcasters on the Web. New York: Peter Lang, 2011.

Book Review: Speaking into the Air, John Durham Peters

by Christopher Lucas

Intervista a Hubert Godard

by Armando Menicacci

Article written with Emanuele Quinz published in : Armando Menicacci, Emanuele Quinz, La scene digitale. Nuovi media per la danza, Venezia, Marsilio, 2001, pp. 371-381

Die Anfänge des kommerziellen Rundfunks im Saarland. Die Geschichte der Saarländischen Fernseh AG (Tele-Saar und Europe No. 1)

by Andreas Fickers

Published In Clemens Zimmermann, Rainer Hudemann, Micheal Kuderna (eds), Medienlandschaft Saar von 1945 bis in die Gegenwart. Band 1: Medien zwischen Demokratisierung und Kontrolle (1945-1955) Oldenbourg Verlag: Muenchen, pp. 241-310.

This chapter reconstructs the fascinating story of the first commercial television station in Europe: Tele-Saar.... more This chapter reconstructs the fascinating story of the first commercial television station in Europe: Tele-Saar. Funded by the French occupational government in the Saar region, the station aimed at promoting the French high-definition television system (819 lines) in Germany. In order to finance this act of technopolitical diplomacy, the French started a commercial radio station (Europe nr.1) which became one of the most popular French speaking radio stations in post-war Europe.

Eventing Europe. Europäische Fernseh- und Mediengeschichte als Zeitgeschichte

by Andreas Fickers

Published as: Andreas Fickers (2009). Eventing Europe. Europaeische Fernseh- und Mediengeschichte als Zeitgeschichte. Archiv fuer Sozialgeschichte, 49, pp. 391-416.

Seeing the Familiar Strange: Actants, Actors and Arenas of Transnational Media History

by Andreas Fickers

This article is published in Medien & Zeit 26:4 (2011), pp. 16-24.

The essay pleas for a critical reassessment of the nation as long lasting paradigm of historical research on mass... more The essay pleas for a critical reassessment of the nation as long lasting paradigm of historical research on mass media. By presenting the transnational perspective as a useful framework
for seeing the familiar strange, the author introduces the three interrelated concepts of actants, actors and arenas as critical tools for the study of transnational media flows. Based
on three historical short stories dealing with the emergence of a telegraph infrastructure for news reporting in Sweden, the establishment of a transnational „pirate“ radio and television station in the Saar region, and subversive viewing practices of the Romanian television audience in the 1980s, the author aims at problematizing the complex spatial and topological nature of transnational mediascape by using an integral media historical
approach.

The Techno-politics of Colour: Britain and the European Struggle for a Colour Television Standard

by Andreas Fickers

Towards a New Digital Historicism? Doing History in the Age of Abundance

by Andreas Fickers

This article argues that the contemporary hype in digitization and dissemination of our cultural heritage – especially... more This article argues that the contemporary hype in digitization and dissemination of our cultural heritage – especially of audiovisual sources – is comparable to the boom of critical source editions in the late 19th century. But while the dramatic rise of accessibility to and availability of sources in the 19th century went hand in hand with the development of new scholarly skills of source interpretation and was paralleled by the institutionalization of history as an academic profession, a similar trend of an emerging digital historicism today seems absent. This essay aims at reflecting on the challenges and chances that the discipline of history – and the field of television history in particular – is actually facing. It offers some thoughts and ideas on how the digitization of sources and their online availability affects the established practices of source criticism.

The Emergence of Television as a Conservative Media Revolution: Historicising a Process of Remediation in the Post-War Western Europen Mass Media Ensemble

by Andreas Fickers

Article published in Journal of Modern European History Vol. 10: 1 (2012), pp. 49-75.

This article claims that the emergence of television in the 1950s must be interpreted as a conservative media... more This article claims that the emergence of television in the 1950s must be interpreted as a conservative media revolution. It aims at revisiting some of the popular narratives about the emergence of television as a revolutionary moment in media history and questions the newness of television in the European mass media ensemble. Focusing on a set of privileged sites of negotiation where the tensions between the conservative and modernising agencies of the medium became most visible or explicit, the article emphasizes the ambiguous and contested nature of television as a new medium. Finally, the author pleas for an integral approach to media history that studies the intermedial relationships and interdependencies between television and other mass media.

Tuning in Nostalgic Wavelengths: Transistor Memories Set To Music

by Andreas Fickers

This is a chapter of the book Sound Souvenirs. Audio Technologies - Memory and Cultural Practices, edited by Karin Bijsterveld and Jose van Dijk Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam (2009), pp. 123-138.

This chapter examines the meaning of and nostalgic yearning for transistor radios in the lyrics of popular songs.... more This chapter examines the meaning of and nostalgic yearning for transistor radios in the lyrics of popular songs. Popular music provides a treasure of lyrics that deal explicitly with the transistor radio as a cultural phenomenon – a neglected
topic in scholarly work on the history of radio so far. From Chuck Berry’s “Oh Baby Doll” to Buck Owens’ “Made in
Japan,” the Beach Boys’ “Magic Transistor Radio” to Kraftwerk’s “Transistor,” a broad range of popular music genres reflects the transistor radio’s deep cultural impact in youth culture and popular entertainment. In analyzing both contemporary lyrical reflections and nostalgic echoes of the transistor radio in popular music, this chapter provides an unorthodox take on the rich and fascinating sound souvenirs of a technology that blazed the trail of mobile electronic devices.