Research Training Group "Technologies of Witnessing: Media and Cultural Practices“ (2026–2031)
The Research Training Group investigates how witnessing is changing as a media and cultural practice. It analyzes the ways in which specific technologies of witnessing are emerging, particularly in digitally networked media environments, and asks about the influences these developments have on contemporary cultures. Whether it is witness videos on social media, contemporary witness holograms, theater tribunals, forensic investigations or non-human witnesses in the visual arts – such phenomena point to a fundamental change in forms of witnessing. They represent a dynamic and multifaceted subject of research that requires new perspectives in media and cultural studies.
The central research idea is to introduce a change in perspective compared to existing research: Whereas previously the focus has primarily been on the witness as a singular subject of knowledge – thereby narrowing the view anthropocentrically, and often also eurocentrically – the project’s emphasis is on the technologies of witnessing. This means that the research group analyzes the media, cultural and aesthetic practices and conditions of witnessing. Witnessing is thus understood mainly in generative and relational terms: Personal acts, but also testimonies of non-human entities, will be studied in their constitutive connectedness with technical devices, arrangements, infrastructures and environments as well as with cultural contexts. The project follows a broad understanding of technology that includes cultural and corporeal aspects as well as media and machines. The research process takes place in three interconnected working areas, which are dedicated to 1) the formations and constellations of knowledge, 2) the processes and arrangements and 3) the human-machine relations.
The qualification concept of the RTG will create benefits for the doctoral students by embedding their projects in a structured, interdisciplinary study program that enables students to represent their own discipline and to connect to research discourses in the neighboring disciplines involved. At the same time, the project opens up scope for independent research paths and ensures an equality-oriented and diversity-sensitive working context. The RTG also emphasizes the social relevance of the topic and hopes to provide new impulses in public discourses as part of its ‘third mission’. For knowledge of witnessing technologies also contributes to a better understanding of practices that are crucial for dealing with political and historical crises.
More information will follow soon.
Attention Strategies of Video Activism on the Social Web
Collaborative research group at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms-University of Bonn, and the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation
Videos on social media have become powerful means of political action and of influencing public discourses. Videos on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and numerous other platforms are clicked on billions of times every day, and hundreds of hours of additional moving images pour in every minute. They spread messages quickly and effectively, move their audiences emotionally, and motivate them to act, to donate, protest, or vote.
The fact that extremist and populist political actors use the power of moving images with great success is much discussed. Less well known, however, is the "video activism" of civil society actors who are concerned with issues such as human rights, democratic participation, social and climate justice. These include NGOs such as Greenpeace, social movements like Black Lives Matter and Fridays for Future, individual influencers like ContraPoints, video collectives such as Reel News, and tactical media groups like Peng! For them, to draw attention to their concerns and to form counterpublics, they must assert themselves against entertainment, propaganda, and PR in the competitive attention economy of the social web. To do this, they are developing novel strategies for producing and disseminating political videos, and especially for shaping them in novel and diverse forms that contribute to their proliferation online.
The research project "Attention Strategies of Video Activism on the Social Web" is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and is conducted by Chris Tedjasukmana (Mainz), Jens Eder (Babelsberg), Britta Hartmann (Bonn), and Tobias Gralke (Bonn). In the project, we investigate new video forms, distribution modes, and production alliances in the competition for public perception and political impact. One goal of the project is to educate about these developments and contribute to audiovisual media literacy.
We have documented our research findings in our book Bewegungsbilder. Politische Videos in Sozialen Medien (2020, in German). It summarizes the results to date in a concise and comprehensible manner; for the first time, it offers an overview of the field of political videos. In 2022, we will publish an extended book on Political Videos on Social Media in English. Current video analyses and information also appear regularly on our website