Oliver Bidlo

Oliver D. Bidlo (* 1973 in Essen ) is a German communication scientist, sociologist , publicist and publisher .

life and work

Oliver Bidlo studied communication science , sociology and German studies at the University of Essen , from 2003 to 2006 he received a doctoral scholarship from the Ev. Studienwerk Villigst. In 2006 he was awarded a doctorate in Essen with a thesis on Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue. phil. PhD . Bidlo works as an independent researcher and u. a. as a lecturer at the Ruhr University in Bochum , the University of Düsseldorf and the University of Duisburg-Essen .

In 2006 he founded the Oldib Verlag, which, in addition to specialist and non-fiction books, also publishes Thepakos , a magazine for theater and theater education , of which Bidlo is the publisher.

Bidlo wrote two monographs on JRR Tolkien's work. He was the first to prove in his book “Mythos Mittelerde” (2002/2012) that Tolkien worked with the stylistic device of medieval numerical algorithms in “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit”. Certain numbers are not simply chosen by Tolkien arbitrarily, but underlaid with further meanings, they refer (intertextually) to further historical stories. In addition, in his volume “Sehnsucht nach Mittelerde?” (2003/2013), Bidlo campaigns for a romantic reading of the “Lord of the Rings”. Bidlo points out that the view of this narrative, which has been dominated by Medieval / Medieval times, is fuzzy and emphasizes that the conception of the “Lord of the Rings” is more of a romantic or neo-romantic perspective, Tolkien himself was a supporter of the romantic era. This idea was recently taken up and expanded by Julian Eilmann in his volume "JRR Tolkien - Romantics and Poets" (2016).

In a series of monographs on sociological and media-theoretical topics, Bidlo et al. a. the tattoo and its social and aesthetic significance. Contrary to conventional interpretations, the tattoo is shown as a conservative act, which also has an identity-related, biographical stabilizing and communicative meaning. Bidlo sees the conservative act on the one hand in the semiotic position of the tattoo, the meaning of which alternates between inside and outside and, against the background of an accelerated and globalized world, shows an anchor and a degree of immutability. The tattoo should preserve something, hold it in place and protect it from change, e.g. B. an idea, belief, love or view of the world. Bidlo also ties in with the aspect of the acceleration society, which he previously addressed in another publication.

Against the background of digitization, Bidlo is turning to a change in media aesthetics (see Bidlo 2019). While such an aesthetic has so far been primarily located between production and reception, Bidlo shows that media aesthetics shaped by digital media have a triadic structure of production, distribution and reception. In media anthropological terms, Bidlo speaks of the media figure of the prodisumer - in contrast to Toffler's prosumer - who is shaped by the production, distribution and consumption of digital content. According to Bidlo, this also means thinking in terms of modules: the digital artifacts are symbol containers that can be repeatedly combined to form new, larger modules. Their dialectic moves on the one hand between the reduction of options through given set pieces. On the other hand, only these set pieces enable the production of new digital artifacts, which are characterized by iterations and the recurrence of the similar.

In addition, he sets himself in monographs a. a. deals with the media philosopher Vilém Flusser, profiling, theater-sociological aspects and Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue. His work focuses on the sociology of knowledge, media theory, (media) aesthetics, qualitative social research, criminology, dialogue research and fantastic literature and its significance in the present.

Bidlo is a member of the German Society for Sociology , the Martin Buber Society and the German Tolkien Society (DTG).

Fonts (selection)

• Martin Buber: A forgotten classic of communication science? Dialog philosophy from a communication science perspective. Tectum, Marburg 2006 (dissertation, University of Essen, 2006).
• Vilém Flusser: Introduction. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2008.
• Restless times: The acceleration of everyday life. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2009.
• Tattoo: the inscription of the other. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2010.
• Profiling: in the flow of signs. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2011.
• Securitainment: media as actors of internal security. (Ed. With Jo Reichertz and Carina Englert), VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011.
• The discovery of the new: Qualitative social research as a hermeneutic sociology of knowledge. (Ed. With Norbert Schröer), VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011.
• Between the mirrors. New perspectives on the fantastic. (Ed. With Julian Eilmann and Frank Weinreich), Oldib Verlag, Essen 2011.
• Tat-Ort media: The media as actors and entertaining activators. (With Jo Reichertz and Carina Englert), VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2012.
• Myth of Middle-earth: About hobbits, heroes and history in Tolkien's world. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2012 (2002).
• Longing for Middle-earth? Oldib Verlag, Essen 2013 (2003).
• A brief history of the court jester. In: Thepakos. Interdisciplinary journal for theater and theater education. Issue 23, Jan. 2014, pp. 4–8.
• Inherited field data. Analysis possibilities and limits. In: Poferl, Angelika, Reichertz, Jo (eds.). Paths into the field - methodological aspects of field access. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2015, pp. 375–383.
• Dialectic of the negative. Problems of positive journalism. In: Deutscher Fachjournalisten-Verband (Ed.). Positive journalism, UVK, Konstanz 2015, pp. 37–48.
• O hominizado: comunicação e existência em Vilém Flusser. 2016. online
• Podlinnyi dialog [Real Dialog]. In: Kultura dialoga. Razreshenie konfliktov [culture of dialogue. Conflict resolution. Reconciliation]. Primacy. / Sost. I. Solomadin. - Kiev: Dukh i Litera, 2016, pp. 71–91.
• Writings on the theater. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2017.
• Methodological considerations on the relationship between communicative constructivism and hermeneutic sociology of knowledge. In: Reichertz, Jo, Tuma Rene (eds.). Communicative constructivism at work. Beltz Juventa, Weinheim 2017, pp. 144–158.
• Media aesthetization and mediatization of everyday life as forms of communicative construction of reality. In: Reichertz, Jo, Bettmann, Richard (Ed.) (2018): Communication - Media - Construction. Does mediatization research need communicative constructivism? SpringerVS, Wiesbaden, pp. 171-192.
• From the corridor radio to the scroll bar. Mediatization processes in the police. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2018.
• The communicative construction of fear of crime. In: Klukkert, Astrid, Feltes, Thomas, Reichertz, Jo (eds.) (2019): Torn between Two targets: Police research between theory and practice. Verlag für Polizeiwissenschaft, Frankfurt / Main, pp. 205–221
• Media Aesthetics and Everyday World: Studies on Mediatization. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2019.
• Education in the shade? A hermeneutical-sociological investigation of tutoring institutes and digital learning platforms. Oldib Verlag, Essen 2020.

Web links

• Literature by and about Oliver Bidlo in the catalog of the German National Library
• Complete list of publications