Tired of endlessly lamenting the current situation and unable to ignore the so-called “polycrisis” any longer? But finding that many projects lack the prospect of real structural change? Then paranova is just right for You!
Paranova is a students initative that started at the university of Tuebingen (Germany). We see ourselves as a practice-oriented think tank: Through critical and cooperative exchange, we seek new perspectives on the pressing issues of our time. We recognize that something is fundamentally wrong with how we communicate—both offline and, even more so, online. The causes of our problems are deeply interwoven, yet our solutions are not—the public discourse is stuck.
Paranova takes shape in two concrete projects: Our big vision is a digital platform for the common good—social media, just without the commercial focus. Our “small vision” is an event calendar for Tuebingen that includes ALL events. You don’t need to bring anything but a passion for discovering new perspectives. Your input matters—get involved!
Why don’t you just stop by our regular meeting?
When? Every Wednesday, 6 p.m. (18 Uhr)
Where? Brechtbau, Room 120, Wilhelmstr. 50, 72074 Tübingen.
Great news: Our meetings will take place in a hybrid format from now on! If you would like to drop in, just send us an email and we will send you the link.
Our meeting on December 10th is unfortunately cancelled due to conflicting events. We’ll meet one last time this year on December 17th 😉
Note: This page is still under development, we need your help to improve our public appearance! No matter if you are a student or not, we aim for broad collaborations beyond our bubble. If you are keen to connect or exchange ideas, we would love to hear from you!
Project: Tuevents
The current objective paranova aims for is the realisation of a local event calendar for Tuebingen. We call it: tuevents. Although there have been similar attempts before a proper solution that displays the variety of events all together – Music, Art, Science, Sports, Politics, … – is missing. Many places of culture have to rely on established Social Media to promote their events to a broad audience. We see this as problematic because people without these Social Media are excluded and, moreover prominent big platforms have proven disgraceful in many ways. Stay tuned for more information in this section and if you want to contribute reach out to us!
Once we realized the event calendar in Tuebingen it is scalable to other locations! Moreover it can be seen as a stepping stone for our more ambitous project.
Project: Common Ground
Let’s build the (digital platform for the) future
The internet and social media offer great possibility, but also harbor danger. Nowadays, much of our social interaction happens online. Here, we spend our free time, watch videos, listen to music, or interact with friends. But we also check out the latest news from around the globe and discuss relevant topics. Unfortunately, such discussions often run off the rails and we end up verbally attacking one another instead of having fruitful discussions. Our project “Common Ground” seeks to take another shot at the possibilities of the internet to create a social media platform for the everyday use but also genuine online discussions. This way, we might create the preconditions for digital deliberative democracy. The outline below highlights some of the main areas we aim to tackle as part of this ambitious endeavor.
Prototyping solution-oriented communication
The goal
The goal of the project “Common Ground” is the creation of a new digital platform that allows people with different perspectives on life, in all its relevant spheres, to engage in critical exchange. We want to create a space of free discourse, detached from any constraints – besides the ones we agree upon ourselves. Reaching overall consensus is an ideal that oftentimes might not be facilitated, but aiming for such might perhaps lead to an acceptable compromise.
Features
With the ambition to be used by many people, the platform has to contain several specific features that are appealing to a broad audience: Modern social media platforms, like Facebook or Instagram, already offer vast possibilities of connecting with other people and following personal interests. However, they lack the means to foster critical exchange and the structure for comprehensible argumentation. Discussion-based forums focus on argumentative exchange but are not as established and offer few opportunities for direct social networking.
Common Ground wants to combine these aspects to create an authentic platform with the potential to form a large user base while giving an incentive for productive social change.
How-To: Communicate
Effective communication is not that easy, we all know that. And the reasons for this are all too human, the internet has made things even more complicated. Common Ground aims to actively guide its users on how to communicate more effectively with each other, based on scientific research. Because we already know a lot about human communication: this knowledge just urgently needs to be disseminated to the civil public!
The Digital Local
Common Ground aims at taking the focus back to our local lifeworld. Besides the feature of being globally connected, we think that fruitful democratic discourse lives from the personal connections we build in our physical world. Of course, we are all globally connected but considering civic engagement it is natural that one wants to see the fruits of their effort. That works best on a local level.
Embracing Civic Engagement
There are a lot of people already engaging for the good. Be it ecological, social, political, … initiatives, associations or NGOs, they all have in common, that they lack the representation on established platforms. People who want to enter the world of civic engagement have to already know what they are searching for. That is where Common Ground wants to make a change. A platform that gives special spotlight to these groups and simplifies the entry for individuals into a world of productive social change.
Rules and user guidelines
Free speech has immense value, but does it have limitations? On the one hand, people should be free to voice their true opinion. The topics that are the most pressing usually are the most controversial as well. Therefore, free speech is necessary for reaching a conclusion. On the other hand, certain rules are needed to prevent abuse. Despite the intentional abuse of communication, also a certain quality of discussion needs to be ensured. This includes, for example, the willingness to come to a productive conclusion and to actually refer to the arguments put forward by the partner in discussion.
Coming up with the right set of rules is a challenge: The platform needs a distinct set of rules. With high democratic ambitions the only way to achieve this is to include every user right from the start in an interwining process of theory and practice.
A democratic mode of content moderation
Content moderation deals with the monitoring of user-generated content. Usually, platforms use algorithms to detect abuse and malcontent. They are useful methods to regulate, but they also run danger of censoring content and might be insensitive for context specificity, which threatens freedom of speech.
In complicated cases, we want the users of the platform to decide, on a democratic basis, whether rules have been violated or not. “The Tribunal” is a unique feature of the platform that puts up cases, once flagged for violation, to be decided upon. Thereby, we want to make the rules and guidelines tangible and promote participation as part of a responsible membership.
Another Platform in the Fediverse
The Fediverse is a network of interconnected servers used for web publishing and social networking. It stands for “federated universe,” indicating a collection of independent communities that operate together. The Fediverse relies on ActivityPub, a decentralized social networking protocol that makes the communication between different platforms possible. Common Ground wants to be part of the Fediverse to promote the individual preferences of web users. Let’s not build another monopoly.
Curently, we are actively searching for motivated IT-developers that want to contribute to Common Ground. People with knowledge in ActivityPub would be a huge benefit for the project.
Work in progress
All of this is just a raw outline of a future platform that has not been launched yet. For realizing this ambitious endavour paranova facilitates a philosophy that sets cooperation above competition. While critical dialogue drives progress, we seek to avoid impeding much-needed change through an overly rigid identification with our own approach. Therefore, a lot of our work has to do with getting people with similar projects at the same table. Alone we may speak, but only together can we be heard!
Participate
Do you agree on our general vision? What do you consider as obstacles? Or do you already have ideas how the project might be improved? Then contact us and let us know!
We are always looking for enthusiastic people. Regardless of your field of expertise, your contribution is of value. The project grows through its participants.
Paranova is a call for cooperation
Are you discouraged from associating yourself firmly with an organization? We know that feeling! But no problem: Paranova sees itself just as one driver of these projects, you can also participate without having to call yourself a member of paranova. Nevertheless, we needed a name for our association: “paranova” comes from the Latin “paradigma nova” and is a neologism for this “new way of thinking” that withdraws from the need to force unity under one label. What truly matters is addressing the multiple crises we’re facing — together.
Workshop
Offering critical education
The mediation of critical education is an integral part of our work. To advance knowledge opens up the personal — and always partial — understanding of the world to a greater horizon. This holds true for various aspects of life, including complex and sometimes abstract phenomena like our society and politics, but also daily interactions with people and ultimately: oneself. Therefore, education is empowering and beneficial for you and others.
Our workshop “Common Ground Despite Controversy”
Our workshop is dedicated to attaining these objectives of critical education. The project titled “Common Ground Despite Controversy” follows a service-learning approach, integrating theoretical learning materials with hands-on activities across four consecutive sessions. Guided by a systems thinking perspective, participants learn about society, communication, and digital media. We address contemporary problems, alongside potential solutions. Working on practical tasks, participants apply theories and concepts and engage in the task of designing a digital platform that facilitates controversial yet consensus-based communication for democratic exchange on the internet.
Participation requirements
The workshop’s suited audiences are university students, secondary school pupils, and organisations in adult education. Programme and structure can be adapted upon request and according to the requirements of a specific learning group. The contents tought resemble a broad introduction into the social sciences. Yet their complexity can be adjusted to the respective audience. Therefore, it doesn’t matter whether prospective participants are already knowledgeable in the topics outlined above or not.
The workshop is offered in both English and German. Scheduling dates can be done independently, and they are determined based on the size of the group and its specific requirements.
Are you interested or do you need further information? Please reach out to us via Mail.
Contact
There are different ways through which you can contact us.
Instagram
For short posts and quick updates, find us on Instagram @paranova_common_ground or by clicking the icon below.
Discord
If you are interested in participating in our community or just want to drop by and get to know us, you might join our discord server. Here, we regularly hold meetings on a two-week basis, discussing current projects
Mail
Whatever your inquiry might be, just write us an e-mail: info@paranova.org
Imprint
Paranova
Student’s initiative at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz
72074 Tübingen
The activities of student initiatives are carried out under the auspices of the Transdisciplinary Course Program (TRACS) at the University of Tübingen
Keplerstr. 2
72074 Tübingen
Contact: civic-engagement@tracs.uni-tuebingen.de
Responsible for the webpage
Jonas Kießling and Sirius Noske
Mail: info@paranova.org
paranova 