HIIG SCIENCE BLOG

Do news aggregators impact traffic generation towards online news sites? Will platforms like Instagram and TripAdvisor automatically filter user content? Is an EU news publishers’ right really a good idea?  As the negotiations for the long-awaited European Directive on copyright in the digital single market are reaching their endpoint, the final chapter of the saga…

A team of investigative journalists has discovered so-called “Predatory publishing”. Since then media has quickly picked up the term “fake science”. Yet, the phenomenon is well-known to researchers and only a very small number of scientists are affected. Arndt Leininger, fellow at the Chair for Political Sociology at Freie Universität Berlin, comments why the scandalisation…

Das The team of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) is looking for the following at the earliest opportunity a student employee with an IT background. The working hours of 10-20 hours per week will be determined by arrangement and according to your availability and will be paid at €12.50/hour. You…

Recently, reports on the various aspects of the “future of work” have been accumulating. Nevertheless, the visions about the digital society and the role of work in it seem to be rather vague. What’s more, the moment when machines become autonomous – which can already occur in the next 20 years –, we face an…

The Silicon Valley ideology is a morally destitute trap. But could its well-paid staff transform it? Building on her experience as a Google developer and a tech startup founder, guest author Wendy Liu makes the case for building worker power in Silicon Valley. A few weeks ago, WIRED Magazine published an article subtitled Silicon Valley Techies…

While social media platforms choose to identify themselves as neutral platforms, there is growing complexity around the ways to analyze their structure, operational dynamics as well as the regulatory frameworks which must accompany. Guest author Sana Ahmad researches the content moderation industry in India. The terminology ‘social media’ has come a long way. From its…

Emojis, gifs and chat programs like Slack are designed to lighten the mood in the office. Our guest contributor Bianca Xenia Jankovska believes: As long as the hierarchies remain rigid, they have the opposite effect. Verstehen Sie mich nicht falsch: Ich habe nichts gegen Emojis. Ich halte es damit wie mit Salz: Ein bisschen kann…

Carla is an influencer and gets her first big photo exhibition sponsored in a Berlin museum in May, Stefanie is a DIY podcaster and is about to sign her first book contract, and why the hell was Johannes of all people invited to a radio interview to discuss the 15-hour week, when there are more…

The latest form of the diverse concept of political participation is “e-participation”. This includes activities by citizens who use information and communication technologies to try to influence political processes. What are the reasons for political participation? An overview of the literature showed a positive influence of political motivation on the offline participation of individuals. For…

Whether it is childcare, credit or consumer goods: ratings, scores and the digital footprint produce new social classifications. This increasing quantification of the social is the reason for new forms of status gains or losses. In our lecture series “Making Sense of the Digital Society”, Marion Fourcade grasped these tendencies with the term “übercapital”. Steffen…