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Digitalization and change in the global division of labor. Industrial work in transition
Get PDFThe contribution discusses the impact of digitalization approaches in industrial companies and their implications for the global division of labour and work. It proceeds by investigating the scope and character of automation and its impact on the relationship between production locations in high and low wage countries. Contrary to expectations frequently voiced in public discourse the author does not identify a major push in automation in manufacturing industries (that would make a reshoring of production viable), because digitalization strategies rather concern new paths of flexibilization than automation. The effects on the geographies of production of technological change, however, result in new strategies of specialization and modifications of industrial governance, namely a refined division of labour between innovation-intensive production sites and their counterparts in the periphery. (The contribution is submitted in German language
Anonymität im Internet: Interdisziplinäre Rückschlüsse auf Freiheit und Verantwortung bei der Ausgestaltung von Kommunikationsräumen
Get PDF„Die anonyme Nutzung ist dem Internet immanent.“ So lautet eine unter Juristinnen bekannte und weit verbreitete Behauptung, die sich hinterfragen lassen muss. Die Wirklichkeit im Internet zeigt ein hinreichend anderes Bild. Unternehmen, die hinter den Kulissen immense Umsätze mit personalisierter Werbung erwirtschaften, registrieren nicht nur die Webseiten, die wir besuchen, sondern erfassen als Metadaten auch jede unserer Mausbewegungen, jeden Tastendruck und jede Änderung der Scrollposition. Anhand ihrer individuellen Verhaltensmuster können Internetnutzende nicht nur identifiziert, sondern auch Aussagen über ihre Gewohnheiten und politischen Überzeugungen, ihre gesundheitliche und finanzielle Situation, ihre Persönlichkeit und vieles mehr getroffen werden
What Constitutes a Local Public Sphere? Building a Monitoring Framework for Comparative Analysis
Get PDFDespite the research tradition in analyzing public communication, local public spheres have been rather neglected by communication science, although they are crucial for social cohesion and democracy. Existing empirical studies about local public spheres are mostly case studies which implicitly assume that cities are alike. Based on a participatory-liberal understanding of democracy, we develop a theoretical framework, from which we derive a monitor covering structural, social, and spatial aspects of local communication to empirically compare local public spheres along four dimensions: (1) information, (2) participation, (3) inclusion, and (4) diversity. In a pilot study, we then apply our monitor to four German cities that are comparable in size and regional function (‘regiopolises’). The monitoring framework is built on local statistical data, some of which was provided by the cities, while some came from our own research. We show that the social structures and the normative assessment of the quality of local public spheres can vary among similar cities and between the four dimensions. We hope the innovative monitor prototype enables scholars and local actors to compare local public spheres across spaces, places, and time, and to investigate the impact of social change and digitalization on local public spheres
Mediated trust: A theoretical framework to address the trustworthiness of technological trust mediators
Get PDFThis article considers the impact of digital technologies on the interpersonal and institutional logics of trust production. It introduces the new theoretical concept of technology-mediated trust to analyze the role of complex techno-social assemblages in trust production and distrust management. The first part of the article argues that globalization and digitalization have unleashed a crisis of trust, as traditional institutional and interpersonal logics are not attuned to deal with the risks introduced by the prevalence of digital technologies. In the second part, the article describes how digital intermediation has transformed the traditional logics of interpersonal and institutional trust formation and created new trust-mediating services. Finally, the article asks as follows: why should we trust these technological trust mediators? The conclusion is that at best, it is impossible to establish the trustworthiness of trust mediators, and that at worst, we have no reason to trust them.The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Lab has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 759681). The paper has been written with the support of a Fellowship grant at the Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin
Spaces, Places, and Geographies of Public Spheres. Exploring Dimensions of the Spatial Turn
Get PDFFor decades, scholars have been calling out a spatial turn in media and communication studies. Yet, in public sphere research, spatial concepts such as space and place have mainly been used metaphorically. In recent years, the abundance of digital trace data offers new opportunities to locate communicative interactions, sparking new interest in the spatial turn in media and communication and opening up new perspectives on spaces and places also within public sphere research. Digital location data enables one to: study the places and spaces in which (semi-)public communication is embedded; uncover geographical inequalities between countries, regions, cities, and peripheries; and highlight the local contexts of public spheres. This thematic issue gathers some of these endeavors in one place, bringing together conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions that spell out the spatiality of public spheres in detail and combine the analysis of spaces, places, and geographies with long-standing concepts of public sphere research
The Making of Citizens: Democracy and children’s rights in digital spheres
Get PDFThis work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
Drifting Away From the Mainstream: Media attention and the politics of hyperpartisan news websites
Get PDFThis work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
Whitepaper Datenkompetenz
Get PDFThis work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“). This report was supported with special funds from the Federal Foreign Office for the German EU Council Presidency 2020
Reshaping the Legal Categories of Work. Digital Labor Platforms at the Borders of Labor Law
Get PDFThe article questions the fundamental paradigms of labor law in view of the challenges presented by digital platform work. It uses heuristic methods, namely legal doctrine and labor law theory, to show how legal concepts of em-ployment have been informed by organization theory. It proposes taking les-sons from organizational analyses of market organizing that have already ad-dressed new organizational forms with some precision. This approach would facilitate the development of a consistent and effective regulatory design for digital labor platforms. The design would include two levels: First, regulation should modify the criteria and indicators for classifying workers, either in the employment category or in a new category, to capture indirect mechanisms of worker control such as feedback and rating systems. Second, the rights and obligations associated with labor law, as well as the participation and gover-nance structures, should be reformulated to address indirect control and the social dynamics of virtual workplaces.The research reported in this article received funding from the Hans Böckler Foundation (grant 2017-464-2) and Fritz Thyssen Foundation (grant 10.15.1.003SO
What is a Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere? Some skeptical remarks on the discourse of digitality
Get PDFThis work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“