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

    Fictions of the Possible: Art, the City and Public Entrepreneurship

    Beyes, T., 27.10.2015, In: Journal of Management Inquiry. 24, 4, p. 445-449 5 p.

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

  2. Published

    'Summoning art to save the city': A Note: 'Saving' the city: Collective low-budget organizing and urban practice

    Beyes, T., 2015, In: Journal of Management Inquiry. 15, 1, p. 207-220 13 p., 15.

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

  3. Published

    Crowdfunding the Commons?

    Ridgway, R., 2015, MoneyLab Reader: An Intervention in Digital Economy. Lovink, G., Tkacz, N. & de Vries, P. (eds.). Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, p. 281 - 294 14 p.

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

  4. Published

    Personalisation as currency

    Ridgway, R., 01.06.2015, In: A Peer-reviewed Journal About --. 4, 1, p. 17-28 12 p., 2.

    Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

  5. Published

    Data traffic in theater and engineering: Between technical conditions and illusions

    Leeker, M. & Steppat, M., 25.09.2015, Traffic: Media as Infrastructures and Cultural Practices. Näser-Lather, M. & Neubert, C. (eds.). Leiden: Brill, p. 160-179 20 p. (Literature and Cultural Studies E-Books Online, Collection ; vol. 88).

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

  6. Published

    Das Fleisch der Diskurse: Zur Verbindung von Biographie- und Diskursforschung in der wissenssoziologischen Subjektivierungsanalyse am Beispiel der Behindertenpädagogik

    Pfahl, L., Schürmann, L. & Traue, B. C., 2015, Erziehungswissenschaftliche Diskursforschung: Empirische Analysen zu Bildungs- und Erziehungsverhältnissen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, p. 89-106 18 p. (Interdisziplinäre Diskursforschung).

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

  7. Published

    Kinder machen: Neue Reproduktionstechnologien und die Ordnung der Familie ; Samenspender, Leihmütter, Künstliche Befruchtung

    Bernard, A., 27.03.2014, 1. Aufl. ed. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch-Verlag. 544 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologiesMonographsTransferpeer-review

  8. Published

    Ecologies of Change: Editorial

    Freudenschuß, M., Feigelfeld, P., Apprich, C., Beverungen, A., Simons, S. & spheres Editorial Collective, 15.12.2015, In: spheres - Journal for Digital Cultures. 2, p. 1-5 5 p.

    Research output: Journal contributionsOther (editorial matter etc.)Research

  9. Published

    Vernetzt: Zur Entstehung der Netzwerkgesellschaft

    Apprich, C., 2015, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. 210 p. (Digitale Gesellschaft)

    Research output: Books and anthologiesMonographsResearch

  10. Published

    La vie, la nature, la technique

    Hörl, E. H. & Gorz, A., 2015, Le fil rouge de l’écologie: Entretiens inédites en francais, édition établie et présentée par Willy Gianinazzi. Gorz, A. (ed.). Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, p. 19-81 53 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksOtherResearch