Congratulations: Marcus Burkhardt appointed to a professorship at Paderborn University

CRC 1187 congratulates Marcus Burkhardt on his appointment to the professorship for “Media, Algorithms and Society” at Paderborn University

The CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation” congratulates Marcus Burkhardt on his appointment at Paderborn University! Since the winter semester 2024/2025, he has held the professorship for “Media, Algorithms and Society” there. 

 

➞ Marcus Burkhardts’ profile at the University of Paderborn

 

Until his appointment, Marcus Burkhardt was a research fellow at the Media Studies Department at the University of Siegen and played a key role in shaping the CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation” in recent years. As a project leader, he is responsible for two central research projects: B08 – “Agentic Media: Formations of Semi-Autonomy“ (together with Prof. Dr. Karin Knorr Cetina) and A07 – “Industry of Personal Data” (together with Prof. Dr. Maximilian Becker).

In addition to positions at the Digital Media Lab at the Technical University of Munich and a guest professorship at the University of Paderborn, he also led the Hybrid Publishing Lab at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg. He received his doctorate from the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture at Justus Liebig University Giessen with a thesis on the media history and theory of digital databases. Burkhardt’s research operates at the interface of media studies, philosophy and computer science. It is focused on the history and theory of digital media, critical software, code and algorithm studies, digital methods, cultures, and computational cultures. He currently lectures on “Prompting as a cultural technique” and “Digital media: approaches and controversies”.

His publications include the 2022 co-edited volume Interrogating Datafication. Towards a Praxeology of Data and his 2015 dissertation Digitale Datenbanken: Eine Medientheorie im Zeitalter von Big Data. In addition to various contributions to journals and edited volumes, he most recently co-edited the special issue “Frictions: Conflicts, Controversies and Design Alternatives in Digital Valuation” (2025) of Digital Culture & Society.

In 2015, he founded the open access publishing house Meson Press together with Mercedes Bunz and Andreas Kirchner, which specializes in open access publications on digital cultures.