Media participation and digital cultures
Research group “Media and Participation” based at the University of Konstanz is to receive further funding
The German Research Foundation (DFG) continues to fund the project “Media and Participation. Between Demand and Entitlement”, which is carried out by researchers from the University of Konstanz, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Universität Hamburg and Zurich University of the Arts. Professor Beate Ochsner, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Konstanz, will continue as the principal speaker of the research unit. Refocusing their joint efforts over the next three years, the team composed of experts from the Department of Literature with Art and Media Studies and the other participating institutions will complete five sub-projects to study media-cultural interactions and to formulate a theory of media participation. The DFG has agreed to provide funding in the amount of approximately 1.9 million euros.
Using the concept of media participation, the research group challenges a classic binary understanding of access and inclusion to reveal the complexities and intricacies involved in its underlying logic, especially with regard to the temporalities, the technological interconnectivity and the dynamics of community building practices at stake. The research carried out during the initial funding phase will be augmented by further case studies analysing concrete historical, political, infrastructural and transcultural dimensions: “Our research continues to be driven by the conviction that, as a key concept of contemporary digital culture, media participation, with its complex processual structures and varieties, should be given a tangible theoretical foundation that goes well beyond the study of individual or collective media usage”, explains Professor Beate Ochsner, speaker of the “Media and Participation” research unit.
Headquartered in Konstanz, the project is based on interdisciplinary collaboration between several institutions and academic disciplines: Divided into five sub-projects, it will combine insights from media history, media ethnology and aesthetics, sociology as well as art theory. Sub-projects two and three, led by Professor Beate Ochsner and Professor Isabell Otto, respectively, are based at the University of Konstanz and address the issue of media participation in digital cultures. Specific case studies include app configurations for users with hearing and/or visual impairments as well as smartphone communities. The other three sub-projects place media participation in the context of transformations of power, capital, subjectivity and the common, the temporality of streaming services as well as the phenomenon of critique in militant research and knowledge practices.
Facts:
- Media studies research unit “Media and Participation” led by Beate Ochsner, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Konstanz, is to receive funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for an additional three years.
- The project “Media and Participation. Between Demand and Entitlement” is carried out in collaboration with researchers from Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Universität Hamburg and Zurich University of the Arts.
- The project is divided into five sub-projects; the group is represented by media scholar Professor Beate Ochsner from the University of Konstanz, who is its speaker.
- Over the next three years, the research group will have access to funding in the amount of approx. 1.9 million euros.