Friday 2 July 2021 (1.30 pm – 4.00 pm)

Several of the most known and discussed concepts of the digital age predated the digitalization itselfand have been previously used in the “analogue times”. Other concepts were coined for the digitalsociety but have transformed and are continuously transforming over time. This panel selects some of these concepts, which are directly related to the core topics of ToE (e.g. infrastructures, networks, history of technology and innovation, technology and societal challenges, etc.) and invite the audience to a time travel through their history, heritage and reinvestment in media and communication studies. By shedding light on media and technologies, agency and politics, multi-stakeholders and practices in a longue duréeperspective, this allows to complexify the narratives of the digital age and to investigate the continuities, paths, failures, disruptions as well as tensions in the history of media and technology.

Chaired by Anne-Katrin Weber (Unil, Lausanne, Switzerland), the panel will be introduced by Nelson Ribeiro (Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal) who will present the project at stake (a work in progress and a collective book whose idea was born within the ECREA Communication History Section), its approach and theoretical framework. Six concepts which are of interest for the ToE community, as they strongly rely on some challenges and topics that ToE identified as key, will then be analyzed (in 15 minutes each): Networks by Massimo Rospocher and Gabriele Balbi; Global Governance by Francesca Musiani and Valérie Schafer; Telepresence by Jérome Bourdon; Amateurism by Susan Aasman, Tim van der Heijden and Tom Slootweg; Data(fication) by Erik Koenen and Christian Schwarzenegger; Artificial Intelligence by Simone Natale, Paolo Bory and Dominique Trudel. By connecting these notions with the history of urbanism, infrastructures, geopolitics, telecommunications and media, governance institutions, and many other historical fields or topics, these presentations aim to stimulate a final discussion with the audience on the multiple roots of the digital age and notably its European roots, the tensions as well as media and societal transitions at stake.

This workshop is part of the Tensions of Europe Digital Festival. See programme. Registrations will open mid-may.