The book investigates the rather neglected "intellectual" collaboration between National Socialist Germany and other countries, including views on knowledge and politics among "pro-German" intellectuals, using a comparative approach. These moves were shaped by the Nazi system, which viewed scientific and cultural exchange as part and parcel of their cultural propaganda and policy. Positive views of the Hitler regime among intellectuals of all sorts were indicative of a broader discontent with democracy that, among other things, represented an alternative approach to modernization which was not limited to the German heartlands.
This book draws together international experts in an analysis of right-wing Europe under Hitler; a study which has gained new resonance amidst the wave of European nationalism in the twenty-first century.
More than just newspapers, television, and social networks, media are the means by which any information is communicated, from cosmic radiation traces to medieval church bells to modern identity documents. Cultures are held together as much by bookkeeping and records as they are by stories and myths. From Big Bang to Big Data is a long history of the media – how it has been established, used, and transformed from the beginning of recorded time until the present. It is not primarily a story of revolutions and innovations, but of continuities and overlaps that reveal surprising patterns across history. Many media were invented as ways to store and share information, and many have served as powerful tools for administration and control. The concerns raised about media today, whether about privacy, piracy, or anxieties over declining cultural standards, preoccupied earlier generations too. In a playful style, accompanied by more than one hundred illustrations, the authors show us how every society has been a media society in its own way. From antique graffiti to last year’s viral YouTube clip, the past is only approachable through media. From Big Bang to Big Data provides a new way of thinking about media in history – and about human societies past and present.
Idag upplever många att medier genomsyrar allt fler delar av vardag och samhälle. Men vår samtid delar denna erfarenhet med människor som levt under tidigare perioder. För att hitta en tid då medier inte satte sin prägel på liv och samhälle måste vi gå mycket långt tillbaka i historien. Mediehistoriska perspektiv kan anläggas på de flesta historiska fenomen.
Det förflutna är nämligen endast tillgängligt i medierad form – om det så gäller antikt klotter, runstenar, dammiga arkivdokument, sönderfallande tidningslägg, muntliga berättelser eller förra årets Youtubeklipp.
I den här boken skildras en mycket lång mediehistoria. Att mäta medievanor genom big data är idag vanligt –men även urknallen big bang är ett medialt fenomen vars kosmiska bakgrundsstrålning inte kan studeras utan att först registreras. Med en disposition i 44 avsnitt betonar Mediernas historia olika mediekulturers särprägel, samtidigt som den lyfter fram hur ett myller av medier har interagerat – från beständiga lertavlor över predikstolar och tidigmodern visuell kommunikation till strömmande medier. Istället för att framhäva mediehistoriska brott och revolutioner synliggör boken kontinuiteter ifråga om hur medier har etablerats, använts och förändrats fram till vår egen tid. Relationen mellan vår samtids sociala medier och traditionella massmedier utgör här endast ett exempel på den komplexa väv av sinsemellan hopflätade kommunikationsformer som historien består av.
Drawing from Swedish press history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the present article argues for further historical investigation into three aspects of Jürgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere. The first concerns actual media participation, the second the representative features of media institutions, and the third media systems. These routes of analysis can and should be combined, and historical specificity is key. When we focus on concrete situations and places, the neat grand-scale chronologies (Habermas’ and others’) fall short. There is no simple development from a "representative publicness” to a participatory public sphere, and back again. And the media have always been interconnected in a system-like way. However, historical specificity does not exclude contemporary developments. The present conclusion is that if we are to gain any true understanding of contemporary phenomena, a historical perspective is crucial, and aspects of Habermas’ theory can serve as heuristic tools.
This study treats ideas of how newspapers should be edited, from the middle of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century. It deals both with notions of communication and how these were carried out. The empirical focus is on the Swedish province Östergötland and its two main cities, the ecclesiastical, military and administrative Linköping and the mercantile and financially important Norrköping. The dissertation, which to a great extent is concerned with the history of concepts, is divided into three parts: "A Civic Press, 18th Century", "Marginalisation and Modern Breakthrough, 1790–1840" and "Modern Press Established, 1840s". The dissertation shows that what could be termed A Civic Press (or A Press of the Citizens) dominated during the 18th century. The publishers of newspapers considered it their duty to publish letters to the paper. The newspaper reading citizens identified a corresponding right. The newspaper should not merely reflect or represent a public debate; it should actually be one, in order to promote a better society. This ideal was to a great extent put into practice – primarily by the traditional and enlightened élite of the Old Regime. The birth of the modern, liberal press is best seen as a marginalisation of the Civic press. The publisher, who saw himself obliged to publish what was sent to him, was gradually replaced by a new and rather absolutist kind of editor (in Swedish called publicist) whose explicit goal was to reach lower social strata. This change can also be seen as a professionalization. An important result is the chronology that the dissertation establishes for this process. The Civic press was long-lived. Eventually many of the conservative opponents of the modern press gave in and adopted the liberal way of editing. The Civic press is nevertheless easy to trace as late as around the middle of the 19th century. Those who criticised the modern press, did so to a large extent with the Civic press as an ideal in mind. These today somewhat neglected editors and debaters – often seen as agents of an Absolutist public sphere or as enemies of the freedom of the press per se – celebrated, in other words, what is the closest historians will ever get to finding Habermas’ ideal type.
This paper argues for the relevance of the media history of the press. Using a broad and open media concept, this perspective should be understood as the study of the construction and communication of the self-images and ideology of the press. Rather than describing the complex of problems as images that are ‘spread’ through one channel (newspapers) by one actor (the press), it should be seen as a mutual exchange between various media and various actors. Different audiences have been resources for the press, just as the press has been a resource for them. Instead of separating proper journalism, the spreading of the self-image, and the reception of different audiences as clearly defined areas, they must be seen as constituting each other. Focusing on the funeral of Swedish editor Lars Hierta, the paper argues for the methodological advantages inherent in the media event and the surrounding cultural circumstances.
By examining the National Society Sweden–Germany (Riksföreningen Sverige–Tyskland) 1938–1958, this article highlights a key aspect of far right-wing opinion building, namely its media criticism and objectivity ideal. Far right-wing opinion building is too often depicted as easily comprehensible and appealing to strong emotions. If its objectivity-oriented and neutrality-footed media criticism with scholarly and non-political overtones is taken into consideration a more nuanced understanding can be reached. The article relates this criticism to the Swedish Government’s information policy, to notions of the historic role of the press as a propaganda channel, to ideals in contemporary journalism, and to a tradition of conservative media criticism. By uncovering the rationality that supported them, the purpose is ultimately to understand the attraction these standpoints could exercise. Since these ways to argue hardly died with the war a deeper historical understanding appears the more imperative.