Abstract
From their very beginnings intermedial phenomena and processes are closely connected with social power structures and various power plays.
In our chapter we tackle a selection of paradigmatic intermedial power plays based on several historical cases, ranging from prehistorical caves, medieval mystery plays, tapestries, nodes of intermedial networks of colporteurs/pedlars in modern times, TV-news, internet platforms, to post-modern “documentaries.”
The major challenge of our approach lies in the development of research axes and viable historical and stable categories for the re-construction of social functions and power plays of intermedial phenomena. We undertake a double or triple methodological effort: after a brief clarification of our concept, as well as of the notion of power and of levels of intermedial power plays, we propose seven heuristic research axes. The application of these historiological axes or perspectives implies movements of zooming in to specific cases and processes and zooming out to broader groups of intermedial phenomena and practices. While doing this, we will make use of various “tools” of media research, of social research and sociology of knowledge, of economies of attention, but, also of “sound archaeology,” semiology, and theories of memory. This procedure will finally lead us to an “in-between” research level, oscillating between theoretical reflections and historiological re-constructions, which is constituted by bottom up and top-down movements.
The chapter ends with a preliminary conclusion of what intermedial power plays “(can) do to us” under specific sociohistorical and technological conditions. In this sense, our contribution is another test run for the breadth and applicability of a historiological approach of a network history of intermedial functions and power plays.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Allen, Robert, and Douglas Gomery. 1985. Film history. Theory and practice. New York: Knopf.
Altman, Rick. 1999. Film/genre. London: BFI.
Assmann, Aleida. 2011. Cultural memory and western civilization. Arts of memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barthes, Roland. 2002. OEuvres Complètes. (Nouvelle édition revue, corrigée et présentée par Éric Mart.) Tome I-V. Paris: Seuil.
Baudry, Jean-Louis. 1978. L’effet cinéma. Paris: Éditions Albatros.
———. 2003. Ideologische Effekte erzeugt vom Basisapparat. In Der kinematographische Apparat, ed. Robert F. Riesinger, 27–39. Münster: Nodus.
Bauer, Ingrid, Helga Embacher, Ernst Hanisch, Albert Lichtblau, and Gerald Sprengnagel, eds. 2004. >kunst >kommunikation >macht. Sechster Österreichischer Zeitgeschichtetag 2003. Innsbruck/Wien/München/Bozen: StudienVerlag.
Baxandall, Michael. 1987. Die Wirklichkeit der Bilder. Malerei und Erfahrung im Italien des 15. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt a. Main: Athenäum.
Bayeux. 2022. Meme generator. https://www.eteknix.com/bayeux-tapestry-meme-maker/; https://www.cnet.com/culture/internet/bayeux-tapestry-medieval-meme-generator-historic-tale-construction-kit/
Baym, Geoffry. 2014. Stewart, O’Reilly, and the rumble 2012: Alternative political debate in the age of hybridity. Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture 12 (2): 75–88.
Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The social construction of reality. A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. New York: Doubleday.
Bernstein, David L. 1986. The mystery of the Bayeux tapestry. London: Guild Publishing.
Blurton-Jones, N.G. 1987. Tolerated theft, suggestions about the ecology of sharing, hoarding and scrounging. Information (International Science Council) 26 (1): 31–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/053901887026001002.
Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. 1999. Remediation. Understanding new media. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT.
Bolter, Jay David. 2019. The digital plenitude. The decline of elite culture and the rise of new media. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1966. Champ intellectuel et projet créateur. Les Temps Modernes 246: 865–906.
———. 1993. The market of symbolic goods. In The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature, ed. Tom Huhn et al., 112–141. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bouwknegt, Hans. 2011. Beyond the simulacrum: A conceptual semiotic approach for the analysis and design of digital media. Münster: Nodus.
Bruhn, Jørgen, and Anne Gjelsvik. 2018. Cinema between media. An intermediality approach. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Bruhn, Jørgen, and Henriette Thune. 2018. In between life and death: Sophie Calle’s Rachael, Monique. In The power of the in-between: Intermediality as a tool for aesthetic analysis and critical reflection, ed. Sonya Petersson, Christer Johansson, Magdalena Holdar, and Sara Callahan, 25–48. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press.
Brunetta, Gian Piero. 1997. Il viaggio dell’Icononauta. Venezia: Marsilio.
Castells, Manuel. 1996. The information age: Economy, society and culture. Vol. 1. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Chadwick, Andrew, James Dennis, and Amy P. Smith. 2016. Politics in the age of hybrid media: Power, systems, and media logics. In The Routledge companion to social media and politics, ed. Axel Bruns, Gunn Enli, Eli Skogerbo, Anders Larsson, and Christian Christensen, 7–22. New York: Routledge.
Cisneros, James. 2007. The remains to be seen. Intermediality and institution. In Intermédialité et socialité [Intermediality and sociality], ed. Marion Froger and Jürgen E. Müller, 15–28. Münster: Nodus.
Clüver, Claus. 2019. From the “mutual illumination of the arts” to “studies of intermediality”. IJSVR 3, 2: 63–74. Last accessed 07 May 2022.
Curran, James. 2002. Media and power. London/New York: Routledge.
Daniel, Sharon. 2007. Public secrets. https://digitalartarchive.siggraph.org/artwork/sharon-daniel-public-secrets/
Demandt, Alexander. 2001. Ungeschehene Geschichte. Ein Traktat über die Frage: Was wäre geschehen, wen …? Göttingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht.
Elias, Norbert. 2012. In On the process of civilisation, ed. Stephen Mennell, Eric Dunning, Johan Goudsblom, and Richard Kilminster. Dublin: University College Dublin Press.
Elleström, Lars, ed. 2010. Media borders, multimodality and intermediality. Houndmills: Macmillan.
Elleström, Lars, Massimo Fusillo, and Mattia Petricola. 2020. Everything is intermedial. A conversation with Lars Elleström. Between 10/20: 27–45. https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/4443. Last accessed 07 May 2022.
Elleström, Lars, ed. 2021. Beyond media borders, volume 1: Intermedial relations among multimodal media. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Faulstich, Werner. 1996. Medien und Öffentlichkeiten im Mittelalter. 800–1400. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht.
Fendler, Ute. 2021. Polyrhythmic gestures: Relational perspectives on/from verbal, audio/visual and performative arts across the African continent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN2XGtEGHrI (New year lecture of Africa multiple cluster of excellence, University of Bayreuth).
Fiske, John. 1993. Power plays, power works. New York: Verso.
———. 2010. Understanding popular culture. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Foucault, Michel. 2008. The history of sexuality. Munich: Penguin.
Franck, Georg. 2018. The economy of attention. New York: Sage.
Gomery, Douglas. 1992. Shared pleasures. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich. 1992. Making sense in life and literature. Minnesolta: Minnesota University Press.
Guynn, William. 2014. The art of national projection: Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon. In Documenting the documentary: Close readings of documentary film and video, ed. Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski, 64–80. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Guiyoba, François, Robert Fopa Kuete, and Albert Jiatsa Jokeng, eds. 2022. Le discours scientifique comme pratique intermédiale en Arts, Lettres et Sciences humaines. Paris: Éditions L’Harmattan.
Hall, Stuart. 1973. Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.
———. 1974. Media power: The double bind. Journal of Communication 24 (4): 19–26.
Hartnack, Marina. 2018. “Was wäre geschehen, wenn …”. Eine Analyse der filmischen Konstruktion alternativhistorischer Geschichtsbilder des Nationalsozialismus. Münster: Nodus.
He, Yuan. 2018. Krisen in chinesischen Medien und deren mediale Konstruktion – Insbesondere auf der Mikroblogging-Plattform Sina Weibo. Münster: Nodus.
Helbo André. 2022. Lire le spectacle vivant. Bruxelles: Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.
Hepp, Andreas. 2004. Netzwerke der Medien. Medienkulturen und Globalisierung. Wiesbaden: Verl. für Sozialwissenschaft.
Hepp, Andreas, Friedrich Krotz, and Carsten Winter, eds. 2008. Connectivity, networks and flows. Conceptualizing contemporary communications. Cresskill, N.J: Hampton Press: The Hampton Press communication series.
Hofmansthal, Hugo von. 1911. Jedermann. Das Spiel vom Sterben des reichen Mannes. Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag.
Huizinga, Johan. 1949. Homo Ludens. A study of the play-element of culture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Jacobs, Emma. 2017. With archaeoacoustics, researchers listen for clues to the prehistoric past. Atlas Obscura. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/archaeoacoustics. Last accessed 07 May 2022.
Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.
———. 2009. Revenge of the origami unicorn: Seven core concepts of transmedia. Available online at The Revenge of the Origami Unicorn: Seven Principles of Transmedia Storytelling. http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2009/12/the_revenge_of_the_origami_uni.html. Last accessed 07 May 2022.
———. 2014. Convergence – I diverge!. Technology Review. Online, last visited 24 September 2014: http://pps-rcastiglione.googlecode.com/svn-history/r123/trunk/MKT/mail_6/converge_cultureJJ2.pdf
Johansson, Christer, and Sonya Petersson. 2018. Introduction. In The power of the in-between: Intermediality as a tool for aesthetic analysis and critical reflection, ed. Sonya Petersson, Christer Johansson, Magdalena Holdar, and Sara Callahan, 1–21. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press.
Johansson, Christer. 2018. Old and new media: On the construction of media history. In The power of the in-between: Intermediality as a tool for aesthetic analysis and critical reflection, ed. Sonya Petersson, Christer Johansson, Magdalena Holdar, and Sara Callahan, 375–406. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press.
Jost, François. 2009. La Télé-réalité: Grandeur et misère de la téle-réalité. Paris: Éditions Le cavalier bleu.
Kircher, Athanasius. 1671 (2021). Athanasii Kircheri Ars magna lucis et umbrae, in X. libros digesta; quibus admirandae lucis & umbrae in mundo, atque adeo universa natura, vires effectusque uti nova, ita varia novorum reconditiorumque speciminum exhibtione, ad varios mortalium usua, panduntur ; editio altera priori multa auctior. Delhi: True World of Books.
Kloepfer, Rolf. 1999. Sympraxis. Dresden: Dresden University Press.
Koubek, Jochen. 2008. Vernetzung als kulturelles Paradigma. Eine Kulturtheorie des Internet. Saarbrücken: Verlag Dr. Müller.
Larousse. 1872. Grand Dictionnaire Universel Larousse. Paris: Larousse.
Luckmann, Thomas. 1989. Prolegomena to a social theory of communicative genres. Slovene Studies 1/2: 159–167.
Luke, Timothy W. 1989. Screens of power. Ideology, domination and resistance in informational society. Urbana\Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Mannoni, Laurent. 1999. Le grand art de la lumière et de l’ombre. Archéologie du cinéma. Paris: Nathan.
Manovich, Lev. 2001. The language of new media. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Mitchell, W.J.T. 1994. Picture theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Moser, Walter. 2007. L'interartialité: pour une archéologie de l’intermédialité. In Intermédialité et socialité, ed. Marion Froger and Jürgen E. Müller, 69–92. Münster: Nodus.
Müller, Jürgen E., ed. 1987. Texte et Médialité. Mana (Mannheim Analytiques): Mannheim.
———. 1995. Dokumentation und Imagination: Zur Ästhetik des Übergangs im Dokumentarfilm. Transit Levantkade. In Perspektiven des Dokumentarfilms, ed. Manfred Hattendorf, 127–148. München, diskurs film.
———. 1996. Intermedialität. Formen moderner kultureller Kommunikation. Münster: Nodus.
———. 1997. Literaturwissenschaftliche Rezeptions- und Handlungstheorien. In Neue Literaturtheorien – Eine Einführung, ed. Klaus-Michael Bogdal, 176–200. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
———. 1998. Intermedialität als poetologisches und medientheoretisches Konzept. Einige Reflexionen zu dessen Geschichte. In Intermedialität. Theorie und Praxis eines interdisziplinären Forschungsprogramms, ed. Jörg Helbig, 31–40. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag.
———. 2000. L’intermédialité, une nouvelle approche interdisciplinaire: perspectives théoriques et pratiques à l’exemple de la vision de la télévision. Cinémas 10.2–3: 105–134.
———. 2001. Tele-Vision als Vision: Einige Thesen zur intermedialen Vor- und Frühgeschichte des Fernsehens (Charles François Tiphaigne de la Roche und Albert Robida). In Autoren, Automaten, Audiovisionen. Neue Ansätze zur Medienästhetik und Telesemiotik, ed. W.B. Hess-Lüttich Ernest, 187–208. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag.
———. 2003. Dispositiv – intermedial? Einige Gedanken zu den dispositiven Zwischen-Spielen des Films. In Der kinematographische Apparat, ed. Robert F. Riesinger, 247–260. Münster: Nodus.
———., ed. 2008a. Media encounters and media theory. Nodus: Münster.
———. 2008b. Intermedialität und Medienhistoriographie. In Intermedialität analog/digital. Theorien, methoden, analysen, ed. Joachim Paech and Jens Schröter, 31–46. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
Müller, Juergen E. 2009. Mediale Recyclings und Re-Mediationen im digitalen Zeitalter – zur Auflösung des `Werk´-Begriffs. In Konvergenz der Medien – Konvergenz des Rechts? ed. Jörg Gundel, Peter W. Heermann, and Stefan Leible, 19–30. Jena: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft.
Müller, Jürgen E. 2010a. Intermedialität digital: Konfigurationen, Konzepte, Konflikte. In Intermediale Inszenierungen im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung. Medientheoretische Analysen und ästhetische Konzept, ed. Andy Blättler, Doris Gassert, Susanna Parikka-Hug, and Miriam Ronsdorf, 17–40. Bielefeld: transcript.
———. 2010b. Intermediality revisited: Some reflexions about basic principles of this Axe de pertinence. In Media borders, multimodality, and intermediality, ed. Lars Elleström, 237–252. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2012. Populärkultur, mediale Recyclings, soziale Räume und ökonomische Prozesse – oder Anmerkungen zu einer intermedialen Ökonomie der Popikone Michael Jackson. In Transformationen des literarischen Feldes in der Gegenwart, ed. Klaus Michael Bogdal, Achim Geisenhanslüke, and Heribert Tommek, 169–185. Berlin: Synchron.
———. 2014. Genres analog, digital, intermedial – zur Relevanz des Gattungskonzepts für die Medien- und Kulturwissenschaft. In Intertextualität, Intermedialität, Transmedialität. Zur Beziehung zwischen Literatur und anderen Medien, ed. Volker Dürr and Tobias Kurwinkel, 70–102. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
Mueller, Juergen E. 2015a. Intermediality in the age of global media networks – Including eleven theses on its provocative power for the concepts of "convergence," "transmedia storytelling" and "actor network theory". SubStance, Intermedialities 44 3 (138): 19–52.
Müller, Jürgen E. 2015b. And where do we go next? Some Current and Future Fields of Research in Media Culture and Media Economy – Illustrated by the Example of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. In University of Otago, Dunedin, Media, Film and Communication. Working Paper Series 2, https://www.otago.ac.nz/mfco/research/otago040229.html. Last accessed 09 May 2022.
———. 2020a. L’intermédialité hier et aujourd’hui: retour sur un concept encore en devenir – avec quelques pas archéologiques dans les enjeux intermédiatiques de grottes. In FORMES ET (EN) JEUX DE L’INTERMÉDIALITÉ DANS L’ESPACE EUROPÉEN d’hier à aujourd’hui, ed. Patricia Viallet, 23–54. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
———. 2020b. “Intermediality”: Some Comments on the Current State of Affairs of a Search Concept. Scripta Uniandrade. Revista da Pós-Graduação em Letras 18, 1: Parts 1 and 2, 1–30. (Revised and extended version of “L’intermédialité hier et aujourd’hui: retour sur un concept encore en devenir…”).
———. 2022. A re-visiting of some (pre-) historical intermedial playgrounds of cinema. In Intermedial encounters, studies in honour of Ágnes Pethő, ed. Melinda Blos-Jáni, Hajnal Király, Mihály Lakatos, Judit Pieldner, and Katalin Sándor, 65–76. Cluj-Napoca: Sciencia Kiadó.
Münch, Marc-Mathieu. 2004. L’effet de vie ou le singulier de l’art littéraire. Paris: Honoré Champion Éditeur.
Nickolson, Mathew. 2007. Sport and the media: Managing the nexus. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Noguez, Dominique. 1979. Éloge du cinÉma expÉrimental: dÉfinitions, jalons, perspectives. Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou.
Nora, Pierre. 1984–1992. Les lieux de mémoire. 7 volumes. Paris: Gallimard.
Odin, Roger. 1994. Sémio-pragmatique du cinéma et de l’audiovisuel. Modes et institutions [Semio-pragmatics of the cinema and of the audiovisual. Modes and institutions]. In Towards a pragmatics of the audiovisual. Theory and history, ed. Jürgen E. Müller, 33–46. Münster: Nodus.
Pethő, Ágnes. 2020. Cinema and intermediality: The passion for the in-between. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Rajewsky, Irina. 2002. Intermedialität. Tübingen/Basel: A. Francke Verlag.
———. 2014. Intermedialität, remediation, multimedia. In Handbuch Medienwissenschaft, ed. Jens Schröter, Simon Ruschmeyer, and Elisabeth Walke, 197–206. Stuttgart/Weimar: J.B. Metzler.
Reznikoff, Iegor. 2000. Prehistoric paintings, sound and rocks. In Studien zur Musikarchäologie III (Colloque International, Michaelstein), ed. Ellen Hickmann, Anne D. Kilmer, and Ricardo Eichmann, 39–56. Rahden (Westfalien): Verlag Marie Leidorf Gmbh.
———. 2002. Soundscapes in the past: Adding a new dimension to our archaeological picture of ancient cultures. The conversation. http://theconversation.com/soundscapes-in-the-past-adding-a-new-dimension-to-our-archaeological-picture-of-ancient-cultures-80861. Last accessed 07 May 2022.
———. 2010. La dimension sonore des grottes paléolithiques et des rochers à peintures. In. L’art pléistocène dans le monde / Pleistone art of the world /Arte pleistoceno en el mundo, ed. Jean Clottes, Actes du Congrès IFRAO, Tarascon-sur-Ariège, septembre 2010, CD-45-56.
Robida, Albert. 1883. Le Vingtième Siècle. Genève\Paris: Editions Slatkine (1981).
Schmid, Georg. 2000. Die Geschichtsfalle. Über Bilder, Einbildungen und Geschichtsbilder. Wien: böhlau.
———. 2009. Counterfactuals and future histories. Retrospective imagining as an auxiliary for the scenarios of expectance. Historical Social Research 34 2: 74–87.
Schröter, Jens. 2008. Das ur-intermediale Netzwerk und die (Neu)Erfindung des Mediums im (digitalen) Modernismus. In Intermedialität analog/digital. Theorien, methoden, analysen, ed. Joachim Paech and Jens Schröter, 579–601. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
Schüttpelz, Erhard. 2007. Ein absoluter Begriff. Zur Genealogie und Karriere des Netzwerkkonzepts. In Vernetzte Steuerung. Soziale Prozesse im Zeitalter technischer Netzwerke, ed. Stefan Kaufmann, 25–46. Zürich: Chronos.
Schutz, Alfred, and Thomas Luckmann. 1973. The structures of the life-world. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Steinmaurer, Thomas. 2015. Mobile Individuen im Netz. Zur Theorie und Geschichte mediatisierter Kommunikation. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Suzman, James. 2020. Work. A history of how we spend our time. London/Oxford/New York/New Delhi/Sidney: Bloomsbury Circus.
Tellenbach, Gerd. 1994. “Ungeschehene Geschichte” und ihre heuristische Funktion. Historische Zeitschrift 258: 297–316.
Thibault, Alain, Raymond, Miguel, Collin, Jacques and Panet-Raymond. 1985. OUT, Chapter: GOD’S GREATEST GIFT IS …). (P.R.I.M., Productions, Réalisations Indépendantes de Montréal)
Thrill the world. 2015 ff. https://thrilltheworld.com/. Last accessed 07 May 2022.
Till, Rupert. 2014. Sound archaeology: Terminology, Paleolithic cave art and the sound scape. World Archaeology 46 (3): 292–304.
de la Roche, Tiphaigne. 1760. Giphantie. Paris: Hachette Livre.
Warning, Rainer. 1971. Ritus, Mythos und geistliches Spiel. In Terror und Spiel. Probleme der Mythenrezeption, ed. Manfred Fuhrmann, 211–239. München: Wilhelm Fink.
Weber, Gregor. 2000. Vom Sinn kontrafaktischer Geschichte. In Virtuelle Antike. Wendepunkt der Alten Geschichte, ed. Kai Bordersen, 11–23. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Weber, Max. 1922. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tübingen: Winckelmann (1980).
Wenzelhuemer, Roland. 2009. Counterfactual thinking as a scientific method. Historical Social Research 34 (2): 27–54.
Wiehl, Anna. 2019. The ‘new’ documentary nexus. Networked/networking in interactive assemblages. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Wolf, Werner. 2002. Intermedialität – ein weites Feld und eine Herausforderung für die Literaturwissenschaft. In Literaturwissenschaft – intermedial, interdisziplinär, ed. Herbert Foltinek and Christoph Leitgeb, 163–192. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
———. 2018. Selected essays on intermediality by Werner Wolf (1992–2014): Theory and typology, literature – music relations, transmedial narratology, miscellaneous transmedial phenomena. Leiden/Boston: Brill-Rodopi.
Woodburn, James. 1982. Egalitarian societies. Man, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17 (3): 431–451.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Mueller, J.E. (2024). Intermedialities, Societies, and Power Histories. In: Bruhn, J., Azcárate, A.LV., de Paiva Vieira, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Intermediality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28322-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28322-2_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-28321-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-28322-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities