21 February 2023, 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., online event via Zoom, the log-in details will be sent by email after the registrationThis Leibniz Media Lecture will be hosted by the Hamburg Section of the Research Institute Social Cohesion.
PD Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt will provide the introduction. The event will be held in English.
Conspiracy theorising, once perceived as a harmless peripheral phenomenon, has embroiled researchers and policymakers alike. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, the term ‘conspiracy theory’ permeated public life and became a buzzword across news media and daily conversations. Factors contributing to a growing prevalence of conspiracy theories are manifold, ranging from the rise of populist politics to societal upheaval. As a media and communication researcher, Jing Zeng will critically discuss the role played by digital communication technologies in manufacturing, propagating and combatting conspiracy theories. Based on her ongoing research on the topic, Jing Zeng will share her first-hand research insights into conspiracy theories on a variety of social media platforms.
Dr. Jing Zeng is Assistant Professor of Digital Methods and Critical Data Studies at Utrecht University. Her research concerns the sociocultural implications of digital technologies, with a particular focus on developing innovative digital methods for empirical research. Jing has written extensively on digital media platforms, around topics of misinformation, youth culture and online activism. Before joining Utrecht University, she was Senior research and teaching associate at the University of Zurich. She received her PhD from the Digital Media Research Center (DMRC) at the Queensland University of Technology, and her MSc from the Oxford Internet Insitute. She is also an affiliated researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Germany.
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16 November 2022, 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., online event via Zoom, the log-in details will be sent by email after the registrationWe continue our Leibniz Media Lectures series on "Actors and Approaches in Transfer Research" with a contribution by Tessa Roedema, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, who will talk about experiences with action-oriented research in the field of science communication.
Irene Broer will provide the introduction. The event will be held in English.
The shifting relationships between science, media, publics and politics present opportunities as well as challenges. To ensure an open and reflective science communication ecosystem, it is necessary that stakeholders from science communication research and practice come together in a transformative learning process. In this lecture, Tessa Roedema presents experiences with action-oriented research in the field of science communication. As part of the RETHINK project, she and her colleagues established a so-called „Rethinkerspace“: a local hub in which various stakeholders simultaneously investigate and transform science communication practices. Since Rethinkerspaces focus on inquiry, reflection and transformative learning, this session also strives for a high degree of interaction, with plenty of time to exchange experiences and ideas to how this could work in other projects, practices and settings.
Tessa Roedema conducts her Ph.D. research in Science Communication at the Athena Institute (science & society) of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research interests lie in science communication, public engagement with science, science and technology studies, transdisciplinarity and action-based research.
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26 October 2022, 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., online event via Zoom, the log-in details will be sent by email after the registrationProf. Dr. Ulrike Felt, University of Vienna, opens the Leibniz Media Lectures focus series "Actors and Approaches in Transfer Research". In this series, we will discuss together with experts from communication science research and science communication what constitutes transfer research. We will also discuss how it can be implemented, which actors there are, and which orientations guide their actions.
Irene Broer will provide the introduction. The event will be held in German.
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There is a consensus about the growing role of the media in contemporary societies. Regardless of what happens behind the scenes, the performative media dimension is becoming increasingly important. The lecture will focus on two interrelated concepts: on the one hand, the question of "epistemic responsibility", i.e. what knowledge is produced, how it is represented and circulated in the public sphere, and how subjects such as media studies analyse and critically reflect on this. On the other hand, the "new geography of responsibility" is intended to point to the fact that a redistribution of responsibility is taking place as a result of media restructuring. This raises questions about the role of media studies and the fundamental relationship between science and society. These considerations are discussed on the basis of concrete examples, such as the information policy during the Corona pandemic.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ulrike Felt heads the Institute for Science and Technology Studies and the interdisciplinary research platform "Responsible Research and Innovation in Academic Practice" at the University of Vienna. Her research focuses on the interaction of science, technology and society, in particular on issues related to the transformation of research, knowledge and technology cultures, governance and participation in modern technoscientific democracies and socio-technical infrastructures. Her recent work includes the publications "Welche Wissenschaft für welche Gesellschaft?" (Picus, Vienna: 2022) and "Exploring Science Communication" (Sage, London: 2020) with Sarah Davies.
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8 March 2022, 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., online event via Zoom, the log-in details will be sent by email after the registrationThis Leibniz Media Lecture will be hosted by the Hamburg Section of the Research Institute Social Cohesion. Dr. Gregor Wiedemann will provide the introduction. The event will be held in English.
Behavior and communication of people that is recorded via online platform, devices or dedicated software offers novel opportunities to gain insights into social phenomena. These data may even allow to measure and explain human attitudes and biases. However, several methodological challenges arise when working with observational digital behavioral data. In this talk Claudia Wagner will firstly focus on some of the issues that become apparent when we aim to measure and explain attitudes based on social media messages. She will present some work on assessing and addressing those measurement issues. Secondly Claudia Wagner will present a study that combines observational digital behavioral data with survey data to study perception biases of humans.
Prof. Dr. Claudia Wagner is the chair for Applied Computational Social Sciences at RWTH Aachen University and the Scientific Director of the department Computational Social Science at GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. Before that, she was a W1 professor for Data Science at the University Koblenz-Landau and the team lead of team Data Science at GESIS that investigates social phenomena in offline and online social networks and social media. Wagner received her Ph.D. from the Graz University of Technology in 2013.
18 October 2021, 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., online event via Zoom, the log-in details will be sent by email after the registrationThis Leibniz Media Lecture will be presented by the Digital Disinformation Hub at HBI. A short introduction will be given by Dr. Clara Iglesias Keller. The event will be held in English.
The idea that social media is populated by countless "social bots" has become widely accepted. "Social bots" are assumed to be automated social media accounts operated by malicious actors with the aim of manipulating public opinion. Alleged "social bot armies" have been reported during the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum, and, more recently, in the context of the Covid19 pandemic. In fact, however, the relevant research is based on inappropriate methods, the failure of which the researchers regularly try to conceal by withholding the raw data. The alleged "bots" from these studies are almost exclusively normal people who are misinterpreted as "bots".
Prof. Dr. Florian Gallwitz is professor of computer science and media at the Nuremberg Institute of Technology. His main areas of expertise include pattern recognition in digital media and natural language-based human-computer interaction.
Michael Kreil is specialised in the analysis and processing of very large amounts of data for over two decades. For the last 10 years he has worked as a data scientist and data journalist. Since 2020, he has been working at BR Data.
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23 June 2021, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., online event via Zoom, the log-in details will be sent by email after the registrationThis Leibniz Media Lecture will be presented by the Digital Disinformation Hub at HBI. A short introduction will be given by Dr. Clara Iglesias Keller. The event will be held in English.
To control information is to control the world. Information warfare or disinformation may seem like a new feature of our contemporary digital world. But it was just as crucial a century ago, when Germany tried to control world communications — and nearly succeeded. This talk will use that history to understand why elites try to manipulate information and what that means for research into contemporary disinformation. History, this talk suggests, is one crucial way to evaluate what is and is not new about our current moment.
Dr. Heidi Tworek is associate professor of international history and public policy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Her work examines the history and policy around media, hate speech, health communications, international organizations, and platform governance.
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30 March 2021, 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., online event via Zoom, the log-in details will be sent by email after the registrationThe online lecture will be held as part of the Hamburg branch of the Research Institute Social Cohesion. A short introduction will be given by Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt.
Digital infrastructures and the platforms that operate on them are firmly in private-sector hands. With a few exceptions, these are market-dominating companies such as Google or Amazon. Jan-Hendrik Passoth, Sociologist of Technology, explores the consequences of this dominance for competition and freedom of choice, but above all for democracy and civil society.
Jan-Hendrik Passoth is Professor of Sociology of Technology and Science & Technology Studies at the European New School of Digital Studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. He works on the role of digital infrastructures for democracy and politics, on software development as a responsible social practice, and on the possibilities of intervention in and criticism of digitization projects through critical design.
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12 November 2020, 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., online event via Zoom, the log-in details will be sent by email after the registrationThe online lecture will be held as part of the Hamburg branch of the Research Institute Social Cohesion. A short introduction will be given by Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt.
Merja Mahrt will address the differences in the integrative potential of different media from the perspective of communication science and will show the current state of research on digital fragmentation. Do "filter bubbles" and "echo chambers" really exist? To what extent can they be a threat to social cohesion? In what respect can we give the all-clear signal?
Prof. Dr. Merja Mahrt is substitute professor for communication and media science at the TU Chemnitz. In 2017, she completed her habilitation at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf with a thesis on digital fragmentation. She received her doctorate at the Universiteit van Amsterdam in 2010. Her research focuses on social functions and effects of media, especially online and offline in comparison.
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16 December 2019, 6:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.,At this event, Prof. Dr. Uwe Hasebrink, Dr. Claudia Lampert and Kira Thiel will present the results of a current representative survey on the online experiences of children and young people and invite the participants to join them in a discussion.
Children and young people use the Internet intensively and in very different ways. In doing so, they are confronted with a variety of risks. However, their risk perception and risk awareness do not always coincide with those of their parents. These are the results of the representative EU Kids Online Survey in Germany, conducted by the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI).
Prof. Dr. Uwe Hasebrink is Director of the HBI, Dr. Claudia Lampert is Senior Researcher and Kira Thiel is Junior Researcher. Together they are investigating the online experiences of children and young people in Europe as part of the joint project EU Kids Online.
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