Lab Audio-Visual Media and Historiography

This Lab investigates audio-visual media – particularly film and television – as historical sources and documents of the history of modernity. Central to this is the role of these media for memory and the construction of historical processes. Therefore, the Lab takes the increased importance of audio-visual media throughout the 20th and 21st centuries seriously: the expansion of the film and television industry and the growing availability of audio-visual media have led to a strong shaping of collective memory and a lasting impact – if not determination – by film and television on notions of historical processes. Therefore, historical archives include also films of all kinds, sound recordings and an extensive collection of photos; such archives must be systematically made accessible for historical research. Empirical and theoretical approaches that had been developed for textual sources can hardly be transferred to audio-visual sources, resulting in a serious methodological problem for the study of history. The lab will therefore both contribute to the discussion of methodology and the importance of audio-visual media as well, such as the relevance of movies and pictures for historical research. It currently focuses on the fields of Latin American population and development policy after 1945 as well the role of the moving image in creating historic memory of Latin American military dictatorships and overcomimg them.