Lecture by Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp at Esslingen University

ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp will give a lecture on Friday, 20.09.2024, at the conference “Norbert Elias in Practice – From Human Science to Applied Science” at Esslingen University.

The lecture is entitled “Towards a Digital Society: Deep Mediatization and the Refiguration of Society”/”Figurationen digitaler Zukünfte – oder: Warum wir eine Medien- und Kommunikationsforschung der Emergenz brauchen”.

Abstract

It is a commonplace that with the spread of digital media and their infrastructures, with the advancing datafication and automation of communication, our societies are undergoing lasting changes. The more difficult question is: How can we adequately grasp this transformation?

Taking up this question in my presentation, I describe this transformation as a deep mediatization of society. Along with this goes a comprehensive “refiguration” of communities, organizations, and other social entities ({Hepp, 2020, #45481}). Against this background, I will first discuss what exactly is meant by deep mediatization and why the concept of “figuration” ({Elias, 1978, #52858}) helps to understand such media- and communication-related transformation processes. On this basis, I will then discuss in more detail three theses that stand for moments of this transformation: First, deep mediatization is driven—alongside state institutions and tech companies—by ‘pioneer communities’ that are imagining our digital futures and thereby having a significant impact. Second, with deep mediatization, not only are existing figurations changing, entirely new ones are emerging—and it is these above all that pose social challenges. And third, an important characteristic of deep mediatization is the ‘activation’ of the media ensemble by ‘communicative AI’, which has the potential to once again fundamentally change social construction.