“Médiations et médiatisation”

Prof. Dr. Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz (University of Bremen, ZeMKI) gives lecture at the EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) in Paris

The lecture takes place in the context of the deSignis conference  “Médiations/Médiatisation” (organized by the Semiotic Society of Latin-American, the “Laboratoire Mondes Américaines” of the University of Lille and the Argentinian Embassy in Paris) and is entitled “(Re)Lire Eliseo Verón. Médiations et médiatisation. Deux concepts pour penser les Sciences de la Communication aujourd´hui”.

More information can be accessed here.

Internationale “Communicative Figurations” Konferenz starts

From December 8-9, 2016 the Bremen House of Science (Haus der Wissenschaft, Sandstr. 4/5, Bremen, Germany) hosts the international conference ‘Communicative Figurations’ on the interdependent transformation of communication, media, society and culture.

The ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen, organises the international conference in collaboration with the Hans-Bredow-Institute for Media Research, Hamburg and the SOCIUM, University of Bremen. The conference welcomes numerous speakers from all over Europe and the United States who investigate transforming communications against the background of an increasing complexity of the media environment. Richard Rogers (Digital Method Initiative, University of Amsterdam) and Gina Neff (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford) will be keynote speakers.

For today’s life-worlds, media communication is essential: work, leisure, socialization, the public sphere, public engagement, etc. are articulated by different types of mediated communication. Even from a historical point of view it is impossible for us to imagine the multiple and contradictory processes of modernization without media. Today, various domains of the social world are so closely related to (digital) media that they could not exist in their present form beyond media. In this sense, we live in times of ‘deep mediatization’.

A particular challenge of researching this stage of mediatization is the present complexity of the media environment: It is not one single medium that is the driving force of change. With the spreading of various technical communication media – television, radio, mobile phone, internet platforms etc. – we are confronted with a ‘media manifold’ which stimulates various processes of re-mediation and transmediation. And as media are more and more software-based and related to the internet, their use becomes entangled with processes of datafication. How can we investigate then transforming communications in times of deep mediatization? How do the figurations of living together change with the media environment?

The conference takes these fundamental questions seriously and moves the transformation of communications and figurations through the ‘media manifold’ into the foreground. The focuses of the conference are the transformation of journalism, religion, education, communities, politics, and public discourse. Beyond this, the conference puts an emphasis on the (digital) methods used to investigate related processes of transformation. It is the concluding event of the Creative Research Unit ‘Communicative Figurations’, being funded within the framework of the Initiative of Excellence.

The conference brochure can be downloaded here.

“Still a “Public Sphere”? A Systematic-Historical View on Transparency and Responsibility as Communication Values”

ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz gives a talk in Siegen

Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz will talk on the question “Still a ‘Public Sphere’? A Systematic-Historical View on Transparency and Responsibility as Communication Values” at the conference “Infrastructures of Publics — Publics of Infrastructures” on December 8, 2016 .

Further information can be accessed here.

“Family memory in times of deep mediatization”

ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Christine Lohmeier presents her research at the University of Amsterdam.

From December 3-5, 2016, the University of Amsterdam hosts an international conference on “Thinking through the future of memory”. The conference is also the inaugural event of the Memory Studies Association. Christine Lohmeier will talk on  “Family memory in times of deep mediatization” on Monday, December 5.

Further information can be accessed here.

Christian Pentzold new speaker of Digital Communication section

Prof. Dr. Christian Pentzold (ZeMKI, University of Bremen) was elected new speaker of the Digital Communication section of the German Communication Association

The section is the home for researches in the field of communication and media studies who investigate digital communication. The nomination took place during the annual section meeting in Brunswick. With this positive vote, Christian Pentzold takes over the office together with Christian Katzenbach from the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society for the upcoming two years.