Details

University of Bremen Develops App for Media Research

Two free apps from the University of Bremen are to simplify media research despite social distancing. They were developed by ZeMKI. The Hamburg Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) and the Institute for Information Management Bremen GmbH (ifib) were also involved.

Research into media usage and communication practices is becoming increasingly complex because people are using more channels and services today than ever before. The science community mainly works with media diaries and sorting technologies in this area so that the practices can be recorded in the most comprehensive manner possible. Thanks to the interdisciplinary research collaboration of ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication, and Information Research at the University of Bremen, new specialized software, which allows for such tasks to be carried out with the support of computers, has been developed: the sorting app “MeSort” and the media diary app “MeTag”.

Apps suitet for digital research an teaching

Both applications are particularly suited for digital research and teaching in the current COVID-19 situation, during which face-to-face data collection is no longer possible as usual. MeSort and MeTag are web-based browser applications that make research and teaching under social distancing conditions possible:
•    MeTag allows for research projects to be set up via a browser application and media diaries to be kept by the study participants via a smartphone app.
•    MeSort allows for the used media to be polled by means of the sorting of symbols, for example repertoires, and can be set up online. In this way, sorting tasks can be carried out during interviews with the help of screensharing functions of video conference solutions, such as Zoom or Jitsi.
The infrastructure funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) is financing the app development. Both apps are free of charge. Feedback is welcome.

Contact:

Prof. Dr. AndreasHepp
ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication, and Information Research
Email: andreas.heppprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Further Information:

www.mesoftware.org

 

Computer und Smartphone