Media Repertoires of Social Milieux and Changes in the Media – Perspectives for Research into Usage across Media

Symposium of the Hans-Bredow-Institute on september 11th & 12th, 2008 in Hamburg.

The Hans-Bredow-Institute is currently working on a project on this topic on behalf of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and is examining the shifts in media repertoires from 1980 to 2005. What we mean by media repertoires is the ensemble of various offerings from the media that individual users or user-groups put together from everything that is on offer. The project thus fits into a series of studies going beyond the perspectives of usage-research concentrated on individual media and it investigates patterns of use and types of user across the media.

What the symposium wants to do is bring together qualified researchers from academic and applied areas in a very intensive and focussed experts’ workshop where they can altogether systematically survey what people assume in their theory and what they have found empirically, so as to create a viable basis for developing suitable research further. Experts were invited to this event to sum up their current research in this area and relate it to other research initiatives (programme).

The event centres on general discussions and we extend a hearty welcome to them.