Abstract (eng)
The subject of this study is the staging of Heimat in the television documentary series Heimatleuchten (ServusTV). At present, an increased return of the idea of Heimat into the pop-cultural media world can be observed. Part of this trend is a large number of documentary television series that work with Austria-specific motifs and themes within the Heimat spectrum. This research takes the lack of sociological analyses of this type of media product as an opportunity to conduct an explorative investigation into the shaping of the concept of Heimat in it. The theoretical foundation of the research initially comprises a historical examination of the concept of Heimat in various social and cultural contexts. Based on this, the content of the term is divided into the dimensions of space, time and society. Furthermore, the sociological examination of documentary film and the film sociology of Siegfried Kracauer are included in the theoretical foundation. To address the research question, a single selected episode of Heimatleuchten is analysed using a hermeneutic method (cf. Hickethier 2007). The interpretation of social reality in the film follows the sociological film analysis (cf. Faulstich 2013). The analysis process is based on the guidelines of video hermeneutics within the sociology of knowledge by Raab and Stanisavljevic (2018) and the sociological film and television analysis by Peltzer and Keppler (2015). The material is analysed with the assistance of a tabular film transcript that presents the visual and auditory film plots of the entire episode separately. The manifest contents of the Heimat staged in the material include nature, rural life, crafts and tradition. The results of the hermeneutic interpretation show an image of society in which people are closely connected to nature and their place of origin. Furthermore, the staged life is characterised by a high degree of social integration and harmony and direct access to the environment. The depicted Heimat is consistently staged as positive and desirable. It contains idealised images of a society that overcomes the challenges of modernity through tradition and in which people are entitled to an unconditional place due to their origins. In this way, the staging also contains points of reference for a conservative understanding of Heimat.