Rede im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung

Abstract

Digitalization and social media have profoundly changed the way in which we communicate and share knowledge. As a result, traditional formats of situational speech - including the specific case of academic speeches and lectures - have come under some scrutiny and pressure: Today’s digital society calls for innovative formats of situational academic communication that strategically incorporate considerations regarding social media and digitalization. Shedding light on this challenge, this paper takes a closer look at three new formats of academic speech: Slams, TEDTalks, and Science Notes. It shows that for all three formats, cross-media effects are of key importance - with attendees immediately addressed within the original situational setting becoming part of an overarching communicative event that is relayed to a wider audience via digital media. By examining the specific consequences which these and other effects entail with respect to questions of setting and performance as well as textual and content-related strategies, the paper illustrates the challenges and chances arising from new formats of situational communication in the field of knowledge communication. I argue that Slams, Ted Talks and Sciences Notes provide illuminating examples of how to combine the powerful immediacy and fascination of situational interaction with the innovative communicative possibilities of the digital era (by adapting the traditional medium of academic speech to the requirements of today’s digital society). In this sense, digitalization does not appear as heralding the end of situational speech, but rather as a genuine chance for its modernized revival.