The Project
ReDICo (“Researching Digital Interculturality Co-operatively”) was financed from November 2020 until October 2024 by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) within the program “Kleine Fächer – Zusammen Stark“ (Small Subjects: Strong together) and retains both research and strategic goals. The scientific examination of intercultural practices and discourses within digital spaces and their influence upon issues such as identities, group social cohesion and cultural change, remains at its centre. Coupled with this is the strategic aim of strengthening Intercultural Communication as an academic subject with a positive social influence, at both national and transnational levels. We continue as a loose but dedicated wider network, and a close-knit core research cooperative.
Towards Digital Interculturality
Learn more about our empirical and theoretical projects:
Study A: Digital Cosmopolitan Europeanism
(Fergal Lenehan and Roman Lietz: November 2020-April 2022)
Taking the grass-roots activists of influencers and non-governmental organisations at its centre, this project examines Europeanist cosmopolitan discourses on the social media platform Twitter, drawing on hermeneutic and qualitative interview methodologies.
This project is guided by a curiosity concerning Cosmopolitanism and ‘the Cosmopolitan’ within virtual spaces and their influence upon the material world.
Study B: Intercultural Competence and Communicative Practices within International Cooperation in Virtual Contexts
(Luisa Conti and Milene Mendes de Oliveira: November 2020-April 2022)
This study analyses on-line interaction conducted by people with different first languages and from different national contexts, within the online simulation game Mega Cities.
What factors influence the development of a team culture? What role does power play? What factors foster/challenge successful virtual communication and collaboration? These are some of the many questions our data will allow us to investigate.
Study C: (Neo-Nationalist?) Counter Public Spheres in the Comments Sections of British and German Online News Websites
(Luisa Conti and Fergal Lenehan: May 2022-October 2023)
Online reader forums and comment sections are examined here in relation to (in)coherence and ‘othering’ processes.
Methodologically looking to explore new ground within the realm of Netnography, the project asks whether a counter public sphere is actually in evidence here.
Study D: The Use and Influence of Digital Media for Social Cohesion in Diaspora Communities.
(Milene Mendes de Oliveira, Roman Lietz & Anna Finzel: May 2022-October 2023)
Online communication plays a major role for immigrants and their affiliation within diaspora communities. This study explores the impact of social media upon migrants’ identities and feelings of belonging. We investigate how their online communicative actions influence – and are influenced by – their social cohesion in this new context.
After three years of empirical research, we came together to engage with Digital Interculturality from a more wide-ranging theoretical perspective.
Conferences
A number of conferences are planned during the four years of ReDICo. Thus, we seek to establish sustainable national and international links between researchers and practitioners interested in the examination of Digital Interculturality, while also furthering the intellectual perspective upon this topic.
Introductory Symposium on "Interkulturalität in (post-)digitalen Kontexten“ (Jena/online September 20, 2021)
In this symposium on September, 20, 2021, we introduced our ReDICo project, and reflected upon the state of the art within Intercultural Communications scholarship, Internet Studies and how they may be combined.
Panel on Intercultural Online Communication at GAL Conference (Würzburg/online September 15-17, 2021)
Panel on Intercultural Communication at GAL Conference (Würzburg/online September 15-17, 2021)
ReDICo organised a panel about Digital Intercultural Communication for the Section of Intercultural Communication and Multilingual Discourse at the annual GAL (Gesellschaft für Angewandte Linguistik) conference in Würzburg (15-17 September 2021)
Three Hybrid E-Co-Conferences (2022, 2023, 2024)
Our three hybrid E-Co-Conferences are conducted together simultaneously in two places as well as open and online to a wider public. The hybrid conferences, initiated by ReDICo, are free of charge for contributors and participants, organised in an inclusive manner, and are coupled with a doctoral colloquium in which younger researchers may present their findings in an open and helpful context.
2022: Jena / Patras
2023: Mainz / Limerick
2024: Potsdam / Belo Horizonte
Editorial Activities
We are publishing online and in open access as much as we possibly can.
ReDICo edited and published:
- The special issue “Cyber-Utopia / Dystopia? Digital Interculturality between Cosmopolitan and Authoritarian Currents”; Interculture Journal 21/36, 2022.
- The special issue “Language and Interculturality in the Digital World”; F.A.L. Journal No. 40, 2024.
- The E-Book “Lifewide Learning in Postdigital Societies: Shedding Light on Emerging Culturalities”, Studies in Digital Interculturality, no. 1, Bielefeld: transcript, 2024.
- The E-Book “Reimagining Digital Cosmopolitanism: Perspectives from a Postmigrant and Postdigital World”, Studies in Digital Interculturality, no. 2, 2025 (forthcoming).
ReDICo Hub
Join our community! The ReDICo Hub is an online community open to scholars, people drawn from practical fields and policy-makers interested in the intersection of intercultural communication and the digital world. It is – and will remain – completely free-of-charge. The hub is dedicated to sharing, by facilitating knowledge exchange and creating new connections.
