Priority research program "Mediatized Worlds" kicks off into the third funding period successfully

08.10.2014

Third funding period starts 1 October 2014 with twelve projects. Funding of the program by the DFG adds up to 1,2 million euros.

Digital media such as smartphones, social network sites and instant messaging apps are constant companions in our everyday lives. Be it at home, at work, or on the go – the new media shape communication, interpersonal relationships and leisure activities.

Some examples: Living together in couple households changes when new media are moving into the homes. Not only young people are extensively interconnected via Facebook, WhatsApp & Co. Hobby developers create new game worlds for themselves and others through modifications of level structures, avatars, sounds or basic rules – so-called "modding" – of a computer game. In the freeskiing-scene "scopic media" such as videotaping and helmet cams are just as self-evident as skis and skiboots. And also politics are subject to media change: microblogging services such as Twitter with more than one million active users throughout Germany are already altering democratic processes and political participation. But can election campaigning really be carried out with 140 characters? And what about political information-seeking and involvement of young people?

Third funding period of the priority program starts 1 October

The priority research program "Mediatized Worlds", funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), has been dealing with these and other questions for four years. On 1 October 2014 the third funding period starts with twelve projects at different universities in the German-speaking area. For another two years, the DFG is funding the priority program with an overall amount of 1,2 million euros. The coordination of the entire priority program in the third funding period continues to be located at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen under the direction of Prof. Dr. Friedrich Krotz.

Twelve projects explore different aspects of mediatization in the next two years

"Mediatization" indicates the diffusion of all areas of life with media. The priority program explores by means of different "mediatized worlds" – for example politics, the home, young people's lifeworlds and computer game communities –, how everyday life and institutions, culture and society are transforming by the fact that more and more people are increasingly communicating with and acting in relation to media.

The following projects are part of the DFG-funded priority research program "Mediatized Worlds" in the third funding period:

• Coordinating Project, project leader is Prof. Dr. Friedrich Krotz (University of Bremen)

Research Field "Action and Interaction Forms"

• The Mediatization of Gambling III. The Example of Small Investors, project leader is Prof. Dr. Ronald Hitzler (TU Dortmund)
• Scopic Media: Synthetic Actors, Institutions and Differentiation of Synthetic Situations, project leader is Prof. Dr. Karin Knorr Cetina (University of Konstanz)
• Mediatized Media Reception, project leader is Prof. Dr. Udo Göttlich (Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen)
• Modding and Editor-Games. Participative Practices of Mediatized Worlds, project leader is Jun.-Prof. Dr. Benjamin Beil (University of Cologne)
• Mediatization of Parent-Child Relationships in Transnational Migration, project leader is Prof. Dr. Heike Greschke (University of Gießen)

Research Field "Networks"

• The Communicative Construction of Communitization within Mediatized Worlds: Horizons and Challenges of Middle Ager’s Mediatized Community Building in Media Generational Comparison, project leader is Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp (University of Bremen)
• The Mediatized Home III: Contrasting Household Studies on Drivers of Dynamic Mediatization, project leader is Prof. Dr. Jutta Röser (University of Münster)
• Political Deliberation on the Internet: Forms and Functions of Digital Discourse Based on the Microblogging System Twitter, project leader is Prof. Dr. Caja Thimm (University of Bonn)

Research Field "Contexts"

• Mediatization as a Business Model III: Counter-Strategies and Turning Points in the Mediatization Process, project leader is Prof. Dr. Michaela Pfadenhauer (University of Vienna)
• The Mediatization of German Forensics: Activated Audience and Private Entrepreneurs as Stakeholders in the Market of Forensics, project leader is Prof. Dr. Jo Reichertz (University of Duisburg-Essen)
• The Media Practice of Parliamentary Discourses: Ethnographic Comparisons of the Production and Use of Political Positions, project leader is Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheffer (University of Frankfurt/Main)

The flyer of the third funding period can be downloaded here.