Ad-hoc Group at the DGS Congress 2025

The Lab for Digital Communication and Information Diversity participated in the 42nd Congress of the German Sociological Association “Transitions” (22–26 September 2025, University of Duisburg-Essen) by convening an ad-hoc group. Under the title “Digital Discourse Transitions and Algorithmic Power/Knowledge Regimes. Analyses of the Digital Reordering of Discourses”, the group explored current shifts in the organization and circulation of societal discourses in the context of digitalization.

The discussions focused on the impact of digital mediated logics on visibility, participation, and power relations in digital publics, as well as on methodological innovations for sociological discourse research. In addition to theoretical reflections on emerging discursive orders, the group also addressed the potentials and limitations of digital and AI-based analytical approaches.

The contributions ranged from methodological considerations of interpretive discourse analysis (Lilli Alexa Braunisch, TU Berlin) to new mixed-methods approaches such as “data interviews” (Miira Hill, University of Bremen), and LLM-based argument mining applied to the nuclear energy discourse on Twitter (Cornelia Fedtke, HSU Hamburg, and Gregor Wiedemann, HBI). Further talks examined algorithmic imagination (Sezgin Sönmez, TU Berlin) and the affective dynamics of political discourse on social media (Gabriel Malli, FH JOANNEUM Graz).

The group was organised by Lilli Braunisch (TU Berlin), Miira Hill (University of Bremen), Reiner Keller (University of Augsburg), and Amira Malik (University of Augsburg).