ZeMKI-News

In collaboration with the Lower Saxony regional newspaper NOZ, ZeMKI member Prof. Stephanie Geise has analyzed a series of election posters from Meppen, Lingen, and Papenburg for the upcoming local election on Sunday, September 13.

From September 8 to 11, the 11th Conference of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) will take place in Brno (Czech Republic). The conference’s theme is “Paths, Connections, and Futures.” Numerous ZeMKI members will present their research.

On the afternoon of 8 July 2026, members of ZeMKI gathered at Linzer Straße 4 for the ZeMKI Research Day 2026. This internal event format provides a forum for presenting ongoing projects from the eleven ZeMKI Labs, discussing methodological issues and bringing together perspectives across the boundaries of the individual Labs.

On 8 July 2026, the ZeMKI Research Day at the Linzer Straße 4 site segued directly into the ZeMKI Summer Party. Following the day’s academic programme, the discussions moved outdoors and continued there in an informal setting.

The IAMCR (International Association for Media and Communication Research) will take place from June 28 to July 2, 2026, at the University of Galway (Ireland). The theme of this year’s conference is “Peripheries and Connections: Media, Communication, and Transformation.” ZeMKI will be represented at the conference with several presentations.

ZeMKI is taking part in the University of Bremen’s Open Campus 2026 today. Under the motto ‘Opening up worlds – sharing knowledge’, the university is offering insights into research, study programmes and academic projects on campus.

Nieki Samar presented the initial findings of her research project "Echoes of the #IranProtest: Political narratives of Iran bloggers on German social media" at a panel discussion. She is currently conducting this project together with ZeMKI members Paul Pressmann and Michael Linke.

For 2026, the ZeMKI Steering Committee has selected seven international visiting scholars as part of the Visiting Research Fellowship program. Each fellow will spend at least four weeks collaborating with selected ZeMKI Labs.

On Wednesday, January 21, 2026, ZeMKI, together with Radio Bremen/Bremen Zwei and the Bremen Press Club, hosted the ZeMKI Media Talks on the topic: “And tomorrow the world will not end (?). How the media communicates about crises” at Club 27.

In a presentation at the annual conference of the DGPuK's Reception and Impact Research Section in Klagenfurt, Dr. Sabine Reich shows how sexism in online comments shifts participation norms in political online discussions.

In January 2026, the article published by ZeMKI member Stephanie Geise together with Yi Xu is honored by the editor of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (JMCQ) as one of the outstanding publications of 2025.

SpringerVS has published a new methods volume entitled “Exploring Media, Data, and Networking Practices: Methodological Concepts and Research Software,” edited by ZeMKI members Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp, Florian Hohmann, and Dr. Philip Sinner.