Films, TV series, roads, animals, screens, rituals, games, manuscripts or laboratories - these are just some of the many subjects of media studies research and coursework in Weimar. Media Studies in Weimar researches how media techniques and practices affect cultural and social processes and vice versa. In addition to traditional and mass media, such as film, television, visual arts and literature, our focus is on media interrelationships and networks of such things as infrastructures, archives, techno-ecologies, and exhibitions.
Cultural Scientific Media Studies shifts the perspective to cultural and social design processes, because they not only occur with media, but because media also makes them possible: the conditions of thought, research, perception, subjectivity, writing and many other cultural techniques seem from a media studies perspective to be cast in a new light - embedded in the networks of their media-based preconditions.
A place for cutting-edge research
Weimar Media Studies is one of the leading locations in Germany for media research, a springboard for critical impulses in international research. The numerous research projects at the faculty and related events demonstrate its involvement in dialogue with international top-level research. Students experience the high density of research projects in their day-to-day studies. We have created an extensive culture of lectures, discussion and other events, such as conferences and workshops with international visiting professors at venues such as the International Research Institute for Cultural Techniques and Media Philosophy (IKKM) and the Competence Centre for Media Anthropology (KOMA).
Also, the proximity to the vibrant cultural landscape in Weimar and in the research landscape in the Erfurt and Jena network characterises the climate in research and coursework. For instance, we have close cooperation with the Weimar Classics Foundation and the Lichthaus cinema.
In addition, more than 20 international partnerships and exchange opportunities for students and faculty to North and South America and Europe enable networking in Weimar and beyond. The bi-national European Media Culture programme rounds out the international profile of Media Studies.
Research concentration »Cultural Scientific Media Research«
Cultural Scientific Media Research examines issues such as mediation, digitisation, and globalisation in modern social contexts. Research spans disciplinary boundaries to explore the connections between material-technical arrangements and socio-cultural processes. The interplay between technical systems and apparatuses of observation, recording, processing and dissemination, on the one hand, and cultural systems of behaviour, knowledge and recognition, and general sensory production, on the other hand, play a key role. The task of Cultural Scientific Media Research is to make such processes and relationships tangible and comprehensible through historical, analytical and theoretical reflection. In order to achieve this, historical and systematic knowledge must continue to be integrated and be combined on an equal footing. To this end, different levels of exploration of individual media research and analysis, as well as social theory, cultural history, and media theory must be taken into account.
A culture of open thought
Media Studies at Weimar has a long tradition of cultural-scientific examination of media and mediality. It is a central hub and think tank of innovative cultural scientific media research distinguished by original and unconventional approaches and methods in both research and teaching. After all, media studies in Weimar is lived in the integral connection between research and course work. It can be characterised as a culture of exchange, experimentation and open thought: The collaborative development of new questions and perspectives for research and professional life in the field of media studies is critical to us. Intensive mentoring and support of the individual development of our students’ (academic) profiles are central to self-image. Find out more about how we teach.
Study programs at the Media Studies Department
• Bachelor of Arts: Medienkultur (Media Culture)
• Bachelor of Arts/Licence Information-Communication: Europäische Medienkultur (European Media Culture) (in collaboration with the Université Lumière Lyon 2)
• Master of Arts: Medienwissenschaft (Media Studies)