Intermediality and Media Historiography in the Digital Era

Abstract

This paper approaches the concept of intermediality as a form of operation, as work in progress. A historiography of intermedia processes, including so called new or digital media would have to unfold in a specific social and historical context. On the one hand, it is closely linked to particular artistic, material, media-related and communicative forms of action; on the other hand, it should always be seen in the context of production of meanings that grow from these actions for a particular historical audience or historical users. In short: intermediality is closely intertwined with particular social and institutional practices. Intermedia research is not that new as we might suppose. Following that statement this article presents a short retrospective of the concept of intermediality, of the axe de pertinence intermediatique , where its interactions, overlaps and differences with regard to the notions of intertextuality, hybridity and interartiality are re-constructed and the options or advantages of an intermedia historiography are clarified . An archaeology of intermedia processes should not be reduced to a monolithic paradigm of materialities or meanings, but should rather guide us toward new degrees of complexity in the research of intermediality in the digital era.