An interactive city map and blog texts by students on the project "decolonize decarbonize Siegen" on colonial history and ecological perspectives in and around Siegen.

Which places in and around Siegen can be characterized as places of colonialism? Which places in Siegen are characterized by high GHG emissions, toxicity or pollution? How can global crises be mediated from a local perspective and between science and the public so that a change can also take place in the perception of citizens?

In the joint research project "decolonize decarbonize Siegen", B. A. and M. A. students of Media Studies at the University of Siegen worked together to expand the decolonial perspective on Siegen to include one of decarbonization. To this end, we researched specific places that historically and currently contribute to the twin catastrophes of species extinction and climate catastrophe. The research project thus combines research into and on sites of colonial history in and around Siegen with ecological perspectives.

The project has resulted in a blog that uses a map to list the places in and around Siegen that are linked to colonial history and ecological perspectives.

A radio play on FLINTA* mobility, an interactive on accessibility in Siegen, posters created in the seminar, a glossary and key sources on the project supplement the blog texts.

On social media platforms, we encounter a variety of networked content with different aesthetic, phatic and connective properties on a daily basis. Images that circulate online are rarely exclusive to themselves, but are embedded in the processing and distribution mechanisms of digital media. During the course "Metadating Memes: Deepening Digital Methods", participants were invited to learn techniques for navigating and analyzing marginal image cultures through the method of "metadating". "Metadating" means spending time with metadata that produces images in their circulation as networked media artifacts. Such metadata - text-in-image and hashtags, account names and pages with identical images, metrics and timestamps - formed the basis for researching the 'deepfried memes' that emerged on Tumblr (see poster). Deepfried memes are known for their glitch aesthetic and belong to the visual subcultures that fight against the dominant visibility regimes of social media with their absurd black humor. Based on 1,260 images published with the hashtag #deepfriedmemes, the project group (Rene Flug, Emil Stock, Maya Döpper, Isabel Frenking, Maksimilian Schwez, David Speckmeier, Greta Solbach, Noah Seidler, Jessica Wolf, Pia Priestersbach, Pasqual Sommer, Jolina Sandweg) addressed the question: How can "metadating" as a method for creative and ethical data remixing contribute to the investigation of visual communities that resist the mainstream? The course took place in the summer semester 2024 and was supervised by Elena Pilipets.

IT seminar "What's in a meme? Analyzing TikTok data"

What defines TikTok as a platform and which user cultures contribute to it? What data practices go hand in hand with the creation of TikTok trends and niches? What role do current events play in this and how can they be analyzed using digital, visual and other combinations of methods?

The seminar "What's in a Meme? Analyzing TikTok Data" took place in September 2022 in the format of a data sprint accompanied by Elena Pilipets and enabled a collaborative learning environment for the development of media-specific questions with the aim of integrating digital methods into student projects.

Using practical exercises on data extraction, visualization and analysis, students developed joint research questions and presented them at the end of the week. The research results of the project group (Alexander Martin, Kim Allegra Ballarini, Corinna Theile and Lukas Hüttemann) on the topic "#war: What does TikTok (not) show?" can be downloaded as a poster under this link .

A podcast of the Master's degree program Media and Society

Work and Study - Study and Work? Social, economic and media conditions of studying

Casual student life is a thing of the past. Working is part of everyday life for many students. A podcast takes a closer look at the reasons for this and how students, lecturers and employers perceive this change.

There are 6 episodes, which were produced in the summer semester of 2022 as part of a teaching research project by a total of 14 students. They were supervised by Prof. Dr. Joachim Eigler, Julia Müller, PD Dr. Sandra Nuy, Prof. Dr. Hanna Schramm-Klein, Tobias Röding.