h1

TY  - THES
AU  - Metzmacher, Marina
TI  - Das Papier der digitalen Welt. Computerzeitschriften als „Akteure“ im Netzwerk von (jugendlichen) Nutzern, Hardware und Software 1980-1995
PB  - RWTH Aachen University
VL  - Dissertation
CY  - Aachen
M1  - RWTH-2017-09791
SP  - 1 Online-Ressource (299 Seiten) : Illustrationen, Diagramme
PY  - 2017
N1  - Veröffentlicht auf dem Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University
N1  - Dissertation, RWTH Aachen University, 2017
AB  - Using a qualitative analysis of eight different computer journals in the period 1980-1995, the work at hand presents the dynamic development of home and personal computers as technical and cultural innovation and classifies them into their specific societal context with a view to their actors. I assume that magazines establish the network of hardware, software and users, thereby excluding groups and including others. In this logic, the present work offers an analysis of the various levels of actors and their change in 1980-1995 within the new world of home and personal computers. My original research achievement is to take computer magazines seriously as mediators of the new mass-market computer age. A particular focus therefore lies on the question of the functions and significance of computer magazines during this period. Basically, I assume that adolescents have been the dominant user group since 1980. They have come together in the computer magazines as a new communicative space in addition to the peer group. Questions about the technical development of home and personal computers are therefore in the context of generational-historical approaches, which question how youth deals with technology and why young people in the 1980s turned to computers.The methodological approach is a distinctive feature, which combines media, social, everyday history and youth research, as well as the history of technology and innovation research, with the methods of technological history with approaches of cultural studies. It provides a comprehensive view of the technical and cultural changes in home and personal computers from 1980 under the focus of youth culture, which in this form is unique in German-speaking research.In order to be able to grasp the diverse developmental strands analytically, a pronounced instrumentation was necessary. The theoretical borrowings on the dispositive, the concept of Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) and youth studies as part of Cultural Studies should help to map both the social components of the technological-historical development of computerization 1980-1995, as well as a consideration of the thingness of home and personal computers and their functions and symbolic dimensions. The social construction of home and personal computers as a technical artefact is decisive.The description mode for hardware and software of the home and personal computers 1980-1995 is the dispositive. It helps to question how youth deals with computer technology.SCOT sharpens the view on the young users who have created new communicative spaces around the computer. Magazines and their editorial departments took up this need for exchange and communication and, against the background of commercialized leisure activities, offered themselves as a new communicative space.Computer magazines were essential for the dissemination of computer skills and the establishment of home and personal computers in Germany. Especially in the 1980s, when much more than application knowledge and handling skills were needed for computer use, they prepared computer expertise targeted and understandable. The editors knew about the experience horizons of their young readers, built on these and connected them with computer technology. The emerging collectivity enabled readers in the 1980s to feel attached to an advancing group that helped shape computerization. The home and personal computers became symbols of their special lifestyle. Computer magazines formed the space for the identification of computer users. They were therefore scene magazines and setting of sub-milieus with their own communication structures. At the same time, it was possible to bring together consumers and producers as actors in the journals. The resulting construction of reality around home and personal computers led to inscriptions that were recorded in society. First of all, the perception of computer use in leisure time was decisive as a youth dominated space.In the course of the 1990s, the consulting and orientation functions of the computer magazines examined grew with a clear focus on the PC as a multimedia machine as well as user software. Youth-cultural and milieu-specific design factors took a back seat. Instead, computer magazines opened up to a broad readership that aimed less at collectivisation than at informational dynamics. At the same time, PCs in German society were no longer viewed as a youthful equipment feature, but rather as an intergenerational device.Consequently, the computer magazines represented the technically oriented developments of hardware as well as changed user structures that accompanied software developments. At the same time, they had an eye on the changing target audience of their magazines, which they not only served, but helped to shape by making new perspectives available.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)11
DO  - DOI:10.18154/RWTH-2017-09791
UR  - https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/709223
ER  -