Brigitte Kossek Bücher

How do digital media influence cognitive processes? In the light of the integration of digital media in the everyday life of tertiary education, can one speak of a digital turn? How can these media be used to create a teaching and learning environment that allows a critical, creative and innovative generation of knowledge and facilitates and supports new scope for thought and initiative? The contributions to this volume also consider the potentials and limitations of social media from different perspectives in connection with the neoliberal logic and commercial dominance of enterprises such as Google, Microsoft or Facebook. In this context the volume also analyses the student protests at the University of Vienna in 2009 and the interventions of the digital network collective Anonymous. The studies point to the development of new practices of representation and identification for demanding freedom, justice and democracy.

From the establishment of the standard European Higher Education Area in the late 1990s until today, polyphonic discourses have accompanied universities in the age of Bologna reform. This anthology provides thorough analyses of seemingly natural university structures and illustrates ways in which teaching and learning cultures in the age of Bologna can be made constructive, innovative and practice-oriented. The focus is thereby on the ambitious realisation of the principle of standardized research and teaching as well as the principles of student-centred teaching and learning. The contributions of the authors – researchers and teachers at different European universities (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom) – are based on the Friday lectures held at the University of Vienna. Responses by academics, teachers and students at the University of Vienna complement the contributions, critically reviewing the relevance of the contributions for teaching and studying from a practical perspective. With contributions by Ronald Barnett, Reinhard Brandt, Hans Pechar, Otto Kruse, Karin Reiber, Florian H. Müller, Gabi Reinmann, Jon Nixon, Ruth Becker, Leah Carola Czollek, Gudrun Perko, Wolfgang Nowak, Lee Harvey, Dietmar Chur and Celia Whitchurch.