Election campaign in the digitalized public sphere: IfK event on April 29

Next Monday, April 29, the Institute of Media and Communication will host lectures and a discussion on the super election year 2024, moderated by Lutz Hagen, Director of the Institute of Media and Communication, speaker of the Boysen- TUD- Research Training Group and main supervisor of Project E4.

Local elections in Saxony, state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, European elections - the election campaigns in 2024 will bring many important decisions and will be strongly influenced by digitalization. Politicians and citizens can now use a wide variety of channels that are strongly influenced by the attention rules of social networks. In some cases, they compete with the journalism of traditional media, in others they merge with it. In the digitalized public sphere, amateurs and professionals alike can disseminate their own messages en masse and tailor them specifically, even to individual recipients (microtargeting). This goes hand in hand with the dangers of populism, polarization and disinformation.

Two keynote speeches will shed light on how communication is used in today's election campaigns and how it influences voting decisions - one from the perspective of a leading journalist in the region, the other from the perspective of a communication scientist and expert on election campaigns in today's hybrid media environments.

The event will take place from 18:30 in the Sparkassenforum am Altmarkt. Registration is not necessary.

Invitation - Election campaigns in the digitalized public sphere (in German).pdf