Call for Papers: 100 Years of Radio Broadcasting

Giv­ing form to the invis­i­ble is an excit­ing task — espe­cial­ly when no mod­els exist and the sign-like qual­i­ty can devel­op step by step. The dis­cov­ery of elec­tro­mag­net­ic waves at the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry and their use for the trans­mis­sion of infor­ma­tion are con­sid­ered the tech­no­log­i­cal ini­tial spark for broadcasting.

In terms of design his­to­ry, the objects cre­at­ed in the field of broad­cast­ing, from appa­ra­tus­es in the broad­cast­ing sta­tions to the tele­vi­sion tow­er, are just as inter­est­ing as the var­i­ous receiv­ing devices. The same applies to visu­al con­cepts and forms of medi­a­tion, set designs, mas­cots, the brand­ing and dis­tinc­tive décor of tele­vi­sion shows, or the design of func­tion­al sounds or jingles.

On the occa­sion of the cen­te­nary of reg­u­lar pro­gram­ming by Funk-Stunde AG, the annu­al con­fer­ence of the Gesellschaft für Designgeschichte will focus on design devel­op­ments from the 1920s to the 2000s. Among oth­er things, it examines

- how the invis­i­ble mag­net­ic waves were giv­en form
— how the rela­tion­ship of users to their devices developed,
— which con­cepts were estab­lished by dif­fer­ent actors, also internationally,
— how design inno­va­tions changed media use,
— how dig­i­tal­iza­tion affect­ed devices, media and content,
— the impor­tance of design in the estab­lish­ment of new broad­cast­ing for­mats and offers.

The annu­al con­fer­ence of the Soci­ety for Design His­to­ry 2023 will take place on June 2 and 3 at the Tech­no­se­um, State Muse­um of Tech­nol­o­gy and Labor, in Mannheim/Germany. The muse­um is a coop­er­a­tion part­ner of the con­fer­ence and owns a com­pre­hen­sive object inven­to­ry through the acqui­si­tion of the col­lec­tions of the Rund­funkmu­se­um Berlin and the Süd­west­funk as well as the WEGA-Werk­samm­lung. From Nov. 17, 2022, to Nov. 12, 2023, it will show the spe­cial exhi­bi­tion “Auf Emp­fang! The His­to­ry of Radio and Tele­vi­sion.” A guid­ed tour is part of the con­fer­ence program.

To par­tic­i­pate in the Call for Papers for the con­fer­ence, please send an abstract of up to 3,500 char­ac­ters, a short biog­ra­phy of no more than 800 char­ac­ters, and your con­tact infor­ma­tion (includ­ing phone num­ber) by Feb­ru­ary 28, 2023 to: cfp [at] gfdg.org. Par­tic­i­pa­tion as a speak­er includes a pre­sen­ta­tion with a max­i­mum length of 20 min­utes as well as the pub­li­ca­tion of the con­tri­bu­tion in the anthol­o­gy “GfDg Schriften 7”.