Media

At its best, journalism helps create order in a chaotic world and transforms the great course of events into digestible bites. While currently facing an almost unprecedented challenge via digitisation and the platform economy: the crisis of the public and objectivity. Of “penmen” who embellish their storylines. Of documentation departments made redundant. Of open hostility to the “lying press” and new tech tools for manipulating pictures, voices and even facts.

On the plus side, there are global cooperation networks, investigative journalism success stories, the the joining together of data tracks and exciting narratives, successfully crowd-funded publishers—all of which has only become possible through social and digital networks.

Our perception of the world is almost always conveyed via the media, which is why we of course give center stage to the guild of writers, bloggers, vloggers and others - however you broadcast your materials. We’re asking: how do we want to deal with one another in discourse and the comments section? How will we find a balance between hate speech and freedom of expression, between reality and fakes? Are platforms really the winners of the (alleged) death of newspapers, or will newsletters and loud-voiced podcasts win out?

We want to swap ideas on the status quo in the forest of newspapers, magazines and other medial channels. We want to analyse the transformation of media and take a closer look at the current information landscape. We’re just as interested in online entertainment, media watchdogs and all varieties of online expression, the (critical or fascinated) observation of influencers, as we are in hearing about brilliant achievements of „world-explaining“ journalistic authorities and worldwide defenders of press freedom.