The interdisciplinary graduate school “Locating Media” unites researchers with a strong emphasis on investigating media, data and human actors in motion and in situ relevant to present times. The current summer term is at the same time the last semester of the group. Former associated and current members of “Locating Media” are taking this as a worthy occasion not only to look back upon a longstanding and thriving tradition of situation and location-aware media research but to present their current research to provide an insight into the innovative variety of topics and methods of a “Locating Media”-specific approach. Uniting researchers and methods from various fields from both the sciences and the humanities such as critical data studies, media linguistics, socio-informatics, or theatre, platform, literary, media and cultural studies, the research training group applies skills from the social, computer and cultural sciences to issues relevant to digital media culture in the true spirit of interdisciplinary exchange and discussion.
Whereas the first period of “Locating Media” (2012-2016) focused on the convergence of technical, scientific, creative and practical localisations of media, the second and final phase of the group (2017-2021) investigates the distributed spaces and situations of mobile media and data practices. In doing so, the hitherto proved ethnographic methods of media research are supplemented by digital and mobile methods. Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches in investigating digital media and data practices, the graduate school was, and is, delivering pioneering research not only in German media studies and sociology but also in related fields, having a profound impact on the development of methods and methodologies for the disciplines involved.
At the core of the “Locating Media” panels which run in parallel and supplementary to the regular conference programme at the 4th International Geomedia Conference, “Off the Grid” at Siegen University, stay reflections of all access points of the graduate school which include Ethnography, Socio-Informatics, Praxeology, Linguistics, Ethnology, Literary and Science and Technology Studies and (Media) Theory. These individual panels represent structurally the variety of disciplines that are represented at the graduate school. Even if there is prima facie no explicit thematic geomedia connection, all the panels unifies that “Locating Media” specific issues are at the same time always interwoven and overlayed with questions of place and space, situational awareness and sometimes georeferencing media and media practices in the broader sense. Most of the panels will be held in English.
