Introduction: Concepts, Corpus and Strategies of Media Network Research

This volume presents another innovative contribution to the history of children’s and adolescents’ literature which includes thorough research of the German children’s and adolescents’ literature between 1900 and 1945 as well as its media networks and the development of an online portal for further research and visual analysis. Starting from films and radio broadcasts dealing with literarische Stoffe for children and adolescents, several media networks were identified in the period under investigation. This investigation also included those discourses and materials which relate to the production, transmission and reception of the media products in question. In this introduction, we provide an outline of our methodology, describing selection criteria for the individual media and pointing out key sources in that regard. As media theories are essential for analysing media networks, the following passages provide a sketch of the crucial ones. What follows is a description of the range of media networks identified and of the contributions contained in this volume. Part I comprises three overview articles concerning the media radio, film and theatre for children and adolescents as well as one contribution on the conception and development of the online portal. Part II presents 18 contributions on specific media networks from the period under investigation.