Repositorium für die Medienwissenschaft Michael Ross, Manfred Grauer, Bernd Freisleben u.a. (Hg.) Digital Tools in Media Studies. Analysis and Research. An Overview 2009 https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/1556 Veröffentlichungsversion / published version Buch / book Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Ross, Michael; Grauer, Manfred; Freisleben, Bernd (Hg.): Digital Tools in Media Studies. Analysis and Research. An Overview. Bielefeld: transcript 2009. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/1556. Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 This document is made available under a creative commons BY- Lizenz zur Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu dieser Lizenz NC-ND 3.0 License. For more information see: finden Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 Michael Ross, Manfred Grauer, Bernd Freisleben (eds.) Digital Tools in Media Studies 2008-12-04 14-08-46 --- Projekt: transcript.titeleien / Dokument: FAX ID 0260196298452544|(S. 1 ) T00_01 schmutztitel - 1023.p 196298452552 The series “Medienumbrüche | Media Upheavals” is edited by Peter Gendolla. 2008-12-04 14-08-46 --- Projekt: transcript.titeleien / Dokument: FAX ID 0260196298452544|(S. 2 ) T00_02 seite 2 - 1023.p 196298452592 Michael Ross, Manfred Grauer, Bernd Freisleben (eds.) Digital Tools in Media Studies Analysis and Research. An Overview Medienumbrüche | Media Upheavals | Volume 27 2008-12-04 14-08-46 --- Projekt: transcript.titeleien / Dokument: FAX ID 0260196298452544|(S. 3 ) T00_03 titel - 1023.p 196298452648 This book was produced by the Collaborative Research Centre 615 “Medienumbrüche | Media Upheavals” at the University of Siegen with funding by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation). Bibliographic information published by Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in Deutsche Nationalbiblio- graphie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2009 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. Cover design by Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld Cover photograph by Janis Zinke (www.janis-zinke.de; source: www.photocase.de) Edited and typeset by Michael Ross Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar ISBN 978-3-8376-1023-9 2008-12-04 14-08-47 --- Projekt: transcript.titeleien / Dokument: FAX ID 0260196298452544|(S. 4 ) T00_04 impressum - 1023.p 196298452680 Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................7 Louis Pelletier, Pierre Véronneau Databases for Early Cinema Research...............................................................17 Harry van Vliet, Karel Dibbets, Henk Gras Culture in Context Contextualization of Cultural Events.......................................................................27 John Sedgwick Measuring Film Popularity Principles and Applications........................................................................................43 Jaap Boter, Clara Pafort-Overduin Compartmentalisation and its Influence on Film Distribution and Exhibition in The Netherlands, 1934-1936 ...............................................55 Deb Verhoeven, Kate Bowles, Colin Arrowsmith Mapping the Movies Reflections on the Use of Geospatial Technologies for Historical Cinema Audience Research...............................................................69 Michael Ross, Roger Sennert, Jens Wagner Putting Itinerant Cinemas on the Map..............................................................83 Yuri Tsivian Cinemetrics, Part of the Humanities’ Cyberinfrastructure .........................93 Ralph Ewerth, Markus Mühling, Thilo Stadelmann, Julinda Gllavata, Manfred Grauer, Bernd Freisleben Videana: A Software Toolkit for Scientific Film Studies......................... 101 Vera Kropf, Matthias Zeppelzauer, Stefan Hahn, Dalibor Mitrovic First Steps Towards Digital Formalism: The Vienna Vertov Collection............................................................................ 117 Warren Buckland Ghost Director Did Hooper or Spielberg Direct Poltergeist?...........................................................133 Christoph Brachmann, Hashim Iqbal Chunpir, Silke Gennies, Benjamin Haller, Philipp Kehl, Astrid Paramita Mochtarram, Daniel Möhlmann, Christian Schrumpf, Christopher Schultz, Björn Stolper, Benjamin Walther-Franks, Arne Jacobs, Thorsten Hermes, Otthein Herzog Automatic Movie Trailer Generation Based on Semantic Video Patterns...................................................................145 Leonardo Boccia, Peter Ludes Key Measures and Key Visuals in Brazilian and German TV Annual Reviews..............................................159 Margret Schild Text-Based Film Retrieval 2006 A New Concept to Index, Manage and Present Films, Their Content and Context .....................................................................................171 Rolf Kloepfer How to Capture Offers of Filmic Effectiveness AKIRA III as an Aid.................................................................................................177 Introduction From the Study of Media Upheavals to an Upheaval in Media Studies Looking at the history of media in the past 150 years or so, we can observe a long succession of developments and refinements on the technological level as well as on the levels of production and reception, including cultural adapta- tions and social acceptance. At some points in time, these developments seem to gain momentum and bring about a change so radical that it reflects on soci- ety at large. At the research centre “Media Upheavals”, based at the University of Siegen and funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, we take into view two periods that stand out for their far-reaching technological change and the impact they have had on society: At the beginning of the 20th century, a radical change was perceived and commonly pinpointed on film and other media for recording and reproducing ‘life’. Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, we feel the impact that digital technology and media have on our lives, from personal communication and new forms of entertainment to a radically global- ized world. One of the assets of the Siegen research centre is the participation of pro- jects from a range of disciplines, including media studies, sociology, and in- formatics. The two projects that joined forces for this volume are a film- history project dealing with the emergence of cinema in Germany around 1900, and an informatics project which develops 21st century methods and tools for all researchers at the centre. Since the use of digital tools is a fairly re- cent development in media studies, and one which opens up a whole range of new research areas and opportunities for collaboration and result presentation, it might actually be considered to be a kind of media upheaval in its own right. To discuss both potentials and problems arising from the new tools, we in- vited researchers from all over the world for a workshop. The response to our call for papers, and the lively discussions during the workshop, held in 2007 at Siegen, showed us that we struck a chord when addressing the subject. While many scholars and scientists have already made use of digital tools with con- siderable success, there still is a great interest in alternative approaches and in the discussion of the scope of possible applications. With this volume, we aim to provide interested parties from both media studies and the informatics an overview of current areas of research and areas of application for digital tools in order to give orientation and to encourage further projects along these lines. 7 Introduction Collecting Data Perhaps the most basic way to make use of digital tools in media studies is the collecting of data. For decades now, word processing and spreadsheet software have been used to store information electronically for easy access and simple analysis. With database software becoming increasingly flexible and user- friendly, and with huge storage capacity being available at small cost, the col- lection of large data corpora has become fairly simple, creating an increasing interest in empirical studies. Like in so many other areas, the Internet has played an important role in refining the techniques of data collecting. Firstly, it allows for decentralized data entry: data can be entered from any computer connected to the Internet, and on more than one computer at the same time, allowing for fast and convenient working conditions, especially in a team of re- searchers. Secondly, the Internet serves as a perfect place for the publication of data collections: it allows world-wide distribution at minimal cost, while at the same time being vastly superior to printed data collections in terms of usability (searching, analyzing etc.) and updating. Louis Pelletier and Pierre Véronneau describe the genesis of such a data- base project in some detail, from an original local database created in the mid- 1990s to today’s Internet-based portal on the history of silent film in Quebec. They show that rapid technical development can even challenge a previous digital project: Is it still necessary to have a “handmade” database-driven index to film-related articles in newspapers and journals of a particular place and time, once these periodicals are available as fully-searchable digital