ECREA16-Abstract_book

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COH07 Simultaneities inMedia History
E. Ytreberg1
1 University of Oslo, Dept of media and communication, 0317 Oslo, Norway
In today’s media research, the experience of mediated simultaneity is probably most commonly associated with the technologies and historical heyday
of broadcasting. Yet this concept has been in use also for discussing convergent media, and current phenomena such as intermediality and media multi‑
tasking. And it stretches back to before broadcasting; simultaneity has been defined by Stephen Kern in the context of culture around the previous turn
of the century, as “the ability to experience many distant events at the same time”. If we apply Kern’s influential and quite wide definition also to the sub‑
sequent history of media, we are in effect faced with a general phenomenon in modernity, one that has been facilitated by numerous media technologies
stretching back at least to the introduction of telegraphy, film and the telephone from the late 19th century.Taking off from the conference theme «Mediated
(dis)continuities: Contesting pasts, presents and futures", this panel proposes a discussion of media simultaneities that brings together key and overarching
issues of technology and of collectivity. While broadcast media technologies afford an instantaneity of recording, distribution and reception – often called
“liveness”– earlier media feature forms of simultaneity that rely on longer stretches of time, on protentions and retentions. The latter also seem to factor
into digital technologies and their use, but here, the microtemporalities of individual navigation and human-computer interaction come strongly into
play as well. In such contemporary cases, the relationship between individual and collective aspects of simultaneity is not easy to make out. Yet it seems
clear that there are deep historical connections between society’s social and collective dimensions on the one hand, and mediated forms of simultaneity
on the other. On a macro scale, the simultaneity affordances of media have contributed, perhaps even made possible, the formation of national and global
collectives. Today, a key issue is what happens to collective simultaneities in an era of fragmented platforms and consumption patterns - yet questions
of the relationships between the simultaneous and the time-shifted, the collective and the individualised, recur throughout media history.The panel brings
together papers that address mediated forms of simultaneity in historical periods ranging from early 20th century media ensembles via broadcast media
to contemporary digital media. Each paper pays attention to concrete formations of mediated simultaneity, from the early 20th century case of the Great
Exhibitions (Ytreberg): the establishment of transnational live events in a Cold War context (Lundgren); mediated simultaneities pre- and post-television
(Ericson); the global live event (Sonnevend), and forms of simultaneity found in contemporary computer interfaces (Frosh). The papers join in a discussion
of continuities and contrasts between different forms of mediated simultaneities, from different historical periods, as well as drawing into the discussion
important and related concepts such as“immediacy”,“liveness”,“synchronisation”,“condensation”, and“presence”.
PN 233 Mediated Simultaneities in the 1914 Oslo Centenary Jubilee Exhibition
E. Ytreberg1
1 University of Oslo, Dept of media and communication, 0317 Oslo, Norway
The Great Exhibitions (also variously called Universal Exhibitions orWorld’s Fairs) were pervasively mediated events.They were also events of crowd commu‑
nication on an unprecedented scale. These two aspects of the exhibitions provide different intakes to understanding simultaneity, a key theme of the late
19th and early 20th centuries, the heyday of the Great Exhibitions. In media-historical research following theorists such as Stephen Kern and John B. Thomp‑
son, the experience of mediated simultaneity has primarily been seen as a function of the much-discussed ability of certain media to impart a sense of vicar‑
ious presence with an event as it takes place. The paper argues that mediated simultaneity can also vitally depend on the physical movement of people and
information along networks of communication. In the case of the Great Exhibitions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, technologies of transport and
media representation went together in allowing the great exhibition crowds a sense of simultaneity with the event. The paper’s conceptual discussions are
illustrated via the case of the Centenary Jubilee Exhibition held in Oslo in 1914. Analysis is based on document and print material from the Exhibition, as well
as on the comprehensive newspaper coverage. This exhibition was considerably smaller in scale than those held in the major European and American cities,
but it was constructed on the template provided by them.This incudes the vital role that was played by media, as suggested already byWalter Benjamin and
Georg Simmel. A wide-ranging ensemble of media acted as exhibits, as promotors and legitimisers of the exhibitions, as arenas for discussing them, and as
archives guaranteeing their role for posterity. The paper’s analyses of the Oslo fair concentrates on cases where media facilitated the gathering and move‑
ment of crowds, while at the same time providing a wider audience with ongoing and simultaneous coverage of the event. The roles of booklet guides, post
cards and the designated fair guide are examined, as is the way crowds were managed via media on the day of the Fair’s opening. By way of final discussion,
some preliminary continuities and contrasts are suggested between the kinds of mediated simultaneity that characterised the Oslo exhibition and other
planned media events of the early 20th century, and the forms of simultaneity found in subsequent periods dominated by broadcast and convergent media.
PN 234 Synchronizing Liveness: Producing Transnational Broadcast Events
L. Lundgren1
1 Södertörn University College, Huddinge, Sweden
This paper explores the role of synchronization in producing large-scale live transnational broadcast events. The 1967 satellite programme “Our World”
aimed toward reaching a global audience by encircling the entire northern hemisphere. In doing so chief editor Aubrey Singer wanted to produce “a glob‑
al happening by means of television”, a happening that would be experienced simultaneously by audiences across the world. Singer’s ambition echoed
the idea of liveness and immediacy of television, which was well established at the time as a professional ideology guiding production practices (Bourdon,
2000). It has previously been argued that the immediacy and liveness of “Our World” should be understood as an imaginary construct, expressing an idea
of “global presence” (Parks 2005). In both these cases liveness is best understood as an ideal, but as shown in this paper both the ideals and imaginary
constructs are thoroughly anchored in material practices of synchronization. The production of liveness is not without efforts. Producing programmes such
as “Our World” is a tremendously challenging task, and the successful broadcast ultimately depends on a large number of actors synchronizing their work.