Two international guests at the IfK: Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos and Axel Bruns

The IfK at the University of Münster kicked off the new semester with two high-profile international guests: Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos and Axel Bruns gave lectures at the institute and took part in networking events.

The series kicked off with Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos (UNSW Sydney, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona), an internationally recognised expert in artificial intelligence, journalism and digital technologies. In his lecture “AI to Empower Media, Politics, and Democracy in the Global South?”, he examined the role of AI in media and democratic processes, particularly in the Global South. Using various case studies, primarily from Latin America, he highlighted both the potential and the risks. Whilst AI could, for example, contribute to promoting transparency, combating disinformation and strengthening political participation, these effects are unevenly distributed. Structural factors such as restricted media freedom, corruption or digital inequalities significantly shape how AI is effective in different contexts.

A week later, Axel Bruns from the Queensland University of Technology, an Australian Laureate Fellow, Fellow of the International Communication Association and former President of the Association of Internet Researchers, took to the stage. In addition to a methodology workshop on his ‘Practice Mapping’ approach, in which new approaches to the analysis of social media data were discussed, he delivered a lecture entitled ‘Revisiting “the” Public Sphere and Its Algorithmically Shaped Publics’. In it, he addressed the question of how the public sphere is changing under conditions of platform-based communication and developed a conceptual understanding of fragmented, algorithmically shaped publics.

The events were accompanied by a lively discussion and also provided an opportunity for an exchange on ongoing research projects as well as for initiating potential collaborations.

Both visits took place at the invitation of Thorsten Quandt’s “Online Communication” research group at the Online Communication Lab (OCL). We would like to thank them for the fascinating insights into current research and look forward to further in-depth academic exchange.

Contact person public relations:
Dr Stephan Völlmicke
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