„The public relations sub-project involves non-scientific publics in the research process and research communication. At the center of the public relations work are the controversies and issues that are being researched across the sub-projects.“
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The CRC 1187 offered visitors of all ages exciting insights into the everyday world of digital media and the opportunity to reflect on their own digital everyday life with an interactive stand at the “Open University”, hosted by the University of Siegen on June 8.
On Saturday, June 8, 2024, the Schlossplatz of the Lower Castle in Siegen was transformed into a lively research laboratory. As part of the annual “Open University”, more than 50 stands and hands-on exhibits offered insights into various aspects of university life. The DFG Collaborative Research Center 1187 Media of Cooperation also presented a fascinating insight into our digital present. Visitors of all ages explored the CRC stand to share their own experiences with smart devices and learn more about the research investigating our digital and cooperative lives.
The centrepiece of the CRC stand was a 12m long tent wall, which was transformed into a colourful map of our digitalized world over the course of the day. Visitors used sticky notes to mark where and how they use smart devices in their everyday lives on an illustrated map of the city and their homes. From children talking about tablets in kindergarten, to students presenting their favorite apps, to pensioners sharing their experiences with digital assistance applications – the diversity of contributions reflected the ubiquity of digital technologies in our lives. CRC researchers used this opportunity to talk to visitors and gain new perspectives on their work.
The CRC 1187 stand was well received, highlighting the growing public interest in research into our digitalized society. The research centre has been studying digital, data-intensive media since 2016. The researchers are investigating how digital technologies shape our everyday lives and how people shape and use them together. The CRC’s work currently focuses on sensor technologies and artificial intelligence and the question of what influence these have on our daily lives and work. At events such as the “Open University”, the CRC aims to make its research relevant to everyday life in direct exchange with the public and at the same time raise awareness of the importance of digital media in our society.
The 3rd phase (2024-2027) of the SFB 1187 Media of Cooperation focuses on sensor media’s scaling performance. The CRC’s research program covers the entire spectrum of this scaling performance, from the level of the body and micro-interaction to distributed situations of sensor data, transnational surveillance, and global data infrastructures.
“Scales of Cooperation” discusses the CRC’s cross-scale understanding of cooperation, starting from micro-situational cooperation practices to the cooperation of transnational infrastructures with their data and data practices. The SFB aims to develop a media theory of this cooperatively composed scaling performance, leading to a final conference and publication of the CRC in 2027.
To this end, the SFB will launch a first lecture series on “Scales of Sovereignty” in the summer semester of 2024, which will examine different scalings of the claim to sovereignty of various actors from the local to the global level—starting from individual media situations to the political-regulatory level of the European Union and beyond.
The Semi-Souvereign Fifth Estate 12.06.24 | 4.15-5.45 PM | Hybrid Lecture by Prof. Dr. William Dutton (Michigan State University)
Regulating Sovereignty in Cyberspace 29.05.24 26.06.24 (new date) | 4.15-5.45 PM | Hybrid Lecture by Prof. Dr. Yik Chan Chin (Beijing Normal University)
All events take place in hybrid form (on site and via Webex).
University of Siegen
Campus Herrengarten
Herrengarten 3
D-57072 Siegen
Room AH-A 217/218
Please register here if you want to attend online.
CRC granted funding for another four years
We are happy to announce the official start of the 3rd phase of our Collaborative Research Center Media of Cooperation. We warmly welcome all members!
We look forward to our final four years of collaborative research, intensive fieldwork, methods development, interdisciplinary cooperation, and final publications. In the coming years, we will once again advance our agenda to explore the relation between sensing & sense-making and the cooperative accomplishment of sensory media and develop our take on sensory praxeology. At the same we can draw on eight years of experience of working on cooperation and working cooperatively.
As the DFG puts it in their acceptance letter:
“The third funding period promises a rich harvest phase and at the same time marks a new beginning and perspectives for further research beyond the Collaborative Research Center.” (translation).
Summary
For the third funding phase, SFB "Media of Cooperation" will be supplemented by the public relations module in order to systematically involve non-scientific publics in the research process and research communication. The SFB's declared goal of conducting basic digital research and examining the cooperative constitution of data-intensive and sensory media forms the basis for classifying and designing developments in the field of digital media and technologies. To this end, SFB is developing a concept of public relations that does not see it as classic science communication in the sense of an outreach to a specialized sub-public 'science', but as science in cooperation with different publics.
Central points of reference for working with publics are the controversies and issues that are researched across the various sub-projects and specific publics involved in their negotiation processes and create them cooperatively. Not only negotiating controversies in digital media plays a role, but also the controversies and crises of the media themselves. This cooperative and reciprocal interlocking of controversies, public opinion and media research must be made visible and specifically integrated into public relations work. This is preceded by an understanding of “staggered public spheres” (Zillinger 2017). The sub-project differentiates between broad, specialized and critical publics. By getting the general public interested in controversies, involving specialized publics in a cooperative manner in research design and creating critical publics on controversial topics across these, Ö addresses and informs about existing issues with a view to the research taking place in the sub-projects.
The public relations sub-project will coordinate, continuously reflect on and communicate the processes and forms of collaborative knowledge production in terms of opening up scientific practice. Results of cooperative research and design are presented in short publications (e.g. blog posts, newspaper articles, SFB working papers, graphic recordings), scientific contributions, an SFB toolkit and a concept paper for cooperative research and design at SFB, University of Siegen, respective stakeholder groups and publics. The measures aim to create a cooperative public that, in close cooperation with SFB's staggered publics, provides critical and formative impulses.
