Nowadays it’s hard to imagine getting by without digital media like smartphones, social network sites, and instant messenger apps. Wherever we are, at work or on the move – modern media play a crucial role in how we communicate, organize our leisure time, and even our personal relationships.
Politics, too, is not left untouched by the boom in digital media: Microblogging services like Twitter, with well over a million active users all over Germany, are an invitation to articulate opinions on politics. The resulting impact on political participation is already making its mark on democratic processes. Is it realistic, though, to conduct an election campaign with just 140 characters? And what is the effect of this new form of political participation on young people and the substance of the information they are exposed to?
Third phase of DFG funding starts on 1st October
Four years ago the German Research Foundation (DFG) set up a Priority Program called “Mediatized Worlds” to investigate these and other aspects of the digital revolution. In October, the DFG program will enter its third phase of funding, with projects embedded in twelve universities nationwide. It will now be supported for a further two years in a total amount of 1.2 million euros. “Mediatization” is the term used to describe how the media have penetrated virtually all areas of modern-day life. The research involves investigating aspects of different “mediatized worlds” – like politics, the family, the life worlds of young people, and computer game communities. The aim is to find out how the growing use of digital media impacts on our everyday lives, institutions, culture, and society in general.
University of Bremen’s ZeMKI is once again program coordinator
Once again, the task of program coordinator in this third funding period has fallen to the University of Bremen’s ZeMKI institute. ZeMKI stands for the “Center for Media, Communication, and Information Research”. The coordination project led by Professor Friedrich Krotz will be responsible for press and public relations, as well as the organization of events and cooperation projects in Germany and abroad. In addition to this, the team will manage affairs related to the advancement of young researchers and gender mainstreaming.
Comparing communitization across generations
Another Bremen project which will be funded for another two years within the context of the Priority Program is the research project “Communicative Constructions of Communitization in Mediatized Worlds” led by Professor Andreas Hepp (ZeMKI). Over the past four years, his team has been investigating the communitive networking and communitization of both young and older members of society. Now their focus will shift to the middle-aged generation. The main objective will be to find out in what way communication practices and networking of middle-aged men and women differ from those of the younger and older media generations. They will also investigate the impact of media in processes of translocal networking and communitization, and whether this is leading to the emergence of (new) forms of mediatized communitization. The idea behind making such cross-generational comparisons is to establish a framework for critical analysis of the challenges today’s media world present for modern society.
You can find more information about the DFG Priority Program under www.mediatisiertewelten.de, and on the Bremen projects under http://www.zemki.uni-bremen.de/de/forschung/dfg-schwerpunktprogramm-mediatisierte-welten.html.
You can obtain further information by contacting:
Prof.Dr. Friedrich Krotz
ZeMKI, Center for Media, Communication, and Information Research
University of Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-67625 and +49 421 218-67603 (Office)
email: krotz@uni-bremen.de
www.mediatisiertewelten.de
Prof.Dr. Andreas Hepp
ZeMKI, Center for Media, Communicaton, and Information Research
University of Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-67620 and +49 421 218-67601 (Office)
email: heppprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
www.zemki.uni-bremen.de