Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp (ZeMKI, Universität Bremen) gives keynote at the international workshop “Media, Event and Social Theory – Transnational Challenges for Analysis” at the University of Tampere, Finland

The keynote is entitled “Media Events and Transcultural Communication in Times of Deep Mediatization” and will take place on February 18, 2016 at 2pm. The keynote will be commented by Marwan Kraidy from the  Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

When media is used to communicate across cultures, this typically happens with reference to media events. Sports events like the Olympic Games, but also acts of war or so-called ‘terror attacks’ are examples for that. For a long time, the approach of media and communications to such media events was to describe them rather as ‘rituals’, shaped mainly by broadcasting and having some integrative power. Later, the discussion shifted focus onto their possible ‘disruptive’ character. But since then there have been further changes to our media environment. Nowadays, we live in a media manifold characterised by an interrelated multiplicity of media increasingly based on software and datafication. How can we understand media events in such times of deep mediatization? How are media events impacted when we move ever more deeply into a digitalised and datafied media environment? On the basis of recent examples, the present talk sketches some lines for rethinking media events in times of deep mediatization

Furhter information about the conference can be accessed here.