We Demand Better Ways to Communicate
Pre-Digital Media Practices in Refugee Camps
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7496162 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Philipp Seuferling (0000-0002-8401-5511, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 207-217 |
| Publication date | 2019-06-28 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Media and Communication (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2183-2439 • E-ISSN: 2183-2439 |
| Publisher | Cogitatio (PUBLISHER • PT) |
| DOI | 10.17645/mac.v7i2.1869 |
| OpenAlex | W2955025771 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 4 |
This article provides a historical perspective on media practices in refugee camps. Through an analysis of archival material emerging from refugee camps in Germany between 1945 and 2000, roles and functions of media practices in the camp experience among forced migrants are demonstrated. The refugee camp is conceptualized as a heterotopian space, where media practices took place in pre-digital media environments. The archival records show how media practices of refugees responded to the spatial constraints of the camp. At the same time, media practices emerged from the precarious power relations between refugees, administration, and activists. Opportunities, spaces, and access to media practices and technologies were provided, yet at the same time restricted, by the camp structure and administration, as well as created by refugees and volunteers. Media activist practices, such as the voicing of demands for the availability of media, demonstrate how access to media was fought for within the power structures and affordances of the analogue environment. While basic media infrastructure had to be fought for more than in the digital era and surveillance and control of media practices was more intense, the basic need for access to information and connectivity was similar in pre-digital times, resulting in media activism. This exploration of unconsidered technological environments in media and refugee studies can arguably nuance our understanding of the role of media technologies in “refugee crises
Affordance · Digital media · Media studies · New media · Political science · Power (physics · Public relations · Refugee · Social media · Sociology · Computer Science · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Media Studies and Communication · Law
Praktiken der (Im-)Mobilisierung
Community Building Through the Airwaves
Rohingya participatory media in protracted displacement
When was the ‘smart border’? Towards an agenda for historicising the technopolitics of migration and border control
Media and immobility
Smartphones as personal digital archives? Recentring migrant authority as curating and storytelling subjects
Social Media in and Around a Temporary Large-Scale Refugee Shelter in the Netherlands
Counter-mapping the techno-hype in migration research
Histories of humanitarian technophilia
| Citations per year | 1.29 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |