Arqueología de los medios de comunicación y didácticalas placas de linterna mágica en España como caso de estudio

Abstract

ABSTRACT Projections of images accompanied by text recitals and the performance of musical melodies obtained significant sociocultural relevance in Spain between the first half of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth. To fulfil their aims, these projections used a new technological device that was given such labels as fantoscopio (fantoscope), megascopio (megascope), microscopio solar (solar microscope) or interna de proyección (projection lantern) and whose name was lent to a very popular medium for social communication known as the linterna mágica (magic lantern). Its central element was a set of projection slides that were usually made from transparent glass. These formed the basis of any private or public session focused on instruction or fun. The slides contained images that illustrated a wide range of genres, from fables and children’s stories to allegories, comedies, information and current events. Despite the magic lantern’s undoubted influence in modern-era Spain, it has had only a residual presence in the academic world as an object of scholarly study. Fortunately, a shift that is more in tune with its cultural relevance is currently taking place, and this has been caused to a fair extent by the innovations and efforts undertaken in the last decade through interdisciplines such as media archaeology, an area driven by authors such as Zielinski (2008), Hutahmo (2011) and Parikka (2011). In view of the challenge of addressing an object of study as extensive as the magic lantern in Spain, this doctoral thesis studies only the educational potential of projection slides preserved in Spain and poses the following key research question: How can the educational potential of magic lantern slides that are scattered in collections across Spain be organized, interpreted and exploited? To make a contribution to solving this problem, the thesis seeks to achieve a twofold objective: (a) to understand the role played by slides in innovations in scientific education for Spaniards at the senior-school level in the first third of the twentieth century; (b) to develop a classification for magic lantern slides that are spread across Spain in order to implement a Web application geared toward educational interpretation of them. To achieve these objectives, this work contains two empirical content-analysis studies of magic lantern slides located throughout Spain. These studies were designed in such a way that their objectives, research questions and expected results were complementary and convergent.