How can you get people out of their “caves”? How do you get them to emerge from their enclosed environments and partial public spheres, their clubs and cliques, their social and cultural routines? And somehow bring them together across boundaries? The answer is: With the help of media, for example. At least they have the potential to do so. The Berliner Gazette e.V. works toward realizing this potential.

In this context, the Internet is of particular importance. More and more people gain access to it and thus gain access to the processes of global networking and digitalization – processes that are not only changing the landscape of media but also society as a whole. In the 20th century, mass media provided platforms for communication and reflections of society. At the beginning of the 21st century major newspapers and similar (public) entities are hardly able to perform this integrative task. As a matter of fact, they increasingly lose the trust of the masses, who begin to focus on small digital-networked media.

But how can such media be used to think outside of the box and reflect the interests of society? This question leads the Berliner Gazette e.V. to analyze groundbreaking features of media in the era of the Internet and to test them in practice. Against this backdrop the nonprofit and nonpartisan association weaves its social networks – offline and online, locally and globally.