Internet & Society

The internet and mobile communications are profoundly changing modern societies. The IKMZ focus «Internet & Society» explores these changes, their conditions and effects. How is people’s communication behavior changing – and what does that mean for their privacy, their data, their well-being? What skills will media users need in the future? What role do technologies such as algorithms play in societal communication? How is journalism changing under online conditions? How do we regulate globally-operating media and technology companies? And to what extent do these changes differ from earlier communication revolutions?

In the IKMZ focus «Internet & Society», specific foci are:

• the technological, economic, social and political conditions of the media changes as well as the convergent media and telecommunications industry,
• internet governance and internet economics,
• the online communication of different organizations within society such as companies, political players, NGOs or universities,
• the use of the internet and social media by individuals,
• effects that reach from individual changes in behavior to social inequalities.

«Internet & Society» is focused on by the IKMZ divisions Internet Use & Society, Science Communication, Media Change & Innovation and Media Socialization & Media Literacy.