Interventional digital media applications such as robotic surgery, remote-controlled vehicles or wearable tracking devices pose a challenge to media research methodologically as well as conceptually. How do we go about analyzing operational media, where human and non-human agencies intertwine in seemingly inscrutable ways? This article introduces the method of operational analysis to systematically observe and critically analyze such situated, interventional and multilayered entanglements. Against the background of ongoing efforts to develop operational models for understanding digital media, the method of operational analysis conceptually ascribes to media technologies a real efficacy by approaching them as adaptive mediators. As an operational middle-range approach, it allows to integrate theoretical discussions with considerations of the situatedness, directedness, and task-orientation of operational media. The article presents an analytical toolbox for observing and analyzing digital media operations while simultaneously testing it on a particular application in robotic radiosurgery.

介入式数字媒体应用（例如机器人手术，遥控车辆或可穿戴跟踪设备）对方法和概念上的媒体研究提出了挑战。我们如何去分析运营媒体，在这些媒体上，人类和非人类机构以似乎难以理解的方式交织在一起？本文介绍了一种操作分析方法，以系统地观察和批判地分析这种位置，干预和多层纠缠。在不断努力开发用于理解数字媒体的运营模型的背景下，运营分析方法在概念上将媒体技术作为适应性中介者，从而赋予媒体技术真正的功效。作为一种可操作的中端方法，它允许将理论讨论与可操作媒体的位置，定向和任务导向相结合。本文介绍了一个分析工具箱，用于观察和分析数字媒体操作，同时在机器人放射外科的特定应用程序上对其进行测试。