: According to the theory of ‘significative regionalisation’ (Werlen), territorial entities may be understood as products of symbolic practices. However, the assumption that regions are not only made but also continuously performed in acts of communication effects the character of substantial research into ostensible and latent spatial imaginations apparent in communication processes. In this article, the reactivation of Mitteldeutschland (literally the ‘centre of Germany’) in a televisionseries about the region's history is the empirical starting point for conceptualizing contemporary processes of symbolic regionalization. The approach taken covers the entire communication chain from the editorial process to the film material up to everyday language use of the programs target group. Three empirical studies with specific methods of research (hermeneutics, argumentation analysis and semi‐structured interviews) illustrate this interlinked process. As an analytical tool, a fundamental distinction between implicit ‘common places’ of spatial representation and more obvious and thus negotiable explicit features of spatial signification is suggested. The analysis elucidates that — even under conditions of contemporary globalization — the massmedia reproduce traditional practices of spatial representation, as, for instance, a persistent and taken‐for‐granted use of container images indicates. Regarding the explicit features, however, the medias' influence seems to be quite low. Mitteldeutschland's geography, as proposed by the television program, is questioned and negotiated in everyday symbolic practice. Up until now, the region thus remains continuously ‘under construction’.

Die digitale Revolution ist nicht nur als technologisches, sondern gleichsam als soziales und kulturelles Phänomen zu betrachten. Der Artikel liefert dazu einen Überblick über theoretische Zugänge zu digitaler Kultur und stellt geographische Forschungsarbeiten mit einem soziokulturellen Fokus auf das Digitale vor. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden Schlussfolgerungen für die geographische Bildung in zweierlei Hinsicht diskutiert: Zum einen im Hinblick auf die Digitalisierung der Vermittlungspraxis der Lehrenden. Zum anderen mit Blick auf potentielle neue Unterrichtsthemen.

Contemporary approaches to regional identity generally consider regions to be social or cultural constructions rather than natural entities. Therefore ‘Mitteldeutschland’ (Middle-Germany or Central Germany) can be understood as a product of symbolic regionalization in terms of its media status. The regional broadcasting station Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) presents its history as the history of a German heartland with great cultural and national benefits. For example, Luther and Bach are placed in a natural and historic landscape that is regarded as the origin of major historic developments. This article emphasizes aspects of linguistic reference and coherence and inference embedded in a web of (successful) reasoning, which shows how the term ‘Mitteldeutschland’ fades from being the main subject of discourse to its unreflected background. The relations between explicit naming and defining, on the one hand, and implicit and tacit knowledge, on the other, is presented by the use of argumentation analysis.

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