Life in contemporary Western societies heavily depends on media and communication technologies. How we work and how we spend our spare time; what we do as citizens and as consumers; how we relate to others and to ourselves – all of this is now heavily pervaded by new media and communication technologies.
The pervasiveness of our current media and communication technologies presents many exciting challenges for communication researchers: Older notions of media and communication need to be reassessed critically; the new media and communication environment needs to be charted; and the consequences of the rapid changes in media and communication need to be studied thoroughly, both for individuals, groups, and societies. These and other important challenges form the context for the fundamental scientific questions and issues that lie at the core of ASCoR’s research programme 2016-2020.