Prototypes of social cohesion

• Duration: 2025 – 2026
• Project lead: Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp

Project management: Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp (ZeMKI, University of Bremen), Prof. Dr. Wiebke Loosen (Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans Bredow Institute (HBI), Hamburg)

Participating institutions: ZeMKI, University of Bremen, Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans Bredow Institute (HBI), Hamburg

Funding: Research Institute Social Cohesion (RISC)

Facebook, X and TikTok promote radicalization and hate speech. Digital platforms and social media are therefore typically seen as problems when it comes to social cohesion. In contrast, this work package focuses on pioneer communities and alternative platform models. It examines the potential that digital platforms can have for social cohesion.

We are researching groups from the fields of “civic hacking”, “data activism”, “platform cooperativism” and “future journalism” that deal with digital media and infrastructures. What do these groups criticize about the existing use and regulation of digital technologies? What prototypical concepts are they developing for using digital platforms for social cohesion? What ideas of possible futures do they have?

The study focuses on the imaginations of pioneer communities, their practices and discourses. These prototypes of mediatized communitization have changed media practices and forms of participation more than almost any other group. Ideas of communitization were imagined in them long before they were technologically feasible. Many social media technologies first emerged from them.

The work package is based on an interdisciplinary media ethnographic design. By comparing Europe and the USA, we reconstruct the organizational models of the alternative platforms. In doing so, we draw on interviews, observations of events and internal documents. In a second step, we work out the associated ideas of social cohesion and visions of the future. In a third step, we conduct transfer-oriented future workshops with citizens in which the practical everyday potential of such visions of the future are discussed. We use art-based methods to test innovative methodological approaches. The aim is to pass on knowledge about innovative ideas of cohesion and to encourage people to participate in alternative platform models.