Wednesday, 27. February 2013, 18:15 – 20:00 h
At the University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 71, 8006 Zurich, KOL-G-201 (Aula)
If Dante had relocated his purgatory to the present, it would look like this: The ego travelled through this world because the hereafter has long since merged with this world in a comprehensive virtual application. All the protagonists walk around with iPhones, they have to play with apps and constantly call each other until they have served their sentence. We would then be on our way through the inferno of constant accessibility, of comprehensive connectivity, in which the individual disappears as if in a virtual fireball.
Miriam Meckel was born in Hilden in 1967, studied journalism and communication science, sinology, political science and law in Münster and Taipei. After graduating, she moved into journalism before being appointed professor by the University of Münster. After a detour into politics, where she worked for one legislative period under the Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia as a government spokesperson and state secretary, she is now back in academia. At the University of St.Gallen, she is Director of the Institute for Media and Communication Management and teaches as Professor of Corporate Communication. She is associated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, USA, as a Faculty Associate and teaches as a Visiting Professor at the Singapore Management University. Miriam Meckel publishes in the academic field on the topics of the internet, digital life, corporate communication and media change and writes regularly for current media.