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Katharina Bergfeld, a graduate of the AV Media Studies programme at the “Konrad Wolf” University of Film and Television, has been honoured with the “medius” award for her diploma thesis. The award is presented by the Voluntary Self-Regulation of Television (FSF), the Society for Media Education and Communication Culture (GMK) and the German Children’s Fund (DKHW). The award recognises academic theses dealing with innovative aspects of media, education and youth protection.
Katharina Bergfeld was honoured for her diploma thesis on the dubbing of “The Simpsons”. She concludes that dubbing is a complex practice of cultural translation in which a film or television series is adapted from its culture of origin to the culture of its potential viewers. The work is entitled: “Cultural transfer and shifts in meaning. Approaches to a reception aesthetic of dubbing using the series The Simpsons as an example”.
“The diploma thesis has succeeded in convincingly applying the theoretical framework of cultural studies to the subject of dubbing, which appears dry only at first glance.
Within this theoretical framework, it achieves a second thing, namely the empirical explanation of translation strategies in global cultural transfer.
My congratulations on the first prize go not only to the author of this work, but also to Professor Lothar Mikos, who succeeds in conveying a complex cultural theory of media and mass communication and in supervising corresponding research work at a high level,” said the laudator, Prof. Dr Ben Bachmair.
