| Philosophische Fakultät, Studium

Award for study on media change and social cohesion

Christal Bürgel, Lina Buttgereit, Samuel Helsper, Lukas Hoffmann, Magdalena Horn, Nick Jochims, René Nissen and Justin Roßdeutscher from the University of Erfurt have been awarded the HORIZONT Foundation's 10,000 Euro sponsorship prize for their study on "Media Change and Social Cohesion", which was presented in 2019. The study, which was also the group's bachelor's thesis, was supervised by Prof. Dr. Kai Hafez and supported by "Mediengruppe Thüringen" and "MDR Thüringen".

"In 18 years as a university professor, I have not been allowed to supervise a better work," says Prof. Hafez in praise of the study, for which 591 people in Thuringia were surveyed online and another 17 qualitative guideline interviews were conducted. Conclusion: The assumption that the Internet divides society is not tenable. Rather, it is clear that groups that make little use of traditional and new media are more likely to divide society in terms of communication.

Read also the interview "One fifth switch off" (german only): Lina Buttgereit on student teamwork and media change".

More links

Back