ZeMKI Lab Platform Governance, Media and Technology The Lab “Platform Governance, Media and Technology” examines the interactions between regulation, discourses and the development of technologies and business models. Digital platforms and new infrastructures, algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI) and data are currently fundamentally (re)organising communication, the public sphere and society. At the same time, these media, their technologies and economic structures are themselves (still) in a process of formation that is shaped by governance, regulation and public debate. How should platforms like Facebook and YouTube deal with disinformation campaigns and hate speech? What challenges does the increasing use of automation and AI bring? And how do public debates and perceptions of problems in turn impact back on regulation and technology development? We explore these questions with a focus on three areas of work: (1) Platform Governance and Economics; (2) Institutionalisation of AI – Regulation, Discourses, Technology; (3) Automation Regulation and Communication. In several large international third-party funded projects on these topics, funded by the DFG, the EU’s H2020 framework programme, the BMBF, the Volkswagen Foundation and the Federal Agency for Civic Education (BpB), we collaborate with partners in France, UK, Canada, Switzerland, and Italy. In empirical studies, the Lab integrates computational methods and qualitative approaches. We attach great importance to the development of open data infrastructures (Platform Governance Archive), especially in the notoriously non-transparent research field of platform governance. previous 12 next NewsZeMKI-News Dr. Daria Dergacheva at ECREA’s 2024 pre-conference in September ZeMKI member Dr. Daria Dergacheva will be presenting at ECREA’s 2024 pre-conference “The Informational Influence of Autocracies Abroad” in Ljublyana, Slovenia, on September 23rd 2024. 22. July 2024 NewsPublicationZeMKI-News New Article: „How Negative Media Coverage Impacts Platform Governance“ by Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach An important publication from the Lab’s own Dr. Prof. Christian Katzenbach in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Zurich as well as the Humboldt University of Berlin; Emma Hoes, K. Jonathan Klüser, Felix Hamborg, Meysam Alizadeh, Mael Kubli and Led by Nahema Marchal. “How Negative Media Coverage Impacts Platform Governance”. The empirical research was (…) 19. July 2024 EventsNewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI member Dr. Dennis Redeker gives lecture on platform regulation at the Haus der Wissenschaft On 13 July 2024, Dr. Dennis Redeker, ZeMKI member and postdoc in the "Platform Governance, Media, and Technology Lab" (Prof. Dr. Katzenbach), spoke about social media platforms and their regulation as part of the "Wissen um 11 (Knowledge at 11)" lecture series at the Haus der Wissenschaft in Bremen. 15. July 2024 NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI member Dr. Viejo Otero presenting at the SMSociety conference in London, July 17th. ZeMKI member Dr. Paloma Viejo Otero will be presenting at the Social Media and Society Conference (#SMSociety) in London on July 17th. Dr. Viejo Otero will present her paper titled "'We do not marshal your feed': How AltTech platforms conceptualize safety". 15. July 2024 NewsZeMKI-News New DFG Research Unit on the automation of societal communication The Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen, together with the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) in Hamburg and other research institutions in Graz and Vienna, has successfully acquired a Research Unit from the German Research Foundation (DFG) on the topic of "Communicative Artificial Intelligence (ComAI)”. 3. July 2024 EventsNewsZeMKI-News Online Talk Series (11): Friederike Quint & Yannis Theocharis: 'Does the Community Understand the Community Guidelines?' 9. Juli 2024, 13:00 – 14:00 Uhr: In the next edition of our online talk series "Behind the Scenes - Conversations on Empirical Platform Governance Research", Friederike Quint and Yannis Theocharis will talk about the role of community guidelines on social media platforms for users when evaluating potentially harmful content. 26. June 2024 NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI Member Dennis Redeker speaks at the European Dialogue on Internet Governance 2024 Dr. Dennis Redeker presented early results from the REMIT Horizon Europe research project at the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) 2024. 20. June 2024 EventsNewsZeMKI-News Invitation to the Workshop 'The Playground: A Program on Taking Play Seriously in Digital Culture' The Platform Governance Media and Technology Lab (PGMT), Radical Data and the cooperative kintsugi-lab cordinally invite to participate at a two day workshop. 19. June 2024 NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI goes ICA This year's annual conference of the International Communications Association (ICA) will take place in Goald Cost, Australia, from June 20 to 24. The ZeMKI will be represented with numerous contributions and ZeMKI members will present research at the institute. 7. June 2024 News PGMT Lab’s presence at ICA 2024 The International Communications Association (ICA) will take place on its 74th year in Gold Cost, Australia, from June 20 to 24. The ZeMKI will be represented with numerous contributions to the event and the Platform Governance Media and Technology Lab (PGMT) members are set to contribute with their research. To kick off the ZeMKI’s presence (…) 6. June 2024 EventsNewsZeMKI-News Join talk by Robert Gorwa: Qualitative Methods for Regulatory Episodes:Examining Policy Development in the Context of Global Platform Regulation Time and Date: June 18, 2024, 3-4 pm (CET) Join ONLINE via ZOOM (check updates for the link) We are excited to announce the tenth installment of the ongoing Online Talk Series “Behind the Scenes- Conversations on Empirical Platform Governance Platform Regulation”. This session, led by postdoctoral researcher Robert Gorwa, explores the strategy he developed (…) 6. June 2024 NewsZeMKI-News Talk on AI Imaginaries of Stakeholders at Conference in Zurich Tomorrow June 5th, lab members Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach and Vanessa Richter are going to present a talk on “Negotiating AI as a sociotechnical phenomenon: Competing imaginaries of AI by stakeholders in the US, China, and Germany” the content of which, addresses producers and proponents of AI-related communication, based on interviews with AI experts in (…) 5. June 2024 EventsNewsZeMKI-News ‘Plat-formation: The Formation of Platforms and Their Governance’ - lecture by Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach at the University of Sheffield on Thursday ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach will give a lecture on ‘Plat-formation: The Formation of Platforms and Their Governance’ at the University of Sheffield on Thursday, the 30th of May. Abstract How do social media platforms become what they are, how do they change and what is the role of governance in this process? Platforms (…) 28. May 2024 NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI member Dennis Redeker organized conference roundtable on global digital policy ZeMKI member Dr. Dennis Redeker, member of the Lab "Platform Governance, Media and Technology", organized a roundtable on "Digital Governance between Multistakeholderism and Multilateralism" as part of the first conference of the EU Horizon Europe research project "Reignite Multilateralism via Technology" (REMIT). The conference took place on May 16 and 17, 2024 at KU Leuven and brought together academics with a policy audience from different areas of European and global technology policy. 22. May 2024 EventsNewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI member Dr. Daria Dergacheva is speaking at CPDP.ai 2024 conference today in Brussels ZeMKI member Dr. Daria Dergacheva is speaking at CPDP.ai 2024 conference in Brussels today, 22 May 2024. She is a panelist at the panel organized by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), on “The Impact of Online Content Moderation and Curation on Fundamental Rights: How to Assess, Mitigate and Monitor Systemic Risks on Online (…) 22. May 2024 NewsPublication ‘Unpacking the US TikTok ban’ - ZeMKI member Rebecca Scharlach writes about the proposed TikTok ban in the US ‘Unpacking the US TikTok ban’ Can the US government really ban TikTok? Do they really want to do that? In her blog post, ZeMKI member Rebecca Scharlach summarises the events that lead to the proposed TikTok ban in the United States, discusses the general issues that TikTok has been facing, explains the relevance of the First Amendment (…) 20. May 2024 NewsZeMKI-News Erasmus+ "Blended-Intensive Programme" on global digital governance hosted at ZeMKI In late April 2024, ZeMKI and the University of Bremen, hosted their first-ever Erasmus+ “blended-intensive programme” (BIP). Around thirty students and half a dozen instructors from eight universities across Europe participated in a week-long workshop designed under the theme “Digital Constitutionalism and the UN Global Digital Compact”. This in-person phase of the blended-intensive format is flanked by (…) 12. May 2024 EventsNews Mark Malone will present on Monday 29th as part of the “Equality, Wellbeing and Platform Governance” Project As part of her YUFE research project on Equality, Wellbeing and Platform Governance, fellow Dr Paloma Viejo has invited researcher and activist Mark Malone who will present on Monday 29th April at 14:00hs in room SFG 1040 a talk about the emergence of reactionary and far right activity in Ireland, specifically on themes of anti-migrant, (…) 23. April 2024 EventsNewsZeMKI-News REMIT Roundtable on the UN Global Digital Compact On Thursday, April 25, 2024, a public roundtable on the United Nations Global Digital Compact will take place at 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the House of Science in Bremen. The Global Digital Compact is currently being negotiated by the UN member states; a first draft text was published in early April. The roundtable is (…) 19. April 2024 NewsPublicationZeMKI-News New research article: Imperfect Automation and the Human Fix Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach and Dr. Paloma Viejo Otero from the “Platform Governance, Media and Technology” Lab at the University of Bremen in collaboration with Leipzig University member Prof. Dr. Christian Pentzold have published a new open access article in the Human-Machine Communication Journal titled: “Smoothing Out Smart Tech’s Rough Edges: Imperfect Automation and the (…) 16. April 2024 NewsZeMKI-News “Science Comics” Exhibition opens at Haus der Wissenschaft ZeMKI member Dr. Dennis Redeker (member of the Platform Governance, Media, and Technology Lab) organizes an exhibition of science comics at the Haus der Wissenschaft in Bremen. The communication of scientific methods and findings to the general public has been breaking new ground for some years now. This now includes media formats that were previously (…) 16. April 2024 NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI Visiting Research Fellows 2024 This year, the ZeMKI welcomes a total of four Visiting Research Fellows as part of its Visiting Researcher Program. From over 85 applications, the steering committee of the Center for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen selected five researchers who will work together with two ZeMKI labs in interdisciplinary research for (…) 12. April 2024 EventsNews Behind the Scenes Online Talk Series (Session 9) with Eugenia Siapera: Civil Society Organisations (CSO) as Platform Governance Actors Next week, Eugenia Siapera & Elizabeth Farries will talk about “CSOs as Platform Governance Actors” as part of the Online Talk Series “Behind the Scenes – Conversations on Empirical Platform Governance Research. Time and Date: April 16, 2024, 3-4 pm (CET) About the Series This talk is part of the series Behind the Scenes – (…) 10. April 2024 NewsZeMKI-News Disinformation and AI-generated Fakes - will the Digital Services Act save the European Elections? Panel Discussion in Brussels with Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach travels to the Representation of the State of Lower Saxony to the European Union in Brussels. He is a speaker in a panel discussion on the role of platforms in the 2024 European elections. The event will take place on April 09, 2024 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. (…) 8. April 2024 previous 12 next
NewsZeMKI-News Dr. Daria Dergacheva at ECREA’s 2024 pre-conference in September ZeMKI member Dr. Daria Dergacheva will be presenting at ECREA’s 2024 pre-conference “The Informational Influence of Autocracies Abroad” in Ljublyana, Slovenia, on September 23rd 2024. 22. July 2024
NewsPublicationZeMKI-News New Article: „How Negative Media Coverage Impacts Platform Governance“ by Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach An important publication from the Lab’s own Dr. Prof. Christian Katzenbach in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Zurich as well as the Humboldt University of Berlin; Emma Hoes, K. Jonathan Klüser, Felix Hamborg, Meysam Alizadeh, Mael Kubli and Led by Nahema Marchal. “How Negative Media Coverage Impacts Platform Governance”. The empirical research was (…) 19. July 2024
EventsNewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI member Dr. Dennis Redeker gives lecture on platform regulation at the Haus der Wissenschaft On 13 July 2024, Dr. Dennis Redeker, ZeMKI member and postdoc in the "Platform Governance, Media, and Technology Lab" (Prof. Dr. Katzenbach), spoke about social media platforms and their regulation as part of the "Wissen um 11 (Knowledge at 11)" lecture series at the Haus der Wissenschaft in Bremen. 15. July 2024
NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI member Dr. Viejo Otero presenting at the SMSociety conference in London, July 17th. ZeMKI member Dr. Paloma Viejo Otero will be presenting at the Social Media and Society Conference (#SMSociety) in London on July 17th. Dr. Viejo Otero will present her paper titled "'We do not marshal your feed': How AltTech platforms conceptualize safety". 15. July 2024
NewsZeMKI-News New DFG Research Unit on the automation of societal communication The Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen, together with the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) in Hamburg and other research institutions in Graz and Vienna, has successfully acquired a Research Unit from the German Research Foundation (DFG) on the topic of "Communicative Artificial Intelligence (ComAI)”. 3. July 2024
EventsNewsZeMKI-News Online Talk Series (11): Friederike Quint & Yannis Theocharis: 'Does the Community Understand the Community Guidelines?' 9. Juli 2024, 13:00 – 14:00 Uhr: In the next edition of our online talk series "Behind the Scenes - Conversations on Empirical Platform Governance Research", Friederike Quint and Yannis Theocharis will talk about the role of community guidelines on social media platforms for users when evaluating potentially harmful content. 26. June 2024
NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI Member Dennis Redeker speaks at the European Dialogue on Internet Governance 2024 Dr. Dennis Redeker presented early results from the REMIT Horizon Europe research project at the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) 2024. 20. June 2024
EventsNewsZeMKI-News Invitation to the Workshop 'The Playground: A Program on Taking Play Seriously in Digital Culture' The Platform Governance Media and Technology Lab (PGMT), Radical Data and the cooperative kintsugi-lab cordinally invite to participate at a two day workshop. 19. June 2024
NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI goes ICA This year's annual conference of the International Communications Association (ICA) will take place in Goald Cost, Australia, from June 20 to 24. The ZeMKI will be represented with numerous contributions and ZeMKI members will present research at the institute. 7. June 2024
News PGMT Lab’s presence at ICA 2024 The International Communications Association (ICA) will take place on its 74th year in Gold Cost, Australia, from June 20 to 24. The ZeMKI will be represented with numerous contributions to the event and the Platform Governance Media and Technology Lab (PGMT) members are set to contribute with their research. To kick off the ZeMKI’s presence (…) 6. June 2024
EventsNewsZeMKI-News Join talk by Robert Gorwa: Qualitative Methods for Regulatory Episodes:Examining Policy Development in the Context of Global Platform Regulation Time and Date: June 18, 2024, 3-4 pm (CET) Join ONLINE via ZOOM (check updates for the link) We are excited to announce the tenth installment of the ongoing Online Talk Series “Behind the Scenes- Conversations on Empirical Platform Governance Platform Regulation”. This session, led by postdoctoral researcher Robert Gorwa, explores the strategy he developed (…) 6. June 2024
NewsZeMKI-News Talk on AI Imaginaries of Stakeholders at Conference in Zurich Tomorrow June 5th, lab members Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach and Vanessa Richter are going to present a talk on “Negotiating AI as a sociotechnical phenomenon: Competing imaginaries of AI by stakeholders in the US, China, and Germany” the content of which, addresses producers and proponents of AI-related communication, based on interviews with AI experts in (…) 5. June 2024
EventsNewsZeMKI-News ‘Plat-formation: The Formation of Platforms and Their Governance’ - lecture by Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach at the University of Sheffield on Thursday ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach will give a lecture on ‘Plat-formation: The Formation of Platforms and Their Governance’ at the University of Sheffield on Thursday, the 30th of May. Abstract How do social media platforms become what they are, how do they change and what is the role of governance in this process? Platforms (…) 28. May 2024
NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI member Dennis Redeker organized conference roundtable on global digital policy ZeMKI member Dr. Dennis Redeker, member of the Lab "Platform Governance, Media and Technology", organized a roundtable on "Digital Governance between Multistakeholderism and Multilateralism" as part of the first conference of the EU Horizon Europe research project "Reignite Multilateralism via Technology" (REMIT). The conference took place on May 16 and 17, 2024 at KU Leuven and brought together academics with a policy audience from different areas of European and global technology policy. 22. May 2024
EventsNewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI member Dr. Daria Dergacheva is speaking at CPDP.ai 2024 conference today in Brussels ZeMKI member Dr. Daria Dergacheva is speaking at CPDP.ai 2024 conference in Brussels today, 22 May 2024. She is a panelist at the panel organized by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), on “The Impact of Online Content Moderation and Curation on Fundamental Rights: How to Assess, Mitigate and Monitor Systemic Risks on Online (…) 22. May 2024
NewsPublication ‘Unpacking the US TikTok ban’ - ZeMKI member Rebecca Scharlach writes about the proposed TikTok ban in the US ‘Unpacking the US TikTok ban’ Can the US government really ban TikTok? Do they really want to do that? In her blog post, ZeMKI member Rebecca Scharlach summarises the events that lead to the proposed TikTok ban in the United States, discusses the general issues that TikTok has been facing, explains the relevance of the First Amendment (…) 20. May 2024
NewsZeMKI-News Erasmus+ "Blended-Intensive Programme" on global digital governance hosted at ZeMKI In late April 2024, ZeMKI and the University of Bremen, hosted their first-ever Erasmus+ “blended-intensive programme” (BIP). Around thirty students and half a dozen instructors from eight universities across Europe participated in a week-long workshop designed under the theme “Digital Constitutionalism and the UN Global Digital Compact”. This in-person phase of the blended-intensive format is flanked by (…) 12. May 2024
EventsNews Mark Malone will present on Monday 29th as part of the “Equality, Wellbeing and Platform Governance” Project As part of her YUFE research project on Equality, Wellbeing and Platform Governance, fellow Dr Paloma Viejo has invited researcher and activist Mark Malone who will present on Monday 29th April at 14:00hs in room SFG 1040 a talk about the emergence of reactionary and far right activity in Ireland, specifically on themes of anti-migrant, (…) 23. April 2024
EventsNewsZeMKI-News REMIT Roundtable on the UN Global Digital Compact On Thursday, April 25, 2024, a public roundtable on the United Nations Global Digital Compact will take place at 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the House of Science in Bremen. The Global Digital Compact is currently being negotiated by the UN member states; a first draft text was published in early April. The roundtable is (…) 19. April 2024
NewsPublicationZeMKI-News New research article: Imperfect Automation and the Human Fix Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach and Dr. Paloma Viejo Otero from the “Platform Governance, Media and Technology” Lab at the University of Bremen in collaboration with Leipzig University member Prof. Dr. Christian Pentzold have published a new open access article in the Human-Machine Communication Journal titled: “Smoothing Out Smart Tech’s Rough Edges: Imperfect Automation and the (…) 16. April 2024
NewsZeMKI-News “Science Comics” Exhibition opens at Haus der Wissenschaft ZeMKI member Dr. Dennis Redeker (member of the Platform Governance, Media, and Technology Lab) organizes an exhibition of science comics at the Haus der Wissenschaft in Bremen. The communication of scientific methods and findings to the general public has been breaking new ground for some years now. This now includes media formats that were previously (…) 16. April 2024
NewsZeMKI-News ZeMKI Visiting Research Fellows 2024 This year, the ZeMKI welcomes a total of four Visiting Research Fellows as part of its Visiting Researcher Program. From over 85 applications, the steering committee of the Center for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen selected five researchers who will work together with two ZeMKI labs in interdisciplinary research for (…) 12. April 2024
EventsNews Behind the Scenes Online Talk Series (Session 9) with Eugenia Siapera: Civil Society Organisations (CSO) as Platform Governance Actors Next week, Eugenia Siapera & Elizabeth Farries will talk about “CSOs as Platform Governance Actors” as part of the Online Talk Series “Behind the Scenes – Conversations on Empirical Platform Governance Research. Time and Date: April 16, 2024, 3-4 pm (CET) About the Series This talk is part of the series Behind the Scenes – (…) 10. April 2024
NewsZeMKI-News Disinformation and AI-generated Fakes - will the Digital Services Act save the European Elections? Panel Discussion in Brussels with Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach travels to the Representation of the State of Lower Saxony to the European Union in Brussels. He is a speaker in a panel discussion on the role of platforms in the 2024 European elections. The event will take place on April 09, 2024 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. (…) 8. April 2024