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Textbook as a Medium: Impulses from Media Studies for Research on Teaching Materials and Textbooks in Educational Sciences

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Textbooks and Educational Media: Perspectives from Subject Education (IARTEM 2015)

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Abstract

The rise of digital media questioned traditional definitions of the textbook construct. This chapter aims to explore the options that contemporary findings from the field of media studies offer to understand the substance of a textbook and, concurrently, to illuminate the concept of a textbook from the perspective of educational science. The main questions addressed are how a textbook operates as a medium at present, what its unique and typical features are, and if the change in technologies also means the change in medium, i.e., if educational texts in digital form can be regarded as textbooks. First, typical features of current media – transmediality, hybridization, and remix culture – are described in how they manifest themselves in textbooks and other learning resources. Second, with the help of the affordance concept, the primary quality of the textbook is explained and argued that the textbook construct goes beyond material carriers, symbolic systems, or techniques of distribution. Third, in the quest to capture the substance of the textbook as a medium, Lorenz Engell’ theory of three media layers was applied. The detailed analysis based on the textbook concept operating between the objectif layer, dispositif layer, and symbolic form showed, among others, that a textbook as a medium could exist in a printed, digital, or hybrid form and that its substance stays the same regardless of the technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

    Zuzana Sikorová

  2. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Péter Bagoly-Simó

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  1. Zuzana Sikorová
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  2. Péter Bagoly-Simó
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Correspondence to Zuzana Sikorová .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Geographisches Institut, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Péter Bagoly-Simó

  2. University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

    Zuzana Sikorová

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Sikorová, Z., Bagoly-Simó, P. (2021). Textbook as a Medium: Impulses from Media Studies for Research on Teaching Materials and Textbooks in Educational Sciences. In: Bagoly-Simó, P., Sikorová, Z. (eds) Textbooks and Educational Media: Perspectives from Subject Education. IARTEM 2015. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80346-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80346-9_1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-80345-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-80346-9

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