From Luther to Twitter. Media and the Public Sphere
The current discussion about the transformation of political culture brought about by the Internet provides the Deutsches Historisches Museum with an occasion to look into the relationship between media, politics and the public sphere – medial innovations were, after all, always an important means for political actors to influence and mould the public in previously undreamt-of ways.
The exhibition “From Luther to Twitter. Media and the Public Sphere” covers the broad spectrum from the Early Modern Age to the present day. Starting with the invention of printing and its importance for the Reformation, the exhibition then focuses on the press in the 19th century, the special role of radio broadcasting from the 1920s to the 1940s, and that of television in the post-war decades. Structural transformations of the public sphere – between repression and emancipation – have always been influenced not least by the media. They will be traced in their continuities and interruptions up to the current developments.
