Media and Communication

All areas of life depend more and more on media in heavily mediatised societies. The Institute of Social Studies explores and analyses phenomena related to media and communication on an individual, organisational and societal level. Some of the topics that interest our interdisciplinary research community are professional journalism; professional communication; the working patterns and resilience of memory institutions; datafication and technological risks; opportunities and risks of social media; organisational culture; media politics and information law; information, media and digital competences; information clutter and informational influence; cybercrime as well as research and crisis communication. We also engage in both descriptive and analytical fundamental research, including developing new digital methods.

Research Field Description

The Institute of Social Studies predominantly engages in information, data and significance in the Media and Communication field. Our main competence is diverse, independent and critical analysis. Our aim is to develop common ways of meaning-making in a democratic society. We will examine the history, content, creative processes, impact and audiences of media as well as memory institutions and their work methods, interpersonal communication processes, information seeking behaviour, organisational communication and meaning-making in shared information fields.

Our research in the Media and Communication field in 2022 can be divided into three main categories. When it comes to the datafication and digitalisation of institutions, we are interested in digital competences, AI, profiling and the datafication of education. We examine the roles of journalists and any tensions related to them, minority media and the European media landscape and audience in aid of journalism that supports professional democracy. In order to have a skilled and media competent population, we analyse digitalised childhood, media competences of the youth, the work patterns of memory institutions in the context of an accelerating social era, the media use of the Russian population and cybercrime during the pandemic.

Besides gaining new high-quality expert knowledge, we also find it important to participate in society. This includes both the mediation of our finds to society and the stimulation of public discussion culture. We involve students from the BA level in our research projects and studies in order to foster a new generation of researchers.

Main fields of research

• Journalism and social media
• Media, information and digital competences
• Political communication
• Media politics
• Scientific communication
• Information education and librarianship