Dead Media: Icts and Cultural Heritage in a Digital Age - Fotohof

ICT&S|PODIUM
09.06.2009 | 18:30
ICT&S Center
Wr. Philharmonikergasse 5
(Eingang neben Triangel)
Freier Eintritt!
ICT&S Center
Advanced Studies and Research in Information
and Communication Technologies & Society
University of Salzburg
Dead Media: ICTs and Cultural Heritage in a Digital Age
One of the most widespread and persistent beliefs about the use of ICTs, particularly the Internet, is that
“nothing ever disappears” – that every scrap of email, every unguarded party photo, every credit card swipe,
every web page, every file on a long-forgotten server, every password and page view and trace, gets captured
and stored for the future, somewhere, by somebody.
We might debate whether the “total capture” of all digital communications and records is socially or ethically
desirable, even if it were technically feasible. But at a more pragmatic level, the popular belief that “nothing
ever disappears” is contradicted by a simple fact: digital technologies, and the records they generate, are far
more perishable than previous recording media.
In this talk Leah A. Lievrouw will discuss the implications of digital preservation and archiving for media
culture and new media studies. She will review the main technological and management strategies that
archivists and preservationists have used to deal with the problem to date, and suggest some directions for
research and scholarship on ICTs and society in light of the problem of digital preservation and the potential
cultural consequences of “dead media.”

The ICT&S PODIUM
The Event Series of the Center for
Advanced Studies and Research in
Information and Communication
Technologies & Society at the University
of Salzburg towards the interplay of
human, technology and society aiming for
the discussion and presentation of interdisciplinary
themes.
www.icts.uni-salzburg.at
Leah A. Lievrouw
Leah A. Lievrouw joined the Department of Information Studies at the University of
California, Los Angeles, in 1995. She received a Ph.D. in communication theory and
research in 1986 from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of
Southern California. She also holds an M.A. in biomedical communications / instructional
development from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas,
and a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.
Previously, she has held faculty appointments in the Department of Communication
in the School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies (SCILS) at Rutgers
University in New Brunswick, NJ and in the Department of Telecommunication and
Film at the University of Alabama. She has also been a visiting scholar at the University
of Amsterdam's School of Communication Research (ASCoR) in The Netherlands
and at the ICT & Society Center at the University of Salzburg, Austria. In 2006-
07 she was the Sudikoff Fellow for Education and New Media at UCLA.
During the ongoing summer term Dr. Leah Lievrouw teaches as a visiting professor
at the ICT&S Center from April until June 2009.
Leah A. Lievrouw
Department of
Information Studies
University of California
Los Angeles