Creative Unit of the University of Bremen – "Communicative Figurations"

Funding: The Creative Unit was supported by the institutional strategy "Ambitious and Agile" of the University of Bremen funded within the frame of the Excellence Initiative by the German Federal and State Governments.

Duration: 2013- 2016

At the University of Bremen, the "Communicative figurations" research network was funded – from 2013 to 2016 – by the Excellence Initiative of the Federal Government and the Federal States as "Creative Unit". The Creative Unit was based at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) and consisted of eleven projects in which the concept of "communicative figurations" is developed further in different areas of investigation - both theoretically and empirically.

Mediatization research demonstrates that the growing establishment of technical communication media as a whole and the resulting change of the ‘manufacture’ of our reality is are core moments of this transformation. The aim of the Creative Unit is therefore preparing a systematic analysis of communicative figurations with respect to the transformation of social realities, shaped by media.

Through the innovative linking of humanities with social sciences the aim is also to get closer to an answer to the following question: How significant is the transformation of media and communication for culture and society? The objective of the Creative Unit is to further develop the already existing excellent basis for such research at the University of Bremen. 

Flyer of the Creative Unit (PDF)

Research areas and projects

The projects of the Creative Unit aim to develop the concept of "Communicative Figurations" further. Thereby the projects focus on the development of theoretical approaches as well as on empirical testing to investigate the transformation of communicative figurations in the course of an increasing mediatization. Nevertheless, the starting point of the analysis differs for each project.

Three research areas can be distinguished for our Creative Unit: projects which analyse communicative figurations 1) based on the individual as a starting point; 2) emanating from different social relationships; and 3) from the point of view of certain sociocultural fields.

FRAME PROJECT:

• Transformations of mediatized cultures and societies

AREA INDIVIUAL: 

• Habits in Communicative Figurations
• Informal and non-formal learning
• Irritation and coping in the middle classes

AREA RELATIONSHIPS:

• Mediatized localities of urban transcultural communitization
• Collective identity constructions in media cities
• Communication networks and roles

AREA FIELD:

• Ethical debates in the field of the economy
• Religious authority in Catholicism
• The school as a mediatized educational organization
• Face-to-face communication in politics