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Does media history really start with a bang? More than just newspapers, television, and social networks, media are the means by which any information is communicated, from cosmic radiation traces to medieval church bells to modern identity documents. Cultures are held together as much by bookkeeping and records as they are by stories and myths. From Big Bang to Big Data is a long history of the media - how it has been established, used, and transformed from the beginning of recorded time until the present. It is not primarily a story of revolutions and innovations, but of continuities and overlaps that reveal surprising patterns across history. Many media were invented as ways to store and share information, and many have served as powerful tools for administration and control. The concerns raised about media today, whether about privacy, piracy, or anxieties over declining cultural standards, preoccupied earlier generations too. In a playful style, accompanied by more than one hundred illustrations, the authors show us how every society has been a media society in its own way. From antique graffiti to last year's viral YouTube clip, the past is only approachable through media. From Big Bang to Big Data provides a new way of thinking about media in history - and about human societies past and present.

Funding agency:Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland

Funding agency:Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland

In this paper, we present a database and an interface on text reuse between newspapers and journals published in the Swedish language in Sweden and Finland during the 1645–1918 time frame. Using two national, digital newspaper collections, we detected their textual similarities with a computational method to study the textual migration, i.e., information flows, between the two countries. For purposes of this project, we developed a database of detected clusters of text reuse and an online interface to search, examine and analyse the transnational movement of information. The database, Text Reuse in the Swedish-language Press, 1645–1918, is accessible online and includes texts from over 1,100 newspapers and journals published at approximately 150 locations at various times during the 274-year time frame.

This is a database and an interface with a search engine for searching and analyzing text reuse clusters in the Swedish-language press from 1645 to 1918. It covers material from Finland, Sweden, and also the United States. It has been produced by the project Informationsflöden över Östersjön: Svenskspråkig press som kulturförmedlare 1771–1918 (Information Flows across the Baltic Sea: Swedish-language press as a cultural mediator, 1771–1918). The database was opened online in October 2021., Informationsflöden över Östersjön: Svenskspråkig press som kulturförmedlare 1771–1918

Idag upplever många att medier genomsyrar allt fler delar av vardag och samhälle. Men vår samtid delar denna erfarenhet med människor som levt under tidigare perioder. För att hitta en tid då medier inte satte sin prägel på liv och samhälle måste vi gå mycket långt tillbaka i historien. Mediehistoriska perspektiv kan anläggas på de flesta historiska fenomen. Det förflutna är nämligen endast tillgängligt i medierad form – om det så gäller antikt klotter, runstenar, dammiga arkiv­ dokument, sönderfallande tidningslägg, muntliga berättelser eller förra årets Youtubeklipp. I Mediernas historia. Från big bang till big data skildras en mycket lång mediehistoria. Att mäta medievanor genom big data är idag vanligt – men även urknallen big bang är ett medialt fenomen vars kosmiska bakgrundsstrålning inte kan studeras utan att först registreras. Med en disposition i 44 avsnitt betonar boken olika mediekulturers särprägel, samtidigt som den lyfter fram hur ett myller av medier har interagerat – från beständiga lertavlor över predikstolar och tidigmodern visuell kommunikation till strömmande medier. Istället för att framhäva mediehistoriska brott och revolutioner synlig­ gör boken kontinuiteter ifråga om hur medier har etablerats, använts och förändrats fram till vår egen tid. Relationen mellan vår samtids sociala medier och traditionella mass­ medier utgör här endast ett exempel på den komplexa väv av sinsemellan hopflätade kommunikationsformer som historien består av.

The book investigates the rather neglected "intellectual" collaboration between National Socialist Germany and other countries, including views on knowledge and politics among "pro-German" intellectuals, using a comparative approach. These moves were shaped by the Nazi system, which viewed scientific and cultural exchange as part and parcel of their cultural propaganda and policy. Positive views of the Hitler regime among intellectuals of all sorts were indicative of a broader discontent with democracy that, among other things, represented an alternative approach to modernization which was not limited to the German heartlands. This book draws together international experts in an analysis of right-wing Europe under Hitler; a study which has gained new resonance amidst the wave of European nationalism in the twenty-first century.

By examinating the National Society Sweden-Germany (Riksföreningen Sverige-Tyskland) 1938–1958, this article highlights a key aspect of far right-wing opinion building, namely its media criticism and objectivity ideal. Far right-wing opinion building is too often depicted as easily comprehensible and appealing to strong emotions. If its objectivity-oriented and neutrality-footed media criticism with scholarly and non-political overtones is taken into consideration a more nunaced understanding can be reached. The article relates this criticism to the Swedish Government’s information policy, to notions of the historic role of the press as a propaganda channel, to ideals in contemporary journalism, and to a tradition of conservative media criticism. By uncovering the rationality that supported them, the purpose is ultimately to understand the attraction these standpoints could exercise. Since these ways to argue hardly died with the war a deeper historical understanding appears the more imperative., Bruna nätverk bland svenska intellektuell under mellankrigstiden och andra världskriget

Brown Networks among Swedish intellectuals during the interwar period and World War II

Bruna nätverk, Science and modernization in Sweden

Characteristic of many contemporary far right movements is a deeply rooted skepticism and suspiciousness towards mainstream media. During the PEGIDA marches in Dresden, Germany, “Lügenpresse” is a common slogan. The message is that hegemonic mainstream media conceal or distort information that does not fit the “politically correct” agenda. In Sweden far right movements, ranging from right wing populist parties such as the Sweden Democrats (SD) to more extreme identitarian think-tanks such as Motpol.nu exhibit the same attitude. (Holt, 2015) Radical right media channels therefore need to be analysed in the light of its position as a perceived corrective of traditional media and constrained public discourse. But is this a new phenomenon? In this paper we compare findings from two separate studies of radical right wing media criticism from different periods: the online contemporary identitarian wictionary Metapedia.org (Holt & Rinaldo, 2014) and media criticsm in the journal Sweden-Germany (1938-58) published by the pro-German National Society Sweden-Germany (RST). (Lundell, 2015) Our aim is to study historical antecedents to today’s far right media criticism and discuss contemporary far right media criticism in the light of what can be learned from history., Ej belagd 20160427