Digital Explorations of Historical Media Networks

This article outlines the interdisciplinary development process of an online portal for the DFG-funded project Deutschsprachige Kinder- und Jugendliteratur im Medienverbund (German children’s and youth literature in the media network) 1900–1945. The focus is on the literary and information technology perspectives, which are traced in their interplay from the definition of an initial metadata set to more complex requirements for data evaluation and visualisation. The aim is not only to explain the strategic challenges and solutions in dealing with complex media connections, but also to present concrete application scenarios for the use of the developed search engine environment and the visualisation techniques. Furthermore, it will be discussed how an explorative approach in the context of Digital Humanities reshapes the subject area, i.e. not only brings new methods to bear on established questions in literary studies, but also generates new questions and thus potentially contributes to a broadening of the scientific horizon.