Making sense of the digital society

The current rapid social and technological change brings about enormous uncertainties – a great need for explanations and sense-making but also of shaping our common future. This high-profile lecture series thrives to develop a European perspective on the processes of transformation that our societies are currently undergoing. To this end, the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) and the German Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb) are inviting great European thinkers to help us making sense of the digital society.

What is really changing in society beyond the hype of short-term excitement? What is power in the digital society, and how is it distributed? Do we witness the revival of democracy through increased participation and transparency, or rather its demise due to fragmentation and populism? Are services fueled by algorithms and artificial intelligence improving our private and business lives or do they enforce social inequalities? How does urban life change in times of digitization and what role do infrastructures take?

The series began in late 2017 with a kick-off event with Manuel Castells, author of the influential "Information Age" trilogy and professor at the University of Southern California. Other speakers included Elena Esposito, Professor of Sociology at Bielefeld University, Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at the LSE in London, and Eva Illouz, Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Armin Nassehi, Professor of Sociology at LMU Munich and Shoshana Zuboff, who is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School. All speeches can be listened to in the playlist, further information on the events can be found below.

All events in the series will be moderated by Tobi Müller. They are held in English and translated simultaneously into German.

Upcoming events in this series

Past events