Marginal Publics / Privacy in Motion: Homelessness in Times of Mobile Media

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Maren Hartmann, since 6/2020
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 403628254

This project concerns itself with the rarely researched topic of homeless and digital media use. It addresses two main questions: a) How do homeless people in Berlin use digital and mobile media, and b) How far does this media usage also include processes of ‘going private’ and/or ‘going public’? Empirically, the project consists of two sub-projects: a survey on media use of the homeless and a qualitative experiment, providing mobile phones to those who do not use them, yet. Both sub-projects build on longer-term ethnographic research in the field (in homeless shelters, homeless meeting points, public spaces). The innovative combination of both methods provides the first substantial project in Germany on homelessness and digital media use. The project has an exploratory character as it combines two theoretical fields (homeless media use and the question of publicness/privacy in the homeless context) in order to sketch a theoretical-empirical synthesis on marginal publics/privacy in motion. Due to its exploratory character and experimental design, the project draws on different fields of existing research: research on homelessness itself, studies of media usage among homeless populations, and explorations of mediated publics/mediated privacy.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Michael Häfner, from 1/2020 until 6/2020