A feeling of complete speechlessness – buzzwords are supposed to orient us in the “new“ territory

Abstract

In his lecture, Wolfgang Coy discusses buzzwords like digitalization, algorithms, Big Data or Artificial Intelligence. These buzzwords have two major properties: They are often used in a very fuzzy way in the everyday life of journalism and politics and they therefore overarchingly serve not to clarify matters but to obscure them. Moreover, they are taken from complex scientific and technological contexts that are not fully understood by the users – who, for this reason, cannot assess their potential and their limits realistically. Instead, opportunities and (mostly economic) potentials, but also fears and risks are brought into the discussion, are financed and are used as a foundation of consequential decisions about the future.