The CEMEDIG Center promotes and directs the research of the Department of Culture and Communications in the field of media sociology, a special branch of sociology characterized by interdisciplinary openness to related disciplines in the field of social sciences and humanities. This particularly applies to economically oriented topics, such as the political economy of the media, and legal and political topics, such as media regulation. In the context of digitization, the term digital sociology is often used as a term close to media sociology, and the focus is on specific development topics such as data infrastructures, platforms, digital data, digital media literacy, and data justice.

The CEMEDIG Center deals with different levels of social reality and social development perspectives of digitization. At the macro level, the political and legal order, i.e. the normative and value goals of European and national development policies, and the contradictory market processes that shape the media and digital society are explored. At the intermediate level, the ways in which media and digitalization change private and public organizational processes, infrastructures, and the public sphere are studied. At the micro level, changes in modern day-to-day life and the ways in which the media and digitalization enable or prevent the inclusion of citizens in wider cultural, political, and economic processes are studied.

The goal of the CEMEDIG center is to promote scientific excellence in the field of media sociology and related disciplinary areas and to provide independent scientific research into the media and digital society. Special attention is paid to strong fundamental research and its balanced connection with normative and development perspectives, international dissemination of results, and education of young researchers.

Thematic focus

Sociology of media

• Fundamental theoretical and empirical research
• Systematization of disciplinary and interdisciplinary media research

The political economy of the media

• Production, distribution, and consumption of communication
• Public sphere and public communication
• Media and technology monopolies
• Contradictions of global, European, and national markets

Media regulation

• Normative and developmental assumptions of media regulation
• Freedom of expression and media pluralism
• Media concentration and media production
• Critical analysis and evaluation of European and national media policies

Digital social development

• Normative and developmental assumptions of digital society
• Digital data infrastructures
• The political economy of digital data
• Critical analysis and evaluation of European and national digital society policies