Junior professor Dr. Karin Boczek studied journalism and social sciences as a second subject (diploma in journalism) as well as economics (Bachelor's degree) at TU Dortmund and completed her doctorate in 2019 on the topic "Diversity as a journalistic value? An analysis of the use of expert sources in reporting with text mining and classical content analysis". She did her traineeship at the newspaper “Neue Westfälische” in Bielefeld and completed internships at “Radio Bremen” and “NDR” among others. Until her appointment to the KU she was junior professor at the seminar of journalism of the Johannes-Gutenberg University in Mainz from October 2019 to April 2021. Her main areas of work include innovations in journalism, digital journalism, and social media and messenger apps in journalism.
"Journalism finds itself in a field of tension as a result of digitalization: On the one hand, it is supposed to contribute to the public discussion about what effects digitalization has on everyone. On the other hand, journalism itself is also affected by digitalization," explains Boczek. In order to ensure that the digital society is oriented toward people, she says, we need scientific research to determine whether participation in new digital technologies is also ensured in journalism and what the risks are. The tenure track program provides an opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange with the other researchers involved.
While journalism used to be clearly identifiable by individual products, digital diversity is making it more difficult for audiences to clearly identify trustworthy journalism. In the face of an oversupply of information, she says, it's important to find ways to bring journalism back to the forefront. "This also has implications for the training of future journalists. It's a matter of packaging content in a way that continues to reach audiences even in this competition for attention," Boczek said. In print journalism in particular, innovations are usually geared to traditional publishing structures, which people try to preserve through pure digitization. However, the fact that readers remain willing to pay for innovative forms of journalism can be seen in the example of the New York Times, which continued to gain many digital subscriptions during the coronavirus epidemic.
A tenure track professorship, such as that of junior professor Boczek, offers particularly outstanding young researchers an immediate transition to a tenured professorship after they have proven themselves. This gives them reliable prospects of a scientific career at an early stage. "This path represents a cultural change in the promotion of young researchers and will be firmly established at the KU. We can thus offer young scientists long-term perspectives and outline a transparent career path for them. At the same time, the tenure track program further increases our appeal and permits us to attract outstanding young scientists," emphasizes Prof. Dr. Jens Hogreve, Vice President for Research and Young Scientists at the KU. For junior professor Dr. Karin Boczek, this not only provides more security for her personal future, but also gives her the means to work on research topics more intensively: "With the perspective of the tenure track program, I can select topics for my research that have a long-term character and do not only pick up on current discussions. It is a great honor for me to be part of this interdisciplinary program."
Interdisciplinary as, in addition to a detailed concept for personnel development, the KU's tenure track program also has one main topic. The program’s title “For a human-centered digital society” names the common thread that runs through all seven professorships.” The KU intends to establish a relationship between technological progress and social change, call attention to possible tension fields, risks and challenges and contribute to the formation of a human-centered digital society from an academic perspective. Besides journalism, other tenure track professorships - the next two are to start in the fall of this year - can be found in the areas of sociology, mathematics, psychology, linguistics and business administration.