„Exakt Historisch“ im Digitalen? Versuch einer Anleihe

Abstract

The danger of lacking source criticism becomes increasingly apparent in the digital communication space of the Internet, with its sheer mass of utterances, respectively statements, and the rhizomatic nature of the medium. But it are precisely these statements that cultural studies take interest in as culturally determined phenomena, where these types of primary sources range from websites, forums, multiplayer platforms and the like. But how can criticism in the digital gain as a basis of knowledge, when the traditional system of conventionally secured certainty has changed? Attention has to be drawn to the intermedial and intertextual character of digital sources, especially when it comes to primary sources in the sense of cultural studies: statements. This is the premise under which a small transdisciplinary experiment is shown below – the sketch of a digital-source-critical guideline in which criteria of the „exactly historical“ method of Karl-Sigismund Kramer and Hans Moser (Münchner Schule of Volkskunde/Cultural Studies) are mirrored on Born Digital. I will show the benefits of this approach in more detail using aspects of an example in which the importance of analytic deconstruction can hardly be overestimated. Subject is the centuries-old anti-semitic figure of „Anderl von Rinn“, whose shock waves can still be detected today in the digital communication space.