Making the Materiality of Media Tangible: Hacking and Repairing as Political Engagement

• In Event: Hacking

Abstract

Over the past decade we have witnessed a pluralization and augmentation of actors who go beyond using media on the “interface level” by acting on the materiality of media. Two of these initiatives that engage critically, reflective or subversive with the material dimension of media technologies will be in the focus of this paper: the German hacker organization Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and German Repair Cafés. In both cases actors politicize the production, utilization and appropriation of media and develop alternatives to dominant media practices with the aim of co-determining social transformations. The line of argument we will bring forward in this paper is that acting on the materiality of media is a meaningful and significant form of contemporary political engagement that needs further acknowledgment in media and communication studies.

Authors

• Sebastian Kubitschko, U of Bremen and Goldsmiths

• Sigrid Kannengiesser, U of Bremen