Profile of the Chair Media Sociology
Late modern society is strictly dependent on media technologies and (audio-visual) mass media. On the one hand, this has led to an operative assimilation and structural shift in various areas of society; on the other, it has formed novel modes of thought and imagination, forms of action and cultures of practice on the part of the individual.
Against this background, Media Sociology is concerned with the complex interdependencies between (mass) media, society and the individual; the subject provides both a phenomenological and a functional analysis of the relationship between the structure of societies and the evolution of media – with a fundamental historical sense. In addition, it reflects on the current conditions and effects of media change, medialization and media society. Finally, epistemic interest aims empirically at multifarious individual and collective media activity, at situational problem-solving media practice and at the autonomous transformation of media techniques.
