Univ., Diss.--Tübingen, 2004.

Zugl.: Dortmund, Univ., Diss., 2004

Zweite Studienarbeit Hochschule für Angewandte Psychologie Zürich, 2005.

Zugl.: Tübingen, Univ., Diss., 2005.

Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Universität Darmstadt, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-194) and index.

The legal drama episode from which this dialogue is taken depicts an impossible case: a Sudanese immigrant, who lost most of his family to the violence in Darfur, wants to sue the U.S. government for failing to intervene in the face of obvious genocide. The case is unwinnable. Lori Colson’s construction of a legal basis for the case is more than shaky. But neither the client nor his lawyers expect to win the case. Their proclaimed objective – to “make noise” – pinpoints a significant cultural potential of litigation, of its “real” practice in the courtroom and, even more importantly, in its various forms of mass-medialization and fictionalization: to raise public awareness about instances of injustice, to educate the public and encourage civic debate.

The legal drama episode from which this dialogue is taken depicts an impossible case: a Sudanese immigrant, who lost most of his family to the violence in Darfur, wants to sue the U.S. government for failing to intervene in the face of obvious genocide. The case is unwinnable. Lori Colson’s construction of a legal basis for the case is more than shaky. But neither the client nor his lawyers expect to win the case. Their proclaimed objective – to “make noise” – pinpoints a significant cultural potential of litigation, of its “real” practice in the courtroom and, even more importantly, in its various forms of mass-medialization and fictionalization: to raise public awareness about instances of injustice, to educate the public and encourage civic debate.

The German Free State of Saxony has a high density of independent local and regional television broadcasters. From the antenna communities at the time of the GDR, private TV broadcasters developed after the reunification. In the period of the social transformations in the 1990s, these local TV stations documented the profound changes of the everyday life of the individual, of the local communities and the historical transformations in society and economy during the early years after the German reunion. These recordings are a substantial part of the cultural heritage of Saxony and of the highest interest for social, cultural and media research. Due to how the original material was produced on consumer videotapes, today the recordings are threatened by decay. In the next few years the recordings will be lost, if not acted quickly. Some state and private institutions are currently developing concepts for the preservation of the audiovisual heritage in Saxony In this paper, we discuss how these media objects should be scientifically investigated, in the sense of media and sociocultural dimensions, questions and categories. Based on our experiences and investigations, we present a technical concept which shows how to digitalize, index, describe and categorize copious amounts of videotapes for the preservation, archiving and public access of this important part of the cultural heritage of Germany.

Univ., Diss.--Zürich, 2005.