Social Media and the Transformation of Publicness

Lecture by Jan-Hinrik Schmidt at the Social Media Week Hamburg, University of Hamburg, Monday, February 13 at 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM, Auditorium ESA W 221, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Flügelbau West, room 221, 2nd floor, no fee, registration required

Social Media are changing the structures of our media system by expanding public spheres to new actors, by providing new mechanisms for sharing and distribution of information, and by shifting boundaries between the public and the private. The presentation will introduce key practices of social media use, identify resulting changes in public communication, and identify areas where new skills and fluencies are needed.

• Language: English
• Registration and more information
• Interview with Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt: As Lawrence Lessig said “Code is Law”

Freedom of Speech in Israel

Colloquy with Dr. Elad Peled, Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, about the Constitutional Protection of Speech in Israel, Thursday, January 26th 2012, 6.00-8.00 pm, in the library of the Hans Bredow Institute

Though the freedom of speech has never been anchored as a general legal principle in the legislation of the State of Israel, and was calculatedly omitted from its constitution, it forms an integral part of the Israeli jurisprudence. At the same time, its status and scope are the subjects of sharp controversy, both within and outside the professional legal discourse. The lecture surveyed the principal aspects of the protection of speech in the Israeli legal system, and explained how it has been influenced by foreign legal traditions, by social and political realities prevailing in different periods of the county’s history, by diverse theoretical justifications attributed to the freedom of speech, and by the nature of the interests with which it collides.

Dr. Elad Peled, visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, obtained his LL.B., magna cum laude, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2003), his LL.M. from New York University (2006), and his Ph.D. from the University of Haifa (2010). His legal experience includes, inter alia, serving as a law clerk and a senior law at the Israeli Supreme Court, working as a reporter and commentator for the Oxford University Press legal database International Law in Domestic Courts, and membership in the editorial board of Israel Law Review, the Hebrew University law review in English. Dr. Peled's main area of research is defamation law, which he currently teaches as an adjunct lecturer in Israeli law schools, in addition to tort law in general, media law and free speech law. He has published a book and several articles in the aforementioned fields both in Israel and in the United States. Dr. Peled is a member of the German-Israeli Lawyers' Association.

Fact-Checking Hungarian Media Law

"Hungarian Media Laws in Europe: An Assessment of the Consistency of Hungary’s Media Laws with European Practices and Norms" is the name of a now published study of the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS), a research center at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. Stephan Dreyer, Hans Bredow Institute, contributed as German Country Expert to this study.

For more information about the project and the results please see the page of the CMCS

Here you can download the study as well as an Executive summary.

Now available: M&K 4/2011

among others with articles on the impact of repeated political slogans on people's perception of credibility, climate change from the perspective of media consumers, and an overview on the research of social online networks. In the series "Methodological Innovations in Communication Studies" an article on combining manual and automated content analysis through automatic learning is included, and as part of the series "Classics of Communication and Media Studies Today" there is an article on Gerhard Maletzke. Contents ...

EU Study on Indicators for Independence of Audiovisual Media Services Regulatory Bodies now available

The independence of regulatory bodies in the field of audiovisual media can not be measured mathematically; however, indicators that indicate risks and detrimental constellations potentially allowing external parties to influence the independence of media regulators can be found. These indicators have been identified by the EU study "Indicators for Independence and Efficient Functioning of Audiovisual Media Services Regulatory Bodies" which was carried out by a research team led by the Hans Bredow Institute. Besides drafting a theoretical framework for regulatory independence the study was able to theoretically deduce, empirically establish and – at times – qualify a number of indicators for the independence of media supervision. As a service of transfer into practice, a ranking tool has been developed from the numerous indicators. This tool provides an opportunity for regulators, governments, agents of civil society and finally also for the European Commission to roughly analyse whether and – if applicable: where – regulators are vulnerable as far as their independence is concerned.

• Final Report (pdf file)

• Online Ranking Tool and additional material (Annexe)

• Project description "Indicators for Independence and Efficient Functioning of Audiovisual Media Services Regulatory Bodies"

The Adaptation of Public Service Broadcasting to the Multiplatform Scenario

Workshop presenting the results of the project "Redefining and Repositioning Public Service Broadcasting in the Digital and Multiplatform Scenario - An international Comparative Analysis within the European Union", February 6th 2012 - 09:00 to 15:00, Hanse-Office in Brussels, free attandance, registration required

Date:  February 6th 2012 - 09:00 to 15:00

Venue: Hanse-Office in Brussels, Av. Palmerston 20, B-1000, Brussels

Free attandance / Registration is required (deadline: Jan. 27th 2012)

This workshop wanted to analyse the current transformations as well as the extension experienced by Public Service Broadcasting due to technology innovation. Both factors have resulted in relevant conflicts and discussions within the media market, which have also fostered an intense political debate.

By means of presenting the results of the research project "PSB-Digital: Redefining and Repositioning Public Service Broadcasting in the Digital and Multiplatform Scenario - An international Comparative Analysis within the European Union", which has been funded by the Marie Curie Programme and hosted by the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research, together with to the participation of relevant speakers, this workshop aimed to provide valuable insights and knowledge about a major political and professional issue within the European media scenario.

• Programme (pdf-Datei)
• Further Informationen about the Workshop

Programme

09:30 – 10:00 Registration

10:00 – 10:15 Welcome & Presentation
“Researching Public Service Media at European Level and with the Support of the European Commission’s Marie Curie Programme”
Prof. Dr. Uwe Hasebrink, Director of the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research (Hamburg, Germany)

10:15 – 11:00 PSB-Digital Project: Presentation of results
“Redefining and Repositioning Public Service Media in the Multiplatform Scenario: Challenges, Opportunities and Risks”
Dr. Roberto Suárez Candel, Marie Curie Researcher, Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research (Hamburg, Germany)

11:00 – 11:15 Questions & debate

11:15 – 11:45 Coffee Break

11:45 – 12:45 Professional / Academic Debate Panel
“Adapting Public Service to the ‘Anything, Anywhere, Anytime’ Paradigm: National Strategies in Germany, Poland and Spain”
Mr. Niels Rasmussen, NDR Online & Multimedia Department (Germany)

Mr. Wiesław Łodzikowski, TVP Technology Director (Poland)

Mr. Ignacio Gómez, RTVE Director of Interactive Media Programmes (Spain)

Prof. Dr. Barbara Thomaß, Ruhr University Bochum (Germany)

Dr. Michał Głowacki, Warsaw University (Poland)

Dr. David Fernández-Quijada, Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain)

Moderator: Dr. Roberto Suárez Candel

12:45 – 13:00 Questions & debate

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:00 Supranational Debate Panel
“Regulation and Accountability: Shaping the Extension and the Future of Public Service Media”

Dr. Anna Herold, European Commission, DG Information Society & Media

Mr. Jan Malinowski, Council of Europe, Head of the Media Division   

Mrs. Nicola Frank, European Broadcasting Union, Head of the Brussels Office

Moderator: Dr. Roberto Suárez Candel

15:00 – 15:15 Questions & debate

15:15 – 15:30 Concluding Remarks
Prof. Dr. Uwe Hasebrink

15:30 End of the event – Networking Coffee

Broadcasting Media in Thailand under Convergence: Challenges to Regulation

The Hamburg Society for Thai Studies e.V. and the Hans Bredow Institute invited to a lecture by the guest researcher at the HBI, Chanansara Oranop Na Ayutthaya from Thai Media Policy Center in Bangkok, on Monday, Nov 21, 2011 at 6 pm at the University of Hamburg, Asien Africa Institute, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, east wing, room 232, Flyer (pdf-Datei) 

Mapping Digital Media: Germany

A Country Report for the Open Society Foundations written by Hermann-Dieter Schröder, Uwe Hasebrink, Stephan Dreyer, Wiebke Loosen und Felix Schröter (pdf-file for Download).

Human[i]ties Perspective 2011

The conference and professional networking event aimed at Erasmus Mundus students and alumni from Culture, Media and Communications studies was held at the University of Hamburg, November 11th and 12th.

The conference took place over two days and included four themed sessions: three academic sections exploring, ‘Cultures & Identities’, ‘Communication & Democracy’, and ‘Crisis & Risk Communication’, and one session focussing on career paths. Leading professors and professionals spoke on these topics, providing insight and inspiration into research lines and professional development ideas. Speakers included Dr. Roberto Suárez Candel (Hans-Bredow-Institut), Dr. Hans Kleinsteuber (University of Hamburg), and Dr. Kathrin Voss (University of Hamburg).

For further information see: http://humanities2011.wordpress.com/

Research Report 2010/2011 available

The Research Report of the Hans Bredow Institute is now available in English and can be downloaded here (pdf-file, 792 kb).

1. Berlin Symposium on Internet and Society

On October 25-28th 2011, the new Institute for Internet and Society had its international Inauguration Symposium. The symposium consisted of three elements: 1. the Inauguration on October 25th, 2. the Research Symposium on October 26th and 27th, a transdisciplinary academic conference which brought together researchers who are committed to work in the area of Internet and Society, and 3. the Open Science Forum, on October 28th, which provided an innovative platform for academia and different stakeholders from industry, politics and various different civil society interest groups.

For further information please see http://www.berlinsymposium.org/.

Lecture Series “The Literary Field in Hamburg 1933-1945”

of the University of Hamburg in winter semester 2010/11, among others with a lecture by H.-U. Wagner from the re-search project "History of Broadcasting in Northern Germany".

LfM Conference “Video Games between Fun, Education and Excess”

Presentation of the results of the project “Kompetenzerwerb, exzessive Nutzung und Abhängigkeitsverhalten bei Computer-spielen” [Competencies and Excessive Use among Gamers: Challenged, Supported, Endangered] in Düsseldorf on 16 February 2011.

Media Education Congress in Berlin

The congress was hosted by the initiative “Keine Bildung ohne Medien!” [No Education without Media!] (C. Lampert) at the TU Berlin on 24 and 25 March 2011 and addressed everyone dealing with the support of media competence. It is intended to contribute to a broad and sustainable establishment of media education.  

Online Protection of Minors – Can You Believe It?

Joint symposium by the Hans Bredow Institute, Media Author-ity Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein and the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce on  25 May 2011.

Following the failure of the revision of the interstate treaty on the protection of minors in the media (JMStV) at the end of 2010, the Hans Bredow Institute, the Media Authority HSH and the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce wanted to utilise their experiences from last year’s discussion and attempted to define the requirements for adequate protection of minors in the media more clearly. 200 guests at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce prove the interest in the topic.

Do the Media Form Europe’s Memory?

Panel discussion with researchers and journalists, hosted by the Research Center Media and Communication in the context of the European Week 2011 at the University of Hamburg on 12 May 2011.

Media Practice – Media Modes. Media Acting from a Practical Theoretical Perspective

Lecture by Christian Pentzold at the Graduate School Media and Communication in Hamburg on 29 June 2011.

Christian Pentzold is a graduate student at the University of Chemnitz. More information at http://www.medkom.tu-chemnitz.de/mk/personen_pentzold.php or http://christianpentzold.de.

Children, Risk and Safety Online: Research and Policy Challenges in Comparative Perspective

International "EU Kids Online" conference for researchers, policy makers, industry, educators, NGOs and government, 22-23 September 2011 at LSE, London, UK. The conference showcased final results and recommendations regarding online activities, risks and safety, based on a survey of 25,000 European children conducted by the EU Kids Online network of more than 100 researchers in 25 countries and funded by the European Commission's Safer Internet Programme.

Conference theme

The conference asked a series of pressing questions:

•     Are all children benefiting from the internet and if not, why not?
•     What new digital literacies and coping skills are they developing?
•     How can parents and policy makers balance online opportunities and risks for children?
•     How do children themselves perceive online risk and safety issues?
•     Why do risks differ from country to country, and what new risks are emerging?
•     How can governments, educators, NGOs and industry better support children online?

Papers

Papers presented were on the following topics:

• Participation, creativity and media literacy
• Risks, victims and perpetrators
• Vulnerability and coping with risks
• Parental, peer and teacher mediation
• Mobile. Gaming and other emerging platforms
• Safety tools and their effectiveness

Programme and Registration

Main conference programme here.

Conference panels here.

Digital Transparencies: The Saturation of Surveillance

Lecture by Joshua Meyrowitz, Professor and Chair, Department of Communication, University of New Hampshire, on Monday, Sept 5th, 2011, 6-8 pm in the library of the Hans Bredow Institute.

About a half century ago, the boundaries of most households and other settings in Western countries were penetrated by a new medium — mass-broadcast television. For hundreds of millions of people, the aural-visual sensory experiences of their daily lives were no longer shaped almost exclusively by their physical locations. More than radio had done a few decades earlier, with its exclusively aural stimuli, television’s mix of sound and image challenged the age-old environmental dominance of walls and windows, the position of trees and bushes, the slope of the landscape, and the once universal power of simple distance. Yet despite the scale of the transformation, mass television’s impact was largely unidirectional. Television brought images and sounds from afar into the life-spaces of most children and adults. But what people did in spaces — while speaking, reading, eating, walking, shopping, sleeping, flirting, making love, and even watching television — remained largely place-bound. To paraphrase one U.S. city’s slogan, what happened in places, mostly stayed in those places.

In recent decades, however, new technologies and new forms of older technologies have dramatically altered the balance between incoming and outgoing televisual and other information. The wired telephone was once the main medium through which average citizens’ expressions were communicated beyond local space. Now, web cams, mobile phones that double as image and video recording devices, surveillance cameras, social networking sites such as Facebook, video web sites such as YouTube, Radio Frequency ID (RFID) chips, and even DNA testing extend the temporal and spatial projection and impact of individuals’ behaviors. This talk explores the social, psychological, and political implications of these new technologies for systemic and multidirectional surveillance, including state surveillance, corporate surveillance, peer surveillance, and self-surveillance. Among other things, I will suggest that we are seeing an evolution in what we mean by public and private spheres of culture; an alteration in conceptions of the past, present, and future; a more fluid sense of identity; and a technologically assisted reconstruction of social reality.

Joshua Meyrowitz is Professor of Media Studies and Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), where he teaches courses in mass media, analysis of news, media criticism, media theory, and communication theory. He is the author of No Sense of Place, a highly acclaimed book on the impact of electronic media published by Oxford University Press. The book has been translated into German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Czech.

Dr. Meyrowitz’s nearly 100 articles and essays on media and society have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and anthologies as well as in popular publications such as Newsweek, Psychology Today, TV Guide, Columbia Journalism Review, The Boston Globe, The Hartford Courant, and the L.A. Times Washington Post News Service. He has been interviewed on his research by scores of newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Australia, Brazil, and Israel. His essays have been translated into a dozen languages.

Dr. Meyrowitz’s No Sense of Place has won numerous awards, including the Golden Anniversary Book Award from the National Communication Association and the Book of the Year Award from the National Association of Broadcasters and the Broadcast Education Association. In 1986, the Eastern Communication Association honored him as “the most outstanding and productive scholar in the Eastern region of the United States.” In 1992, he won the Lindberg Award for Outstanding Scholar-Teacher in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire. In 1998, UNH awarded him the Class of 1938 Professorship, which recognizes excellence in teaching. In 2001, he won The Louis Forsdale Outstanding Educator Award from the Media Ecology Association. In 2005, he won the Mass Communication Division Teaching Award from the National Communication Association. And in 2008, he won the Walter J. Ong Award for Career Achievement in Scholarship from the Media Ecology Association.

Professor Meyrowitz received his B.A. in mass communication and drama from Queens College of the City University of New York, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. After completing his masters in communication at Queens College, he received a doctorate in media theory from New York University. He joined the University of New Hampshire faculty in 1979.

Born in New York City, Dr. Meyrowitz now lives in the smaller and quieter town of Durham, New Hampshire. He has two children, a daughter who graduated from Brandeis University in 2004 and now runs her own public relations firm in New York City, and a son who loves to work on cars, has found a way to get paid to do that, and is considering studying mechanical engineering.
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*Pronounced like the three words, My row wits, with the emphasis on “My.”

Summer School on European ICT and IPR Law 2011

organized by the European Academy of ICT Law and the CO-REACH Project on IPR in Reichenau/Rax, Austria,  31. July  –  5.Aug. 2011. The Summer School hosted lecturers and students from Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and United Kingdom. The Summer School was sponsored by the Co-Reach-Protect and by participating universities. lecturerers from the Hans-Bredow-Institute were Wolfgang Schulz, Stefan Heilmann and Martin Lose.