Christian Pentzold

Photo by Beate C. Köhler

I’m a Professor of Communication and Media at the Institute for Media Research, Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany. Before that, I worked in the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen. I’m broadly interested in the construction and appropriation of digital media and the roles, information and communication technologies play in modern society. My work in communication research and media analysis links to insights coming from cultural sociology, linguistics as well as science and technology studies. In current projects, I look at the public understanding of big data, humans interacting with embodied technologies, the organization and governance of peer production, as well as the interplay of time, data, and media. Beyond that, I’m interested in applying theories of practice to the study of media and communication and in linking qualitative with quantitative methods.

I have designed and taught German-language and English-Language courses on bachelor-level and master-level in social science methods, media analysis, media systems and history, social connections in networked communication, media and cultural theory, organizational communication, and public relations. I was an EPSRC-funded doctoral visitor to the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, and a visitor to the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School.

From 2012 to 2016 I had been an Associate Researcher at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet & Society, Berlin and in 2015 I joined the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King’s College London as a Visiting Post-Doc Research Fellow. In spring 2018, I was a Humboldt Fellow at the Department of Communication and Journalism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As a Post-Doc, I have also been involved in the Research Training Group “CrossWorlds” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). In May 2014 I received the dissertation award of the Sociology of Media Communication Section of the German Communication Association.

I am a member of the International Communication Association (ICA), the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and the German Communication Association (DGPuK). Together with Christian Katzenbach, I’m chairing the Digital Communication section of the German Communication Association. Since 2020 I’m an Associate Editor of Communications – The European Journal of Communication Research.

More about my publications can be found on Google Scholar. You can find me at the ResearchGate My ORCID: ORCID iD icon orcid.org/0000-0002-6355-3150

Christian Pentzold

Contact