„Our everyday forms of digital communication – social media, reels, snaps, chat apps and bots – are all accessible via user interfaces, seemingly always online, available and simply responding to our questions, inputs and wants. Their occasional bugs, hiccups, service outages and other shortcomings are often times only a temporary annoyance. However, it is precisely these moments of irritation that remind us of their infrastructural dependencies. These infrastructures and their effects are not merely technical in nature. They are operated by organizations, governed by institutions and affecting an increasing number of individuals, groups and societies. In this seminar, sociological and interdisciplinary perspectives help us trace digital communication back to its sociotechnical roots, exploring how infrastructures are critical, changing and contested. The description and literature are in English, but German may be used in the seminar.”
- Moderator/in: Alexandros Gazos