Annual Conference of the DGPuK's Media Sports and Sports Communication Section at Kiel University of Applied Sciences

To coincide with the selection of the German bid for the 2036, 2040, and 2044 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games (Munich together with Kiel), the 9th Annual Conference of the DGPuK’s Media Sports and Sports Communication Section took place at HAW Kiel from September 23 to 25, 2026. Theme: From Olympic Arenas to Digital Venues—Communication Spaces in Sports. Well represented: ZeMKI.

Already on the first day of the conference, it became clear how closely research and teaching are linked. Together with five other students and doctoral candidates from the German Sport University Cologne, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, and the University of Klagenfurt, Finja Trau, a student in the BA program in Communication and Media Studies, presented her thesis and discussed its theoretical framework and methodological approach with research staff from the participating universities and HAW Kiel. The topic of her thesis: German Women’s National Team Players on Instagram: An Analysis of Self-Communication and Communication by the National Team Association.

Side Program and Award

The academic program consisted of 18 presentations covering a broad range of topics, as the panel titles suggest: “Spaces of Production: Platforms and Politics of Sport,” “Instrumental Integrity in Sports Communication,” “Manipulated Credibility in Sport,” “Spaces of Reception: Resonance and Reflection in Sports,” “Digital Dynamics of Sports Communication,” and “Digital Capital of Sports Communication.” The program was rounded out by several practical insights and panel discussions, such as those on digital venues in sports or the challenges of building a new soccer stadium in an era of profound mediatization. Also presented were the communication strategies for Kiel Week (the world’s largest sailing event), the mediatization of sailing—featuring, among others, the German Olympic hopeful for Los Angeles, Maru Scheel—and the successful 2026 Kiel Olympic campaign “JO!”. Johannes Hesse delivered the keynote address on “Kiel.Sailing. City,” a unique selling point on a global scale in both sports communication and city marketing.

Particularly gratifying from the ZeMKI’s perspective: the paper “Tech-Savvy Jack-of-All-Trades? An Investigation of the Production Conditions of Moving-Image Content in Sports: Working Methods, Challenges, and Changes” by Oskar Knebel and ZeMKI member Dr. Philip Sinner was honored with the division’s Best Paper Award.

Invitation to the 10th Annual Conference of the Section in 2027 in Bremen

In 2027, the section’s 10th annual conference will take place in Bremen. From September 22 to 24, 2027, ZeMKI members Prof. Dr. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, Prof. Dr. Christian Schwarzenegger, Dr. Philip Sinner, and Prof. Dr. Karsten D. Wolf will host the conference at ZeMKI and co-organize the event. The conference will focus on the close connection between sports and gaming. The collaboration among the four labs—Datafication and Mediatization, Media and Education, Media and Religion, and Media Change and Long-Term Transformation Processes—addresses the diversity and complexity of media sports and sports communication, which are significantly shaped by the numerous facets of gaming. At the same time, this initiative brings together two of ZeMKI’s three main research areas: the automation and datafication of communication, and digital gaming research.

More information about the conference and the program