Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis

The history of new media is characterized by recurring narrative patterns. These patterns have been analysed by numerous media scholars who have mainly focused on specific written sources such as advertisements. These discourse analyses tend to neglect the materiality of communication technologies and how the objects themselves embody inscriptions of these discursively shaped horizons of expectation. By looking at the remote control and its complex process of resistance and/or appropriation in radio and television technology this introductory chapter aims at offering some alternative reflections on the topic of interactivity in a media historical perspective

Visions of truly interactive communication media have accompanied the development of mass communication since the late 19th century: visions of technologies that enable people to participate equally in communication as sender and receiver simultaneously as in an unmediated person-to-person conversation. According to enthusiastic theories and discourses of New Media new digital media and the Internet make the 'conversation ideal' reality. Against this background this article discusses three historic visions of television as an interactive medium and shows that each of these visions responds to social transformations within which interactive communication solves specific political economic or social problems. Therefore this article argues that instead of assuming that truly interactive media could realize the 'conversation ideal' media scholars should try to investigate the social and ideological implications of interactive technologies and services especially in the context of digital media and the online economy

An analysis of how dreams desires and myths function as guiding and rationalizing forces within media history could prove to be useful. There are many other factors that come into play within the development of media (think of numerous conflicting social cultural political and economic interests) but if we want to understand some of the strongest recurring orienting principles in media evolution it is necessary to appreciate the power of the urge to cling to alluring myths that attach themselves to the conception development production marketing and use of technology. This article therefore aims to describe briefly how myths of improved communication stress - for obvious but no less powerful strategic and ideological reasons - the apparent necessity of reciprocity simultaneity and interactivity and it will do so by zooming in on the various ways in which 'dialogue' as an ideal form of communication has manifested itself materially in media history in what I call the 'telephonic constellation'. In this article I conclude that regulative principles such as dreams desires and myths about ultimate interactivity do not in themselves determine the direction of media development but they are the recurrent discursive building blocks with which luring and powerful stories about the history and future of communication technology are created which in turn set the agenda for further research and experimentation

Interacting with media technology implies operating and using interfaces. This article focuses on the user's immediate corporeal handling of portable media gadgets. It argues that the portability of radios video handhelds and cell phones and their innovative casing and interface designs have led users to develop new practices of interacting with media electronics. Touching carrying and new forms of manual prestidigitations have become important elements of the relation between users and media technology. Due to their bodily proximity and a steady interaction media gadgets are valued as intimate friends and travel companions. Furthermore the user-technology interaction has led to new gestures which have become apparent in today's thumb culture

The recent digitisation of television production and distribution has created new possibilities for the development of interactive forms of television programmes and services. However approaches to interactive television differ nationally as the two pilot projects in the Netherlands and Flanders (2000-2004) show. This article investigates factors that have shaped the institutionalisation of interactive television in these two countries. Focusing on institutional processes of decision-making the comparison shows that governmental and organisational policies were major factors in defining the different developments and the success or failure of interactive television in both countries

Ping-pong is not just a sports game and very popular computer game but also a metaphor for the human-machine interaction in information science. Due to its simplicity ping-pong has been used by avant-garde artists to criticize the one-way communication in modern mass media. Taking the expanded cinema project ping pong of Valie Export from 1968 as point of departure and subsequently the reinstallation of the same project in the context of a game-art exhibition in 2006 this article focuses on how the practices theories and conceptions of interaction have changed between 1968 and 2006. In the 1960s and 1970s artists defined interactivity as a form of social and cultural participation and the media technologies as a means to achieve the socio-cultural utopia of a transformed society. In the 1990s this notion of interactivity as a social-cultural emancipation project was replaced with a more technologically and media-based definition of interactivity as human-machine interaction. Interaction is now integrated in the technological medium itself. As a consequence artists see themselves more and more as 'technologists' who tweak and modify the technological interaction between the human and the media technology

Communicatie mediaal bemiddeld of in directe vorm is in de geschiedenis van de filosofie de media en de culturele en sociale wetenschappen onlosmakelijk verbonden met het idee van interactiviteit. Ideale communicatie is interactief in die zin dat alle deelnemers daaraan gelijkwaardig zijn en vrij van welke vorm van macht of dwang dan ook; als gelijken kunnen zij bijdragen aan communicatieve uitwisseling en toenadering. Zo gaat het bijvoorbeeld in de hermeneutiek van Hans-Georg Gadamer om het 'verstaan' van een ander dat tot stand komt wanneer er sprake is van een versmelting van de horizonnen van tekst of auteur en lezer.1 Een voorbeeld uit de sociale wetenschap is het symbolisch interactionisme van Herbert Blumer 2 George Herbert Mead of Erving Goffman dat de gezamenlijke constructie van realiteit als gevolg van sociale interactie en communicatie centraal stelt.3 En een voorbeeld uit de filosofie is de door Jürgen Habermas beschreven ethica van het discours: hier worden 'communicatieve handelingen' als een specifieke vorm van interactie beschouwd waarbij subjecten in een situatie vrij van maatschappelijke en sociale dwang tot wederzijds begrip komen om gebaseerd daarop hun handelingen op elkaar en op een rationele manier af te kunnen stemmen

De bundel <i>Mining the Home Movie</i> onderzoekt in 27 bijdragen de historische betekenis van amateurfilm. De belangstelling voor dit filmgenre sluit aan bij de zeer populaire benadering van historische gebeurtenissen vanuit het perspectief van de betrokkenen: geschiedenis op het niveau van de ooggetuige zoals bedreven in de populaire televisieserie in europa naar het boek van Geert Mak waarvan dit najaar de tweede serie van start is gegaan. Bij deze vorm van audiovisuele geschiedschrijving wordt dankbaar gebruik gemaakt van amateurfilms zoals in de recente specials van het televisieprogramma andere tijden over familiefilms '20- '80 (gezien ons eigen leven familiefilms '20-'80 7 september 2008) of de bevrijding van Nederland uit de Tweede Wereldoorlog door de ogen van Canadese militairen (van d-day tot de dam 21 september 2008). <i>Mining the Home Movie </i> poogt deze waardering voor amateurfilm een plaats te geven in de reguliere geschiedschrijving. Het boek heeft een tweeledige opzet waarbij meer reflexieve essays van wetenschappers filmmakers en archivarissen over de historische waarde van amateurfilm worden afgewisseld met korte presentaties van amateurfilmcollecties in dertien verschillende archieven in de Verenigde Staten Mexico Engeland Nederland en Nieuw Zeeland. Tevens bevat de bundel een selectieve filmografie van met name op amateurfilm gebaseerde compilatiefilms en een selectieve bibliografie

De filmtijdschriften zijn in te zien in de bibliotheek van het Nederlands Filmmuseum in Amsterdam de andere tijdschriften in de meeste universiteitsbibliotheken