Computational Communication Science| Crafting a Strategic Roadmap for Computational Methods in Communication Science: Learnings From the CCS 2018 Conference in Hanover – Commentary

Abstract

The rise of digital communication brings about dramatic challenges for theories of communication (and social sciences in general), but also opportunities and problems regarding the expansion of empirical methods employed to study human communication and its manifold digital traces. A team of German communication scholars at Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media and at the University of Mainz held an international conference in Hanover with both young and experienced scholars in February 2018 to promote the development of collective, cross-institutional strategies for computational communication science (CCS). The key findings and learnings from the conference are documented in this conference report. We intend to stimulate organizational and collaborative efforts in establishing infrastructures, knowledge bases, standards of best practice, and a spirit of solidarity among interested scholars to push the field’s digital-methodological progress and to compensate for different starting conditions that scholars and institutions are facing on their journey into the digital future.