The International Media Center

As the leading German academic platform of its kind, the International Media Center encourages freedom of the press domestically and abroad. The mission statement of the IMC – to foster a global democratic dialogue  is put into practice through international exchange and research programs.

The International Media Center (IMC) is a university institution at the HAW Hamburg's vibrant School of Media, Design, and Information. It is settled in the heart of Germany's media hub and at Europe's most modern media campus with high-tech equipment and interdisciplinary research and teaching facilities.

Through research and development the IMC supports outstanding young journalists and communication scientists, who are involved in a democratic dialogue. With its nonprofit programs, the IMC aims to make a lasting contribution to the international understanding between Germany and countries outside of Europe. It creates avenues to the world’s media in order to bring people together. Furthermore, the IMC Media Lab, the research center with its scientific expertise in the areas of media, journalism and social research supports the nonprofit IMC programs.

Through its three areas of responsibility — international journalism education, international journalism research and international advancement of democracy — the IMC can use synergies in research and teaching in its commitment to the common welfare and the promotion of democratic institutions domestically and abroad. The International Media Center is politically and denominationally independent and committed to the democratic community. As a project with chariable goals, it is unreservedly committed to the universal right of a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms laid out in the Universal Definition of Human Rights of the United Nations can be fully realized. In many of the IMC’s cooperating countries, these rights are limited.

Together with its cooperating partners, the IMC campaigns for journalists to be able to report freely and unhindered and for the respect of their human rights. Moreover, it teaches young journalists from Germany and abroad the importance of free reporting on human rights violations as well as a democratic understanding of social self-supervision and self-description through critical journalism.