Knowing ‘New' and ‘Old' Media: Translating Memories and Body Rhythms Across Generations

The ‘sociology of translation’ offers a variety of methodological devices in order to study body rhythms and their changing material-social Eigenzeiten. Drawing on the case of a non-profit oriented, community based project in the south of Germany, in which the elderly and young people meet, work together, and practically exchange about usages of ‘analogue’ and ‘digital’ media objects, I am going to unpack how knowledge about ‘new’ and ‘old’ is being translated and reinterpreted among the two generations. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork I am going to show specifically how the implicit dimensions of knowing how to use ‘new’ and ‘old’ media becomes visible and obtains agency in each of the context of the other generation.

The paper is divided in three steps. First, I will discuss the moments when members remember how to use either ‘new’ or ‘old’ media and discuss the implications for a memory view on media studies. Second, I will show what happens when the implicit knowledge of using these objects is being translated to the other generation. I will follow how the rhythms of bodies in interaction with their environment change, and how the use is being remembered and reinterpreted. Third, I will discuss the implications of such an intergenerational view on the enactment of social time in each of the generations’ body rhythm.