Centre for Digital Cultures

Organisational unit: Institute

Organisation profile

Contemporary culture is characterized by the ubiquity of digital media technologies and infrastructures, which are constantly configuring our techniques for processing, storing, and transmitting data. As a result, our everyday practices of connecting, relating, reading, writing, perceiving, sharing, competing, and communicating are undergoing significant changes. At the same time, these technologies are closely tied to major societal challenges such as climate change, global conflicts, digital divides and social unjustness. In this dynamic context, the Centre for Digital Cultures (CDC) directly addresses the emergence of new and complex qualities of vernacular socio-technical life. This involves the development of advanced theory and innovative study programmes. We are concerned with the question of how we can understand and shape digital cultures today​​​​​​​.

Main research areas

The digital shift re-shapes the cultural sectors, and, indeed, everyday life, politics, law, and economics. the Centre for Digital Cultures (CDC), affiliated to Leuphana University of Lüneburg, examines this shift through a range of interdisciplinary methodologies, including media, cultural and social studies, through knowledge creation and transfer, as well as by developing experimental and interventionist media practices. Established in 2012, as one of the first research centres in Europe to research the emergence of digital cultures, the CDC continues to produce cutting-edge research on socio-technical regimes of inclusion and exclusion. Since its inception, the CDC has built an innovative network and research environment, where academic institutions, practitioners, and civil society stakeholders engage with new concepts, formats, and applications within digital cultures.

Current Research Areas

  • Climate Futures
  • (B)Orders, Identities and Belonging in the Digital Age
  • Cities, Infrastructures, Logistics, Platforms 
  1. Published

    The Invisualities of Capture in Amazon’s Logistical Operations

    Beverungen, A., 01.08.2022, In: Digital Culture & Society. 7, 2, p. 185-202 18 p.

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

  2. Published

    The Island of the Day After. The Television Series Lost and the Post-9/11-Era

    Niemeyer, K. & Wentz, D., 2018, Lost In Media. Wentz, D., Beil, B. & Schwaab, H. (eds.). Wien: LIT Verlag, p. 137-154 18 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksContributions to collected editions/anthologiesResearch

  3. Published

    ”The Machine Could Swallow Everything”: Satin Island and Performing Organization

    Beyes, T., 31.12.2016, Performing the Digital: Performativity and Performance Studies in Digital Cultures. v. Leeker, M., Schipper, I. & Beyes, T. (eds.). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, p. 229–244 16 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksContributions to collected editions/anthologiesResearchpeer-review

  4. Published

    The media arcane

    Beyes, T. & Pias, C., 01.05.2019, In: Grey Room. 75, Spring, p. 84-107 24 p.

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

  5. Published

    The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibilities of Life in Capitalist Ruins

    Conrad, L., 04.2021, In: Management Learning. 52, 2, p. 255-259 5 p.

    Research output: Journal contributionsCritical reviewsResearch

  6. Published

    The Network Dynamics of Movements

    Apprich, C., 2014, In: spheres - Journal for Digital Cultures. 1, 1, p. 1-4 4 p.

    Research output: Journal contributionsCritical reviewsResearch

  7. Published

    The organizational a priori: Critique of the digital as critique of organization

    Beyes, T. (Contributor), 2021, Critique and the Digital. Hörl, E., Pinkrah, N. Y. & Warnholdt, C. L. (eds.). Zürich/Berlin: Diaphanes Verlag, p. 229-248 20 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksContributions to collected editions/anthologiesResearchpeer-review

  8. Published

    The organizational powers of (digital) media

    Beverungen, A., Beyes, T. & Conrad, L., 01.09.2019, In: Organization. 26, 5, p. 621-635 15 p., 867206.

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

  9. Published

    The Organization is a Repair Shop

    Conrad, L., 05.2019, In: Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization. 19, 2, p. 303-324 22 p.

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

  10. Published

    The Ornament of Mass Customization: On the Collective Consciousness of Dispersed Examiners

    Simons, S., 2016, Social Media: New Masses. Baxmann, I., Beyes, T. & Pias, C. (eds.). Zürich: Diaphanes Verlag, p. 225-246 22 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksContributions to collected editions/anthologiesResearchpeer-review