Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, LL.M.

Honorary Member of the Executive Board

Professor Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, LL.M. (Berkeley), was director of the Hans-Bredow-Institut from 1979 until he became Senator of Justice for the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from September 1995 to November 1997. He was also chairman of the newly created executive board of the institute from July 1998 to December 1999. Since December 1999, he has been an honorary member of the Executive Board.

He studied law in Hamburg, Freiburg, Munich, and Berkeley. He has been a professor of public law and administrative science at the University of Hamburg since 1974 and has been emeritus since 2008.

From 1999 to 2008, he was a judge at the Federal Constitutional Court (First Senate).

From 2007 to 2019, Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem was a member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission of the Council of Europe). He was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin from 2009 to 2010. Since mid-2012, he has been an affiliate professor at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg.

The German President awarded Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He is also the recipient of the Emil von Sauer Prize. In 2024, he received an honorary doctorate from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem researched and taught at Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School, Tulane Law School, Hastings College of the Law, and the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information. He was a member of the Expert Commission on New Media in Baden-Württemberg; the Inquiry Commission on New Information and Communication Technologies of the German Bundestag; the Inquiry Commission on Parliamentary Reform of the Parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg; and the “Commission on Media Responsibility,” which was appointed by Federal President von Weizsäcker. He publishes works on media law, media social science, constitutional and administrative law, economic and environmental law, police law, and legal sociology.

Contact information

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, LL.M.

Honorary Member of the Executive Board

Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI)
Rothenbaumchaussee 36
20148 Hamburg

  • +49 40 450 217-0 (Office Management)

Last update: 11.07.2025

Works by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, LL.M.

Cover des Buchs "Recht der Digitalisierung"
Publikation Available Open Access

Law of Digitalization

Can the right legal framework meet the central challenges of digitization? This volume, edited by Prof. Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, explores important new areas of law, the regulation of AI, the role of digital services, and the characteristics of effective technology policy and sensible innovation law.

Screenshot der ersten "Seite" des Artikels auf dem Verfassungsblog
Publikation Article on Verfassungsblog

DSA Enforcement by the EU Commission

The problematic role of the European Commission in enforcing the Digital Services Act (DSA) and possible alternatives are the focus of a blog post published by Jan-Ole Harfst, Dr. Tobias Mast, and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulz on 16 July 2025 on the Verfassungblog.

Cover der Zeitschrift
Publikation Recently Published

Community Data Trust for Sensitive Data

Jan Rau, Moritz Fürneisen, and Gregor Wiedemann co-developed the concept of community data stewardship to facilitate the collaborative creation and utilization of sensitive data in communication science. By using the example of research into right-wing extremist online communication, they demonstrate how community data stewardship can be structured.

Cover der Zeitschrift UFITA
Publikation Recently Published

On the Public Value of Public Service Media

"What Can Audience Research findings tell us about the public value of public service media?" This question explored by Prof. Dr. Uwe Hasebrink and PD Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt, who published their insights in the issue 2/2024 of the journal UFITA.

Cover der Broschüre zum 75. Geburtstag
Publikation Brochure Available for Download

Facets of 75 Years Hans-Bredow-Institut

With this brochure. we take a look at the institute's development since 1950. While we do not claim to provide a complete history, we aim to highlight some of the institute's unique characteristics, showcasing moments in the past when these features were particularly evident.

Altes Zeitungsfoto von Hans-Bredow,
Beitrag HBI 75: Founding History

How the Institute Got Its Name

On May 30, 1950, the Hans Bredow Institute was founded by the former Northwest German Broadcasting Corporation (the predecessor of NDR and WDR) and the University of Hamburg. This blog post describes the history of its founding and explains how the institute got its name.

Cover von Heft 2/2025 M&K
Publikation Recently Published

M&K 2/2025 Special Issue “Media Structures Revisited”

Issue 2/2025 of Media & Communication Science has been published as a special issue entitled “Media Structures Revisited,” edited by Josef Seethaler, Marlis Prinzing, Petra Herczeg, and Mark Eisenegger. The entire issue is available open access via the Nomos eLibrary.

Cover der Publikation "
Publikation Research Project on Misinformation and Disinformation

Destructive Discourses

The final research report, jointly written as part of the NOTORIOUS research project, looks at how climate-related misinformation and disinformation spreads across different platforms. At the HBI, Philipp Keßling, Dr. Felix Victor Münch, Dr. Gregor Wiedemann, and Mattes Ruckdeschel worked on the report.

Bild des 1600 Seiten starken Kommnatrs
Publikation The most comprehensive HBI publication ever!

DSA DMA Commentary

It is the most extensive publication the HBI has ever produced: the 1600-page commentary on the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), edited by Tobias Mast, Matthias C. Kettemann, Stephan Dreyer and Wolfgang Schulz. In addition to several current and former researchers from the institute, almost 30 other experts from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were recruited for the commentary project.

Cover des Kurzgutachtens
Publikation Brief Expert Opinion

State Treaty on the Reform of the Procedure for Setting the Broadcasting License Fee

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulz and Dr. Tobias Mast have provided their expert opinion on the State Treaty on the Reform of the Procedure for Setting the Broadcasting Fee (RFinÄStV). At the end of 2004, the federal states had decided to separate the pillars of the reform of public broadcasting and to adopt the draft reform first and to continue the process of reforming the procedure for setting the licence fee separately.

Cover of the first volume of the EU publication series

The Protection of Freedom of Expression in the Digital Services Act

The publication "Der Schutz der Meinungsäusserungsfreiheit im Digital Services Act" [The Protection of Freedom of Expression in the Digital Services Act], to which Matthias C. Kettemann contributed significantly, is the first in a series of KommAustria publications on the DSA, which are intended to provide a basis for understanding the DSA and contribute to a more differentiated discussion.

Cover of Working Paper No. 76
Publikation Project Findings Available for Download

Between Curiosity and Skepticism: Use and Perception of Generative AI for Information Search in Germany

The research project "Generative Artificial Intelligence for Information Navigation", funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), investigated to what extent, for what purposes and for what reasons the German population uses generative artificial intelligence in applications such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini. The findings can be downloaded as a working paper.

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