Digitalization & Media

“The crisis of journalism” – this was the topic of this year’s day of media studies. Why do people risk becoming journalists despite the crisis? And what do the findings from the crises in the Ukraine, Syria and Iraq mean for professional media?

The digital media shift is a challenge for all of us, whether we are part of the editorial staff or media studies in general. Thus, this was one of the major topics of the day of media studies in 2013. Joachim Blum held a keynote covering his experiences as a media consultant, and the alumni Viktoria Hengen, Sebastian Erlhofer, and Nils Lengelsen spoke about what the job market expects from students of media studies.

Last Monday, design researcher Gesche Joost from the SPD’s expert team was a guest in Trier and discussed her approaches to internet policy. The title was promising: “Brave New World Internet? Opportunity – Surveillance – Economic Factor” – that is three things at once, and expectations were correspondingly high. What can be put on the agenda in detail?

The ancillary copyright law (Leistungsschutzrecht) is casting its shadow: the Bundestag will debate it this week in its first reading. If the German Newspaper Publishers and Publishers Association is to be believed, this has a lot to do with shoplifting. Read on to find out why that is not true.

On Media Studies Day, the Trier Media Studies Department celebrated its 15th birthday with exciting topics. Stefan Raue’s lecture on trimediality at MDR convinced with practical relevance, but remained pale when it came to the internet. The central question of the panel discussion: Can journalists help shape the digital future at all?

So there it is, the ancillary copyright. A done deal, search engines are to pay publishers license fees. An unprecedented fight against networking is imminent.

The demo scene create digital artworks in tiny files of 64k, building on effects calculated in real time by the computer, often exceeding technical limitations of the devices. A free documentation und a creative commons BY) license describes the development of the scene and introduces some of its protagonists.

A few weeks ago, I already expressed my concerns regarding the ancillary copyright (Leistungsschutzrecht) for press publishers. The draft law that has now been made public shows that it also affects users and poses a threat to the democratic exchange of opinions.

Yesterday, the SPD fraction in the parliament of Trier invited to a panel discussion about “Facebook in urban planning”, which took place in the venerable baroque halls of the electroral palace. No question I had to be there. The discussion brought a lot of interesting aspects to light, but missed a chance regarding liquid democracy.

The past weekend, I have been to the ninth Educamp in Cologne. The Educamp is a BarCamp about learning with new media, and this is a short review, covering creating apps for learning without programming, using screencasts in schools, types of digital learners, the digital identity and some thoughts on the relation of media, knowledge and learning.