AG Open Media Studies
AG Open Media Studies
Website: https://ag-openmediastudies.de/
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Open Science/Open Scholarship aims at involving as many people as possible in the production, negotiation and distribution of knowledge. Researching, teaching and publishing should be carried out as transparently and openly as possible in order to make scholarship sustainable and inclusive. On the one hand, research results should be comprehensible and verifiable so that they can be interpreted, shared and reused. On the other hand, it is also important to make the research processes themselves more transparent and accessible (‘open research’).
The aim of the GfM scholarly interest group (SIG) "Open Media Studies", founded in 2018, is to raise awareness for, conceptualize and experiment with open scholarship in media studies. This requires a critical examination of scholarly practices, methods and approaches in one's own discipline and the development of best-practice examples. We seek to discuss the various meanings and effects of openness , as outlined in the focus areas below, the opportunities and challenges of open scholarship. Coming from the heterogeneous tradition of media studies, our work engages in inter- and transdisciplinary, conceptual and science policy-related debates on openness and access in scholarship. Through public contributions in multiple media formats, the organization of symposia and workshops, we aim at a visible positioning of media studies within various academic fora, higher education policy making, and society as a whole.
The SIG is highly interested in connecting with media scholar communities in various countries. This may take shape in reading international literature, or to initiate pluri-national research collaborations. With this in mind, we decided to conduct communication and events in a bilingual manner both in German and English. We are equally sensitive to, and interested in enabling the participation of scholars speaking languages beyond German and English.
The following focus areas highlight the diverse aspects of open scholarship, the priorities, expertise and understanding of the members of the SIG (as of September 2020). We consider the list a provisional working paper for fostering current debates, expand open science networks and allow for collaborations across initiatives and disciplines.
All SIG members are welcome to contribute. Furthermore, we invite everyone interested to join our activities. Please feel free to contact us.
Focus areas include:
- Open Access
Open access means to make scholarly work freely accessible to the public. This increases the visibility of scholarly work and extends the outreach of research results even beyond academia. In our opinion, making scholarly work comprehensible and accessible to broader audiences helps to demonstrate the value of science and scholarship for society and may also protect research from political slandering. However, the SIG considers open access not only with regard to free online publications but also with regard to free re-use, e.g. by Creative Commons licensing (see also Intellectual Property Rights and Copyright). We believe that everyone should be able to use research for various reasons including exploratory analysis or artistic purposes. In addition to publications, the SIG seeks to open up various kinds of research output – not only academic publications and monographs, but also bibliographies, annotations, software, historical sources and other information and artifacts (see also Open Data and Research Data Management). Furthermore, the SIG considers open access not only in terms of knowledge dissemination but also knowledge production. Thus we address questions such as: Who has access to scholarly discourses? Whose voices are heard – and whose voices are silenced due to gender, class, ‘race’, or other categories of difference? What do we acknowledge as scientific knowledge in the first place? Who benefits from open access and who is left behind because of particular scholarly publishing practices? Where do come (national) politics and institutional agendas (such as funding structures etc.) into play? What kind of media dispositivs are created within the framework “open access”?
The SIG aims to:
1. broaden the understanding of open access in terms of sharing different kinds of material
2. and thus, promote the idea of scholarship as an iterative, open-ended process
3. foster the free re-use of research without any legal, technical or other barriers in order to provide an inclusive and creative environment
4. critically examine open access with regard to power structures and privilege
5. and thus, approach interdependencies of technology, race, gender and other categories of differences with regard to concepts of ‘openness’ from an intersectional perspective.
If you are interested to join our discussions and activities in this field please feel free to contact the SIG members:
Sarah-Mai Dang, Franziska Heller, Dietmar Kammerer, Andreas Kirchner, Stephan Packard, Jeroen Sondervan (see contact details below)- Citizen Science / Citizen Research
Citizen Science is a concept that has recently gained increasing popularity. Rather than a field or discipline, it can best be understood as a principle, practice or objective, similar to open science or interdisciplinary collaboration. Accordingly, some authors prefer referring to terms such as Citizen Research and Citizen Researchers. Far from being a mainstream issue within contemporary Media and Film Studies, we believe that our research areas are actually predestined for Citizen Research. Due to the pervasiveness of media in today’s social and cultural practice, citizens are engaged in many critical discussions about media phenomena, be they political, social or media-historical. We find that these practices overlap with topics, objects and priorities in our own fields of research. The inclusion of Citizen Research as a working principle in Media and Film Studies opens up the possibility of generating knowledge that cannot be developed in mono-disciplinary academic research designs, but become feasible only in co-operations that include various citizens and are characterized by equality. Especially with regard to the development of regional media and film history, the establishment of new forms of media archives or the translation and interpretation of para texts (to name but a few examples), there is potential that can be tapped by jointly developing research questions and projects.
The SIG aims to further discuss:
1. definitions and perspectives of Citizen Research in the context of media and film studies
2. how to enable networking between media and film scholars interested in citizen research
3. the meanings and directions that Citizen Research could develop in media and film studies
4. the development of best practices and quality control.
If you are interested to join our discussions and activities in this field please feel free to contact the SIG members:
Anna Luise Kiss (see contact details below)- Open Educational Resources
“Education for all” is one of the most important goals which is needed now more than ever before. Educational resources, therefore, should be open to everyone. Digital media and a connective online environment constitute the best preconditions for making education accessible without institutional, infrastructural and pecuniary or commercial obstacles. However, open educational resources (OERs) also constitute major challenges in terms of how information and knowledge can be processed and circulated without barriers. Web-based forms of connective teaching and learning requires particular media cultural skills in order to collaboratively work in an open online environment. Besides accumulating materials that are offered under free for use licensing or using open source technologies OERs also refer to media educational practices as they are required for the use of, but also determined by connective online media. That applies in particular to contemporary forms of “platformized” communication, content production, distribution and reception in an information economy that influences media educational practices as well. Thus, OERs also imply media educational practices that are increasingly tied to the logic of platformization of the web and its particular forms of online communication or connective teaching and learning, respectively.
The SIG aims to
1. further analyze today’s online educational resources and applications to provide critical reflections on the conditions of the “openness” of educational media in a platformized connective media environment
2. foster collaboration between media scholars and educational professionals to develop, improve and distribute OER within our own fields
If you are interested to join our discussions and activities in this field please feel free to contact the SIG members:
Stephan Packard, Sven Stollfuß (see contact details below)- Open Data and Research Data Management
Research Data and Research Data Management (RDM)) have been a major topic in the natural sciences for some time now, but it recently also gained traction in the humanities and social sciences, and in media studies in particular. The growing importance of digital infrastructures such as the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) and the demands of funding organizations to include a RDM concept in project proposals is strongly contributing to this development. With sources, methods, and publications becoming digital, more and more research data is being produced, used, and discussed. It is far from obvious what constitutes research data in media studies, thus the discipline needs to have a broad discussion about its own relation to the concept. With its own disciplinary approach of reflexively examining the mediality, materiality, and performativity of the media that constitute research data in the first place, media studies can contribute to a critical understanding of the concept, its uses and its inherent problems. At the same time, some areas of media studies are already invested in formalized research data management: in social media research for example, comprehensive datasets are widely being collected and worked upon, while parts of film studies have shown interest in methods adapted from digital humanities. Within media studies, ‘research data’ raises a number of questions: first, media researchers have to find pragmatic ways and learn how to deal with expectations of standardization, storage, findability and interoperability defined by funding agencies and broader guidelines for publicly funded research. Second, the quest for such formalized ways of creating, processing and representing ‘data’ also confronts the discipline (once again) with conceptual and critical questions about the mediality of data, its discourses and materialities. Third, we as Open Media Studies SIG believe that openness (i.e. open research data) should be a major guiding principle and quality in the configuration of contemporary research data in media studies.
The SIG aims to further discuss:
1. understandings of research data in the humanities and qualitative social sciences
2. productive ways to think about ‘open research data’ within media studies
3. the significance of RDM for the practices and processes of scholarly knowledge production
4. legal and ethical considerations of RDM and open data (e.g. copyright, access, privacy)
5. norms and standards in order to insure interoperability and reusability of the data. the development of effective RDM plans for media research projects.
If you are interested to join our discussions and activities in this field please feel free to contact the SIG members:
Sarah-Mai Dang, Malte Hagener, Simon David Hirsbrunner, Dietmar Kammerer (see contact details below)- Open Methods and Technological Infrastructures
At GfM, there is currently much interest and movement along questions of methodologies in (German) media research. This is especially true for the discussion of methods in digital media research, which are currently a focus of debate at GfM and its Open Media Studies blog. As Open Media Studies SIG, we believe that these discussions should thoroughly consider aspects of openness, access and participation. Inequalities between different local and global groups become apparent through issues like: access to stable electricity and internet networks; up-to-date hard- and software; language skills; available experts (i.e. programmers), etc. These inequalities (‘Digital Divides’) exist on a big scale, between the global North and the global South, but also on a small scale, between poor and rich segments of western societies. From a media studies perspective, questions of technology and infrastructure cannot be treated separately from questions of social, political and cultural conditions, and in particular equality of educational opportunities.
The SIG aims to
1. foster the reflection on technological research infrastructure with regard to concepts of ‘openness’.
2. assess for concrete examples who has access to what? What new inclusion and exclusion mechanisms do (new) participatory modes convey?
If you are interested to join our discussions and activities in this field please feel free to contact the SIG members:
Sarah-Mai Dang, Simon David Hirsbrunner, Alena Strohmaier (see contact details below)- Open Pedagogy
What is our goal as a teacher? Why do we teach, for what purpose and in whose interest? How can we provide an ‚open‘ classroom? While OER focuses on free and reusable learning materials, teaching in the sense of open scholarship addresses issues of inclusion and exclusion of scholars, students, and subjects. Learning should be fun and not a burden. We see teaching as an exciting experience and not just an academic obligation. A class is considered a collective effort where discussions benefit from students’ and teachers’ expertise alike. Thus, as teachers we strive for creating a space where individual experiences are seen as highly valuable to the learning process and where students can pursue their own interests. Learning must not be a quest for efficiency and productivity but for experiments and creativity. The SIG views the critical reflection of the classroom itself and the academic system as fundamental to media studies, beyond each respective subject of a given course. The SIG aims to further deepen the discussion on pedagogy in order to provide a more open classroom where we gather as communities rather than as isolated individuals foster the implementation of open science practices, ways of sharing research results and potentials of collaborative learning as well as critical openness in classes at beginning of a program strengthen the appreciation of teaching in academic evaluations, in particular with regard to open science practices, as research and teaching are equally important for open scholarship.
If you are interested to join our discussions and activities in this field please feel free to contact the SIG members:
Sarah-Mai Dang (see contact details below)- Open Peer Review
As is well known, peer review can be carried out in several ways. Traditionally, anonymity is a cornerstone of the procedure, whereby (1) either the reviewer is not known by name, but the author is (single-blind peer review); (2) the procedure is completely anonymous (double-blind peer review). In both cases, reviewers are usually selected by the editors and both the reviews and reactions to them are treated confidentially, i.e. they are not published. It was repeatedly pointed out that in practice the evaluation procedure cannot keep the promise of guaranteeing better quality through an anonymised and moderated process, often failing to provide for actual anonymity in the first place, but also failing to employ the advantages of open and varied debate.
The SIG aims to:
1. further explore open peer review (OPR) as a possible alternative, with respect to open identities, open reports and open participation/open interaction
2. exchange OPR practices and best practice examples in media studies and beyond.
If you are interested to join our discussions and activities in this field please feel free to contact the SIG members:
Adelheid Heftberger (see contact details below)- Scholarly Communication
‘Science communication’ or the public engagement with scientific and scholarly work has long been a subject of investigation for researchers in media studies. Similar to contemporary communication studies and the social studies of sciences, scholars in media studies have highlighted the co-creation of scientific and scholarly knowledge by scientists and non-scientists. Compared to other academic traditions, media studies have particularly focused on the mediality, materiality and technicity of artefacts in science communication. For example, scholars have highlighted the crucial relevance of images for the popularization and mediation of scientific issues and investigated the social networks and online debates around science-related topics. We think that media scholars may also be valuable mediators and translators of knowledge themselves and should make their perspectives heard in settings such as interdisciplinary collaboration, at the interface between research and society, media studies and journalism, science and the arts, or science and policy.
The SIG aims to:
1. collect related literature and initiatives from the community of media researchers;
2. think about media studies perspectives on science communication approaches emanating from other disciplines such as communication studies and Science & Technology Studies. What may be promising roles of media scholars in science communication endeavors?
3. provide visibility for media researchers who would like to science communication initiatives, projects and publications; e.g. as consultants or associated researchers.
If you are interested to join our discussions and activities in this field please feel free to contact the SIG members:
Simon David Hirsbrunner, Anna Luise Kiss, Jeroen Sondervan (see contact details below)- Intellectual Property and Copyright
The issue of intellectual property rights (Urheberrecht) and copyright (Nutzungs- und Verwertungsrechte) in media studies covers more than one aspect. On the one hand, each author produces their text; on the other hand, media scholars also use possibly protected works for their research and republish parts of them with their research (e.g. metadata, film clips etc.). In case of one’s own publication, open access publications allow for relatively easy access to knowledge, but not necessarily its unrestricted use. Because all texts that can count as proprietary work, i.e. reach a certain amount of creative production (“Schöpfungshöhe”), are automatically subject to intellectual property rights. In German, intellectual property rights are not for sale, they remain with the authors. However, the rights of use to a work (copyright) can be assigned to a third party, which is the rule with publications with publishers. This means that beyond the right to quote even the authors are prohibited from using fragments or the entire document without consulting the publisher. The possibility of making the use of self-written texts more open by means of selected Creative Commons licensing (and not letting individual publishers decide on the distribution alone) has so far been used rather hesitantly in the humanities.
The SIG aims to:
1. identify media specific problems, in particular when it comes to audiovisual media, and publish guidelines for pragmatic practices
2. foster joint lobbying (cultural heritage institutions and scholars) with legislators to improve the situation in the future
3. encourage engagement with legal conditions for better informed decisions.
If you are interested to join our discussions and activities in this field please feel free to contact the SIG member:
Sarah-Mai Dang, Adelheid Heftberger, Dietmar Kammerer, Stephan Packard, (see contact details below)
SIG Members
Co-Speakers
Bregt Lameris
Franziska Heller
Simon Spiegel
Founding Members
Sarah-Mai Dang (Initiator and Co-Founder) (sarah-mai.dang[at]uni-marburg.de, oabooks.de, Twitter: @SarahMaiDang)
Adelheid Heftberger (adelheidh[at]gmail.com)
Simon David Hirsbrunner (simon.hirsbrunner[at]fu-berlin.de, Twitter: @simonsimson)
Alena Strohmaier (alena.strohmaier[at]staff.uni-marburg.de)
Thomas Waitz (t.waitz[at]univie.ac.at)
Members
Miriam Akkermann (miriam.akkermann[at]tu-dresden.de)
Josephine Diecke (diecke[at]staff.uni-marburg.de)
Sophie Einwächter (sophie.einwaechter[at]staff.uni-marburg.de)
Malte Hagener (hagener[at]uni-marburg.de)
Franziska Heller (f.heller[at]filmuniversitaet.de)
Dietmar Kammerer (dietmar.kammerer[at]staff.uni-marburg.de, Twitter: @drkammerer)
Andreas Kirchner (andreas.kirchner[at]uni-konstanz.de, Twitter: @andkirchner)
Bregt Lameris (bregt.lameris[at]ou.nl)
Anna Luise Kiss (a.kiss[at]filmuniversitaet.de)
Sigrun Lehnert (sigrun.lehnert[at]freenet.de, Twitter: @LehnertSigrun)
Andreas Möllenkamp (andreas.moellenkamp[at]uni-hamburg.de)
Gaia Mosconi (gaia.Mosconi[at]uni-siegen.de)
Laura Katharina Mücke (laura.katharina.muecke[at]univie.ac.at)
Stephan Packard (packard[at]uni-koeln.de)
Sarah Maike Reinerth (m.reinerth[at]filmuniversitaet.de)
Eileen Rositzka (eileen.rositzka[at]fu-berlin.de)
Jeroen Sondervan (j.sondervan[at]uu.nl)
Simon Spiegel (simon[at]simifilm.ch)
Sven Stollfuß (sven.stollfuss[at]uni-leipzig.de)
Sebastian Stoppe (sebastian.stoppe[at]uni-leipzig.de)
Niels Oliver Walkowski (niels-oliver.walkowski[at]uni.lu)
Meetings & Activities
Upcoming events:
- Workshop on Open Social Data, 2022 (tba)
Blog:
- Open-Media-Studies-Blog (German and English)
Contact:
----- Deutsche Version -----
Open Science/Open Scholarhip zielt darauf ab, möglichst Viele an der Produktion und Distribution von Wissen teilhaben zu lassen. Forschung, Lehre und Publikationen sollen möglichst transparent und offen durchgeführt werden, um Wissenschaft nachhaltig und inklusiv zu gestalten. Rechercheergebnisse müssen nachvollziehbar und nachprüfbar sein, damit sie anschlussfähig und nachnutzbar sind. Dafür gilt es, auch die Arbeitsprozesse selbst zugänglich zu machen. Open Science legt den Fokus auf kollaborative und kooperative Arbeitsformen. Je nach Disziplin und Forschungsprojekt kann dies sehr unterschiedliche Formen annehmen.
Ziel der 2018 gegründeten AG Open Media Studies ist es, die Medienwissenschaft für Open Science zu sensibilisieren und Arbeitsprozesse transparenter zu machen. Dafür gilt es, sich mit wissenschaftlichen Praktiken, Methoden und Ansätzen in der eigenen Disziplin kritisch auseinanderzusetzen und Best-Practice-Beispiele zu erarbeiten. Openness soll dabei sowohl als Chance als auch Herausforderung diskutiert werden. Im Kern medienwissenschaftlich ausgerichtet schließt die AG an transdisziplinäre theoretische wie wissenschaftspolitische Debatten um Offenheit und Zugang in der Wissenschaft an. Durch öffentliche Beiträge in Medien und auf Konferenzen sowie das Ausrichten von Fachtagungen und Workshops soll eine sichtbare Positionierung der deutschsprachigen Medienwissenschaft in diesem Feld erfolgen.
Zu den Schwerpunktthemen zählen u.a.:
- Open Access
- Peer Review
- Wissenschaftskommunikation
- Citizen Science
- Forschungsdatenmanagement
- Open Educational Resources
- Gender und Technologie
- Urheberrecht
- Chancen und Herausforderungen durch Digitalität und Datafizierung
(z.B. digitale Methoden)
Blog: Open-Media-Studies-Blog (Deutsch und Englisch)
Gründungsmitglieder
- Dr. Sarah-Mai Dang (Initiatorin der OMS-AG), BMBF-Forschungsgruppenleiterin (DAVIF), Institut für Medienwissenschaft, Philipps-Universität Marburg
- Dr. Adelheid Heftberger, Referatsleiterin Filmbenutzung, Das Bundesarchiv
- Simon David Hirsbrunner, Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, DFG GRK Locating Media, Universität Siegen
- Dr. Alena Strohmaier, Wissenschaftliche Koordinatorin, Zentrum für Nah- und Mitteloststudien, Philipps-Universität Marburg
- Dr. Thomas Waitz, Senior Scientist und Studienprogrammleiter, Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft, Universität Wien
Sprecher:innen:
Bregt Lameris
Franziska Heller
Simon Spiegel
Nächstes AG-Treffen: tba. Alle Interessierten sind herzlich eingeladen.
Kontakt
- Die AG steht allen Interessierten offen. Bei Interesse an der Aufnahme in den E-Mail-Verteiler bitte eine E-Mail an ag-oms-request@listserv.dfn.de
