Benjamin Birkner

Benjamin Birkner comes from the field of political communications—and today works on alternative visions for a public sphere that all too often focuses solely on grabbing attention rather than fostering understanding and the capacity for action.
 
At futur eins, he supports projects such as “Gelöst oder Gequetscht” and “Der Überblick,” which address precisely where today’s debates often fail: the gaps in knowledge, media logic, and the lack of spaces for concrete understanding. 
 
Most recently, he led digital communications for Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, where he was responsible for strategies and campaigns for European, federal, and state elections. With Plankton.social, he founded an alternative to platform-centric visibility on the open web—with the aim of strengthening independent voices and not only engaging with the digital public sphere but also helping to shape it structurally. Before and alongside this, he worked in agencies, startups, and as a consultant for NGOs, ministries, media outlets, and political actors. 
 
What appeals to him about futur eins is the attempt to bring together analysis, design, and concrete action. Benjamin doesn’t think of the public sphere in abstract terms, but rather in practical ones: in formats, processes, infrastructures, and alliances. Or to put it another way: he is less interested in the next campaign-ready cycle of outrage than in the question of what a democratic public sphere might look like that makes people wiser, freer, and more capable of taking action.