The Leibniz Institute for Media Research │ Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) conducts research on media-mediated public communication. What sets the institute’s media research apart is its interdisciplinary approach. The institute combines the perspectives of empirically grounded social science with legal science 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 the fields of politics, business, and civil society.
Its work is committed to the standards of scientific excellence and the principle of independent research. International networking through worldwide cooperation are top priorities.
Since 2026, the institute’s academic profile has been shaped by its work in three program areas. We are currently updating the website!
As part of an expansion project, the HBI 2026 has restructured to examine the entire socio-technical ecosystem of social communication that shapes communication relevant to society in the digital age, beyond individual mass media and intermediaries. Only in this way can the challenges brought by the transformation of communication (keywords: automation, platformization) be understood and addressed in the interest of society.
The following program areas (PA) and research groups (RG) were established at the beginning of 2026:
- PB1: 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 Media Effects, and RG Transformation of Journalism and the Public Sphere.
- PB 2: Communication Structures and Their Governance: This area consists of two research groups: RG Formation of Public Opinion and RG Formation of Communicative Order.
- PB 3: Science Communication, Agile Formats, and Library Services: This area consists of three teams: Science Communication, Agile Formats, and Library Services.
Until the end of 2025, the research was organized into four research programs. The research programs RP1 “Transformation of Public Communication: Journalistic and Intermediary Functions in the Process of Opinion Formation,” RP2 “Regulatory Structures and the Emergence of Rules in Online Spaces,” RP3 “Knowledge for the Media Society,” and the Media Research Methods Lab (MRML) were terminated as of December 31, 2025.
