Prof. Dr. Otfried Jarren (born 1953) studied mass communication and media research, political science and European ethnology in Münster, Germany. From 1979 to 1987, he was a research assistant and an associate of a faculty member at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research. He administrated the degree course Continuing Education in Journalism at FU Berlin from 1987 to 1989. Prof. Jarren was full professor for journalism focusing on communication and media sciences at the University of Hamburg from 1987 to 1997 and head of the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research from 1995 to 2000. He was appointed full professor of mass communication at the University of Zurich in 1997. In 1998, he became head of the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research (IPMZ) and held the position until 2008. Prof. Jarren was a co-founder and director of the center of competence “Swiss Centre for Studies on the Global Information Society” from 1999 to 2003. He was reviewer of the German Research Foundation from 2001 to 2005. Prof. Jarren was also co-director of the “National Centers of Competence in Research (NCCR): Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century” of the University of Zurich from 2005 to 2008. Subjects of particular interest in his research and publications are political communication, media regulation, media shift and social change.