Science, Technology and Media Studies
Media studies seminar
In a society in which media are increasingly shaped by software and AI, new scientific answers to new technologies and their forms of appropriation are needed. Science and Technology Studies (STS) analyzes current media phenomena and traces them back to fundamental socio-technical structures. The professorship thus assumes an interface function for cultural and social science media research. STS focuses on representations and inscriptions of media as well as on the reciprocal production of techniques and practices. In this way, STS expands the field of media studies and, above all, strengthens methodological pluralism - because networked and mobile media require networked and mobile research methods.
Current research projects
The research project A03 in the CRC "Media of Cooperation" is dedicated to the media-theoretical question of how media and spaces are produced cooperatively through navigational practices. After A03 dealt with the transformation of navigation applications into social media and platforms in the first phase, the second funding phase focused on semi-autonomous navigation processes. In the third funding phase, the sub-project is investigating decision-intensive media-supported navigation situations in urban spaces that are characterized by a sensor-laden infrastructure. In the literature on the "Internet of Things", this type of mobility is also described as context-based micronavigation. Micronavigation is defined as a form of movement that is characterized by shared data, media and spatial practices, in which the media and modes of transport are used for relatively short periods or are changed frequently. The aim of the subproject is to analyze and theoretically describe the cooperative production of data, media and spatial practices in micronavigation across online and offline worlds.
The research project investigates collaborative processes of semi-autonomization based on sensor technologies in the field of precision farming from a media theoretical, historical and practical perspective. Against the background of current socio-political and ecological challenges in the agricultural sector, the CRC sub-project uses the example of digital herding to evaluate the question of how cooperative media practices of heterogeneous actors create virtual geographical boundaries. For this purpose, terrain-modeling border practices, their use-specific forms of media interaction and their implementation as closed-loop sensing are examined by means of a co-operative analysis. The project thus allows reflection on the media conditions and possibilities for action of an agrarian-specific practice that consolidates media-historical developments and at the same time has a lasting effect on future developments in the field of agriculture and livestock farming.
In order to fully grasp the interwoven media studies topic of border objects and border practices, both media theoretical reflection, empirical-qualitative research in the field and the historical-praxeological analysis of its development are necessary. These aim to make current media and data practices of sensor-based digital fence building comprehensible as an emergent further development of previous analog techniques of terrain modeling as well as media and border practices of fencing. To this end, the characteristics of virtual fencing identified as essential are subjected to a historical analysis that also takes into account the agri-cultural, praxeological and socio-technical implications of mobile fencing.
Contribution from
future
- the research magazine of the University of Siegen.
Head: Dr. Johannes Schick
Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation from 2026 to 2030
Technology is regarded as a defining characteristic of mankind and the 21st century. It is seen as both a curse and a blessing, and it has recently been argued across the sciences that humans and technology are fatefully linked for better or worse. Research has consequently turned its attention inwards in order to understand the technical capacity of humans and has increasingly investigated processes at the species or lineage level. ZOOGESTURES counters that this has overlooked the interaction of heterogeneous organisms as a potential key context for technological novelty, learning and innovation. The project mobilizes an interdisciplinary research group from philosophy and anthropology of technology, archaeology and primatology to develop the theoretical and methodological resources to trace this role of other, non-human animals in human technological evolution. We pursue the hypothesis that non-human technical gestures are important sources of human learning, embodied behavior, and environmental adaptation. By analyzing archaeological finds and indigenous traditions, we seek to identify historical indicators, examples, and material correlates for our hypothesis. We also undertake primatological fieldwork with free-living primates in Africa to investigate the extent to which their attention is directed towards the gestures and behavior of other creatures.
