My name is Andreas Hepp.

About me

Before I became a professor at the ZeMKI, University of Bremen, I was at the University of Münster, the Technical University of Ilmenau, the Technical University Karlsruhe (now KIT) and the University of Trier.

I was Visiting Researcher and Visiting Professor at leading institutions such as the London School of Economics and Political Science, Goldsmiths University of London, Université Paris II Panthéon ASSAS, Stanford University and others. I am the author of 14 monographs including The Mediated Construction of Reality (with Nick Couldry, 2017), Transcultural Communication (2015) and Cultures of Mediatization (2013). My latest book is Deep Mediatization (2020, in German: Auf dem Weg zur digitalen Gesellschaft, 2021).

The publications I have written have received several awards, including the Theory Award of the German Communication Association (DGPuK). I am also honored to be a Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA).

My research and my teaching focuses on how media change and transformations in the way we communicate are interrelated with refigurations within culture and society. To adequately define this scenario, I harness the terminology of deep mediatization.

Deep mediatization research connects to a range of other areas such as the role algorithms play in contemporary society, data and the datafication of communication, the influence of pioneers and pioneer communities on media-related developments, the emergence of new kinds of publics at the local, national and transnational level, the increasing role automation and communicative AI play in everyday communications, and the everyday use and appropriation of media by different media generations. 

Besides being head of ZeMKI, the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen, I am spokesperson of the Research Unit 5656 “Communicative AI: The Automation of Societal Communication” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Also, I am one of the co-founders of molo, a local information platform, and OpenQDA, an open source research infrastructure for collaborative qualitative data coding. Furthermore, I am involved in the Research Institute Social Cohesion (RISC).

I am currently working on a book on "digital pioneers" and their role in deep mediatization: the emergence of what is also called "digital society". The book is based on the results of my empirical research over the last six years.

Research

At the moment, I am involved in the following institutions and research projects:

• Research Centre ZeMKI
• Research Unit 5656 Communicative AI
• Research network Communicative Figurations
• Research project Pioneer Journalism
• Local information platform molo
• Collaborative qualitative research software OpenQDA
• Research Institute Social Cohesion (RISC)

For further information on these projects, please visit their websites. If you require more information about me, please download my CV or visit my personal ZeMKI web page.

Let's connect

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