The Leibniz Institute for Media Research │ Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) conducts research on media-mediated public communication. What makes the institute’s media research unique is its interdisciplinary approach. The institute combines the perspectives of empirically grounded social science with legal scholarship focused on regulatory processes and the structural perspective of computer science on socio-technical ecosystems.
The institute combines research into long-term fundamental scientific questions with problem-oriented expertise for politics, business, and civil society.
Its work is committed to the standards of scientific excellence and the principle of research independence. International networking through global collaborations is a high priority.
As part of an expansion initiative, the HBI 2026 has restructured itself to examine, beyond individual mass media and intermediaries, the entire socio-technical ecosystem of social communication that shapes socially relevant communication in the digital society. Only in this way can the current challenges that the transformation of communication (keywords: automation, platformization) poses for society be understood and shaped in the interest of society.
The following program areas (PA) and research groups (RG) or teams were established at the beginning of 2026:
- Program area : Social Functions of Communication and Media: This area consists of six research groups (RG): RG Growing Up in Digital Media Environments, RG Health Communication, RG Media Research Methods Lab, RG Media History, RG Media Use and Its Societal Effects, and RG Transformation of Journalism and the Public Sphere.
- Program Area 2: Communication Structures and Their Governance: This area consists of two research groups: RG Opinion Formation and RG Order Formation.
- Program Area 3: Science Communication, Agile Formats, and Library Services: This area consists of three teams: Science Communication, Agile Formats, and Library Services.
