“The Digitization of the Political”: Conference and anthology

Following a “Call for Paper” in April 2021 (online), a conference was held on this topic together with Prof. Dr. Carsten Stark (Hof University of Applied Sciences) and the BDS – Berufsverband Deutscher Soziologinnen und Soziologen (Professional Association of German Sociologists) at Hof University of Applied Sciences.

In this context, a special volume of the journal SUB (“Sozialwissenschaften und Berufspraxis”) is currently being published by Springer VS (publication planned for 2022), Call for Paper:

“While technical development in terms of information processing and dissemination is proceeding at a rapid pace, society and science can hardly adequately grasp the factual significance of the development.

Without a fundamental reflection on the technical framework of politics and society, however, it will not be possible to protect fundamental normative patterns of democracy and statehood from a change caused solely by technology. Rather, it currently appears that political institutions are adapting to technological change as it were out of necessity, thus acquiring normative validity through facticity. The digital transformation would thus inevitably lead to a social transformation.

Can democracy survive the internet? (Persily 2017)? Or does it not rather become the plaything of virulent propaganda (Wolley et. al 2018)? Against this background, can political discourse still generate legitimate answers to political questions (Bruns / Highfield 2018) or will the emotional refusal of rational justification become a success factor for political enforcement (Wahl-Jorgensen 2018)? Can’t technological development also be understood as an opening of political spaces and a democratization of discourse (Tapscott / Tapscott 2016) or is this idea merely a myth among technophiles (Hindman 2010)? Ultimately, all of these problem areas revolve around the question of what the consequences of digitization are for politics (Farrell 2012) and how to deal or should deal with it both socially and technically.”

Lecture series/ring lecture on digitalization

Since 2015, implementation, organization, moderation of the annual and interdisciplinary “Lectures on Digitalization” (lecture series) on knowledge and technology transfer at Hof University of Applied Sciences in the winter semester (cancellation 2020 and 2021 due to Covid19).

The aim is to look at the topic of digital transformation with all its facets, as entertainingly as possible and from a variety of perspectives, and to bring together science and research, companies, students and the interested public. The contributions – lectures, presentations of business models, discussion rounds – have been professionally recorded and edited since the beginning of the series and distributed via Youtube. This has resulted in a reach of up to 300,000 views per video.

Hofer academic writings on the digital economy

The book series “Hofer akademische Schriften zur Digitalen Ökonomie“, published since 2014 as “Print-on-Demand”, aims at the transfer between science and practice in the field of digital transformation in economy and society. It publishes theses and other academic papers with a high degree of application relevance in German and English.

Previous volumes:

Weigang, Anne: Einfluss des digitalen Mediums auf die Wahrnehmung der Markenperson (2021)

Liebl, Johanna: Erfolgsfaktoren von Influencer Marketing mit Sportlern für eine positive Kundenwahrnehmung – Eine empirische Analyse (2021)

Agaba, Mark: Account-based Marketing in B2B-Marketing (2021)

Pusch, Marina: Multisensorisches Marketing im Online-Shop:Akzeptanz einer Duftbox im Privatgebrauch (2018)

Riester, Julia: Energie 4.0 – Die Digitalisierung der Energiewirtschaft Eine empirische Untersuchung zur verbraucherseitigen Akzeptanz der Smart Meter Technologie und Implikationen für deren Vermarktung (2017)

Urban, Markus: Nudging als Instrument zur Förderung nachhaltigen Verbraucherverhaltens im Rahmen der Konsumentenforschung (2017)

Thoma, Kristin: Akzeptanz des Online-Lebensmittelhandels in Deutschland. Eine empirische Studie zur Ermittlung personen- und produktbezogener Einflussfaktoren (2016)

Singer, Maximilian: Online goes Offline im modernen Einzelhandel. Eine Untersuchung zur konsumentenseitigen Akzeptanz des Einsatzes verschiedener Funktechnologien im stationären Einzelhandel und die damit verbundene Bedeutung von Kundendaten. (2016)

Vogel, Marion: Relevanz & Risiken von virtuellen Währungen am Beispiel von Bitcoin (2016)

Stadelhofer, Sarah: Flash Mob Marketing in an International Context (2015)

Waldmann, Michael: Proximity Mobile Payment. Die Rolle mobiler Bezahlverfahren im stationären deutschen Einzelhandel sowie deren Erfolgsfaktoren und Potenziale aus Kunden- und Händlersicht (2014)