University of Applied Science, Cologne
Fellow at CAIS from August 2017 to January 2018
Digital media constitute the most influential industry in the world today, and they permeate our everyday lives. This entails both gains and losses for human coexistence; given the early stage of development, these gains and losses can barely be estimated yet. Nor is there available the conceptual toolkit to describe adequately the current media changes. This project combines the investigation of current cultural, social and political changes with the question of whether there is taking place a mere renewal of previous relationships or indeed a fundamental break (disruption). Besides research approaches from media studies, the project also uses those from economics, political science, sociology, and the technical sciences.
The project pursues two goals. First, to establish a methodologically critical view of research on media change and the transformation processes associated with it. Second, to propose new ways of describing cultural, social and political processes that have attracted debate, exemplified by concepts such as public sphere, deliberation, participation, community, and transparency.
