The Challenges of Privacy, Security and Surveillance in the new emerging Communications Landscape

• Duration: 2014 – 2015
• Project lead: Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp

Project management: Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp

Project staff: Johanna Möller, Anne Mollen

Research association/cooperation: University of Tampere, Finland

Funding institution: Helsingin Sanomat Foundation

The political implications of media technologies have been discussed by society as a whole since the revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden about the spying activities of the NSA, GCHQ and, not least, the BND. Questions of data protection and media literacy, informational self-determination and the weighing up of security concerns are relevant for all citizens in the digital society. Accordingly, research in communication and media studies is confronted with questions about the scope of this development as well as the discussion about the political, economic and social opportunities and risks of comprehensive data collection. The ZeMKI is involved in a transnational research network that investigates such questions using the example of the NSA scandal.

On the initiative of Risto Kunelius (University of Tampere, Finland), members of the ZeMKI and other international communication and media scholars formed a research network in London in spring 2014. The initial aim was to conduct a transnational comparative study of reporting in response to Edward Snowden’s revelations since June 2013. This study was funded by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation (duration: 04/2014 to 12/2015). A volume with the central results of this study and other topic- and country-specific individual studies will be published in fall 2016 in a series by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

The ZeMKI is represented in the network by Johanna Möller and Anne Mollen. Other members are Risto Kunelius (speaker, Tampere), Olivier Baisnée (Toulouse), Elisabeth Eide (Oslo), Heikki Heikkilä (Tampere), Adrienne Russell (Denver), Damian Tambini (London), Silvio Wairbord (Washington), Hayian Wang (Hong Kong) and Dmitry Yagodin (Tampere).

Lectures

Möller, Johanna/Mollen, Anne (2014): “Privacy, Security and Surveillance in the German reporting on the NSA scandal”, presentation at the workshop “Multi-method-designs in transnational and transcultural comparative research”, 20-22.11.2014, Bremen.

Möller, Johanna/Mollen, Anne (2015): “Politicizing media technologies ? Framing ‘technology’ withon the German NSA press coverage”, presentation at the conference “Surveillance and Citizenship”, 18-19.06.2015, Cardiff.

Important publications

Möller, Johanna/Mollen, Anne (2016): ‘Please stay frustrated!’ – The politicization of media technologies in the German NSA debate”, In: Kunelius, Risto/Heikkilä, Heikki/Russel, Adrienne/Yagodin,Dmitry (eds.) (2016): “The prism of the NSA”, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism: Oxford.