FELLOWSHIPS BY SERKAN BULUT AND GAO JING

Serkan Bulut will be fellow at the chair of Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter in Summer 2025

Project: AI Technologies in the Media and a Techno-Determinist Inquiry: German News Media and Audience Perspective

Serkan Bulut is currently a lecturer in the Department of Journalism at Çukurova University/Türkiye. As a recipient of the 2219 TÜBİTAK Post-Doctoral Research Scholarship, he completed his postdoctoral research on artificial intelligence and news media at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2024. He is now conducting a research project titled "AI Technologies in the Media and a Techno-Determinist Inquiry: German News Media and Audience Perspective," under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter at the Department of Media Studies, University of Bonn. His research interests include digital media and journalism, emerging technologies and their implications for the news media, Google journalism (SEO), journalism and artificial intelligence, and data visualization, among others.

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Gao Jing will be fellow at the chair of Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter in Winter 2025/26.

Project: Lessing´s Theory of the Artistic Medium in Laocoön and Its Modern Interpretations

This study revisits Gotthold Ephraim Lessing´s Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, a foundational text in the history of media theory, and explores its modern reinterpretations. Through a twofold approach, the research aims to reassess the theoretical structure and contemporary significance of Lessing´s artistic medium theory. The first part undertakes a systematic analysis of Laocoön from the perspective of media studies, focusing on the ontological foundations, functional framework, and critical discourse of the theory of artistic medium in Laocoön. The second part traces the modern interpretive trajectories of Laocoön, offering a critical reflection on prevailing paradigms in modern artistic medium theory and evaluating the enduring theoretical value and cultural significance of Lessing’s media aesthetics in contemporary scholarly contexts.

This fellowship is funded by Nanjing University. The research project is part of the Major Project in Art Studies under the National Social Science Fund of China, titled “The Intermedia Construction of Art Theory and Its Epistemological Study.” 

See the related paper by Jens Schröter: The Laocoon Moment.