Media enable, shape, and transform societal processes. From a functionalist theoretical perspective, they aim to solve social and communicative problems while continuously generating new issues.

This collection of essays addresses a wide range of phenomena and problem-oriented analyses related to media, technologies, and infrastructures in the first part, as well as to public sphere, politics, populism, and media in the second part. It highlights a media sociology that consistently observes and argues from a functionalist standpoint and establishes targeted connections to social theory.

Andreas Ziemann, Prof. Dr., is a professor of cultural and media sociology at the Bauhaus University Weimar. He earned his doctorate with a study on Georg Simmel. His research focuses on social theory, media history, and the sociology of culture, media, and knowledge.