Photojournalism on Twitter. The transformation of social and legal norms.
My CAIS project investigates the social and legal transformations of photojournalism on and through social media. The focus is on Twitter as an exchange platform for news photos: Uploaded eyewitness material from terrorist attacks and natural disasters, for example, is the starting point of my research project. Twitter conversations following these uploads show that photo editors from all over the world contact (amateur) photographers to request permission to use the images in journalistic publications – as a rule, the authors demand the use of their photos without time and space restrictions and free of charge. One of my goals is to investigate the extent to which copyright and terms of use are shaped by social media companies, photo-sharing platforms and journalistic needs: What is the status of the digital image in changing social and legal practices?
I am also interested in ethical issues around the digital image, including regarding a renewal of press codes on photojournalistic practice and photo-editorial decisions: So far, press codes hardly consider digital photos in journalism.
Research focus
- Digital (Visual) Cultures
- Global Media Studies with focus on photojournalism and politics
- Media ethics
- Media sociology
- Image circulation, production and distribution
Curriculum Vitae
- from 04/2020: Principal Investigator (PI) “Behind the Digital Image”, Project Management within the Priority Programme “The Digital Image”, German Research Foundation (SPP 2172); Institute for Media Culture and Theatre, University of Cologne
- 10/2019 – 03/2020: Research Fellow at the CAIS, Center for Advanced Internet Studies, Bochum
- 10/2015 – 09/2019: BMBF Research Fellow, PI and Research Fellow at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
- 10/2017 – 09/2019: Truman Institute Research Fellow, The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
- 2011 – 2016: The Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (Member)
Lectures and publications
- Runge E. and Vowinckel A. (2019, forthcoming). Israel, Palestine and German Contemporary History. Special Issue Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, 3. https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/.
- Runge, E. (2019). The Family of Man. Education through Photography, Travelling in Time and Space. Teaching Visual Literacy in Seminars, Artistic Tutorials, and Field Research. In: IMAGE. Interdisciplinary Journal of Image Science, 30: 46-57. bit.ly/2RuCzzn.
- Runge, E. (2018). Image databases, social media and artificial intelligence. In: POP. Culture and Criticism, 12: 108-113. https://mediarep.org/handle/doc/4077.
- Runge, E. (2016). Economics of photography: reflections on the global market of images. In: Media Studies: Reviews, 3: 274-296. doi.org/10.17192/ep2016.3.5979 .
- Runge, E. and Haarkötter, H. (2016). Motor / Travel. Basic knowledge for media practice. Cologne: Herbert von Halem Verlag. https://www.halem-verlag.de/motor-reise/.
- Runge, E. (2014). Negative ethics and photography. On seeing and blindness. In: Henning Ottmann/Stefano Saracino/Peter Seyferth (eds.): Gelassenheit. And Other Attempts at Negative Ethics. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 257 – 280. www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/3-643-12552-1.
- Runge, E. (2012). Glamour of Misery. Ethics, Aesthetics and Social Criticism in Sebastião Salgado and Jeff Wall. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag.