Young people’s mediatised lives and communities in Germany: implications for parenting

Ever more media choices, face-to-face versus digital communication and parent-child conflicts: Andreas Hepp explores the figuration of German parenting in the digital age. Andreas is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Bremen, and he is part of the Communicative Figurations¹ research network

Necessary entanglements: reflections on the role of a “materialist phenomenology” in researching deep mediatization and datafication

This article unpacks the deep engagement of media and communication studies with questions of social construction and the material infrastructures on which media’s role in social construction is based. For that reason, for communication scholars, there is no contradiction between constructivism and realism, and the notion of a materialist phenomenology seems necessary and unproblematic. We take materialist phenomenology further as a concept via the notion of entanglements, drawing on Karen Barad. Then we go on to explore two contemporary debates in media and communication studies which illustrate its broader commitment to understanding the materiality of social construction: first, the broad phenomenon of deep mediatization (Couldry & Hepp, 2016) whereby all aspects of social processes now take mediated forms, and second, the particular process of data colonialism (Couldry & Mejias, 2019) whereby life itself is increasingly the object of colonial appropriation in the form of extracted data

Molo.news: Experimentally Developing a Relational Platform for Local Journalism

In this article we present a research project that experimentally develops a local news platform based on empirical research (interviews, group discussions, a survey) and a co-creation approach. What is presented here is not a typical empirical social science research study but the culmination of an entire approach that is oriented toward software development. This article’s aim is to present the project’s conceptual ideas, its interdisciplinary character, its research-based development approach and the concept for a local news platform that grew out of our preliminary work. At each level we focus on the relationality which arises in the figurations of the actors involved and their various perspectives. First, we illustrate how relationality already shaped the objective of our project and how this results in its interdisciplinary structure and research design. We then discuss this idea with reference to our empirical findings, that is, the paradox of the local public sphere: While all the actors we interviewed - those who (professionally) produce content and those who use it - have a high appreciation for the idea of a local public sphere, the mediated connection to this sphere is diminishing at the same time. We understand this as the real challenge for local journalism and the local public sphere at large, and not just for individual media organizations. This is also the reason why we argue for a fundamentally relational approach: from a theoretical point of view, it can be used to grasp the crisis of the local public; from a practical point of view, relationality represents the core characteristic of the platform in development. On this basis, we will then show how the concept of the experimental local news platform evolved through the use of a prototype as a relational boundary object. This development lead to the conceptualization of the platform molo.news which itself is characterized by a fourfold relationality. Our concluding argument is that approaching relationality in a more rigorous way could be the key to exploring the future of local journalism

The continuing lure of the mediated centre in times of deep mediatization: "Media events" and its enduring legacy

Dayan and Katz’s book “Media Events” was so crucial because it challenged the dominance of quantitative communications research focussed on measurable discrete ‘media effects’. But meanwhile new challenges have emerged which we called ‘deep mediatization’ – datafication, deeper fragmentation of the audience, and over the longerterm threats to the underlying economic viability of the large-scale integrated media producers that could put on ‘media events’. This makes it necessary to re-think the original definition of media events

An update on statistical boosting in biomedicine

Statistical boosting algorithms have triggered a lot of research during the last decade. They combine a powerful machine-learning approach with classical statistical modelling, offering various practical advantages like automated variable selection and implicit regularization of effect estimates. They are extremely flexible, as the underlying base-learners (regression functions defining the type of effect for the explanatory variables) can be combined with any kind of loss function (target function to be optimized, defining the type of regression setting). In this review article, we highlight the most recent methodological developments on statistical boosting regarding variable selection, functional regression and advanced time-to-event modelling. Additionally, we provide a short overview on relevant applications of statistical boosting in biomedicine

Investigating communication networks contextually: Qualitative network analysis as cross-media research

This article introduces the approach of contextualised communication network analysis as a qualitative procedure for researching communicative relationships realised through the media. It combines qualitative interviews on media appropriation, egocentric network maps, and media diaries. Through the triangulation of these methods of data collection, it is possible to gain a differentiated insight into the specific meanings, structures and processes of communication networks across a variety of media. The approach is illustrated using a recent study dealing with the mediatisation of community building among young people. In this context, the qualitative communication network analysis has been applied to distinguish “localists” from “centrists”, “multilocalists”, and “pluralists”. These different “horizons of mediatised communitisation” are connected to distinct communication networks. Since this involves today a variety of different media, the contextual analysis of communication networks necessarily has to imply a cross-media perspective

Communicative Figurations: Researching Cultures of Mediatization

In this article the author indicates the necessity of application of transmedia perspective in mediatization research. He understands mediatization research as a kind of analysis that investigatesthe interrelation between the change of media and communication on the one hand and culture and society on the other, refl ecting the transforming role of media within this interrelation. The author emphasises that the idea of communicative fi gurations makes a mediatization research in a transmedia perspective possible. Communicative figurations are patterns of processes of communicative interweaving that exist across various media and have a “frame” that orients communicative action and therefore the sense-making practices of this figuration

The communicative figurations of mediatized worlds: mediatization research in times of the “mediation of everything”

Quando as várias mídias em seu conjunto moldam como articulamos nossos mundossociais, precisamos de uma abordagem de pesquisa da midiatização que reflita estatransmidialidade. Para desenvolver tal abordagem, o artigo discute as tradições institucionalistae socioconstrutivista. Ambas concordam que a midiatização é o conceitoque capta a inter-relação entre as mudanças da mídia e da comunicação, e da culturae da sociedade. Esta reflexão conceitual possibilita ver a midiatização como umamudança das configurações transmidiais. Com base nesta fundamentação teórica, oartigo mostra uma operacionalização em duas frentes – como pesquisa de midiatizaçãodiacrônica e sincrônica.When various media in their entirety mark how we articulate our social worlds, we need an approach of mediatization research that reflects this transmediality. To develop such an approach, the article discusses the institutionalist and social-constructivist traditions of mediatization research. Both concur that mediatization is a concept to capture the interrelation between the change of media and communication, and the change of culture and society. Such a conceptual reflection offers the chance to view the mediatization as the change of transmedial communicative figurations. Based on this theoretical foundation, the article reflects a twofold operationalization, i.e. as diachronous and synchronous mediatization research

Transkulturalität als Perspektive: Überlegungen zu einer vergleichenden empirischen Erforschung von Medienkulturen

Most of the research on media cultures operates in a "national-territorial" frame. Media cultures are considered as national cultures and other forms of media culture (for example professional journalism cultures, diasporas, celebrity cultures etc.) are not investigated in their "deterritorial" character. But it is exactly such deterritorial forms of media culture that are gaining relevance with the ongoing pace of media globalization: they therefore have to be placed in the focus of comparative media and communication research. Starting with this consideration, the article develops a transcultural perspective on researching media cultures. Within this perspective it becomes possible to conduct comparative research on (territorial) national media cultures as well as on other (deterritorial) forms of present media cultures, as this approach moves the processes of cultural construction and articulation into the focus of analysis. To arrive at a better understanding of this approach, "media cultures" are defined as translocal phenomena in their territorial as well as their deterritorial relations. Based on this, the "semantics" of a transcultural research perspective are outlined, which then makes it possible to formulate practical principles for carrying out comparative qualitative research within this framework. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901267Una gran parte de las investigaciones de la cultura de los medios opera en un paradigma "nacional-territorial". Las culturas mediáticas son consideradas como culturas nacionales y otras formas de la cultura de los medios (por ejemplo; culturas periodísticas profesionales, diásporas, cultura de celebridades, etc.), no son investigadas en su carácter "desterritorial". Al mismo tiempo son estas formas desterritoriales de la cultura de medios que ganan cada vez más relevancia con la globalización progresiva de los medios de comunicación. Es por ello que tienen que ser puestas en el foco de una investigación de los medios y de la comunicación. Partiendo de la base de estas consideraciones, se desarrollará en el artículo una perspectiva transcultural de la investigación de las culturas de los medios. Dentro de esta perspectiva se hace posible conducir una investigación comparada de las culturas de medios nacionales (territoriales) y las formas actuales de cultura de los medios (desterritoriales); mientras que este enfoque lleva al proceso de la construcción cultural y a la articulación hasta el centro de atención del análisis. Para facilitar un mejor entendimiento de este enfoque, las "culturas de medios" son definidas como fenómenos translocales tanto en sus relaciones territoriales como en las desterritoriales. Partiendo de esta base, se esboza la "semántica" de una perspectiva comparada transcultural, lo que hará posible que se puedan formular los principios prácticos para realizar nuestra investigación comparada, cualitativa y transcultural. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901267Ein Großteil der Forschung zu Medienkultur operiert in einem "national-territorialen" Paradigma: Medienkulturen werden als nationale Kulturen betrachtet und deterritorialisierte Formen von Medienkultur (beispielsweise professionelle Journalismuskulturen, Diasporas, Celebrity-Kulturen, usw.) werden nicht in ihrem "deterritorialen" Charakter untersucht. Gleichzeitig sind es gerade solche deterritorialen Formen von Medienkultur, die mit der fortschreitenden Globalisierung der Medienkommunikation an Relevanz gewinnen. Deswegen müssen diese in den Fokus einer vergleichenden Medien- und Kommunikationsforschung gerückt werden. Ausgehend von diesen Überlegungen wird in dem Artikel eine transkulturelle Perspektive der Erforschung von Medienkulturen entwickelt. Innerhalb dieser Perspektive wird es möglich, vergleichende Forschung zu (territorialen) nationalen Medienkulturen und anderen (deterritorialen) Formen gegenwärtiger Medienkulturen zu realisieren, indem der Prozess der kulturellen Konstruktion und Artikulation in den Fokus der Analyse gerückt wird. Um ein besseres Verständnis dieses Ansatzes zu ermöglichen, werden Medienkulturen als translokale Phänomene sowohl in ihren territorialen als auch deterritorialen Bezügen gefasst. Ausgehend hiervon wird die "Semantik" einer transkulturellen Vergleichsperspektive dargelegt, was es dann möglich macht, praktische Prinzipien zur Durchführung einer transkulturell vergleichenden qualitativen Forschung zu formulieren. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090126