Call for Papers for a Special Issue in Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft (M&K)
1. October 2026
ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Stephanie Geise, together with Marko Bachl, Merja Mahrt, and Annie Waldherr, is editing an English-language special issue of Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft (M&K) on the topic “Futuring Communication Research: Communicative AI as a Methodological Toolbox and Research Companion.” Contributions for this issue may be submitted in the form of an extended abstract by November 30, 2026.
What This Is About:
Communicative AI, such as large language models (LLMs) and agent-based systems, is fundamentally transforming how knowledge is generated, interpreted, and validated in our field. We are interested in contributions that utilize ComAI as a methodological tool and “research companion” while reflecting on its epistemological, ethical, and practical implications—across qualitative, quantitative, computational, and mixed-methods designs. We particularly welcome papers that combine critical reflection with empirical analysis, such as those addressing:
- The integration of ComAI into established methods
- Epistemology and reflexivity: the changing role of researchers
- Ethics, bias, and accountability
- Transparency, validity, reproducibility, and new standards (e.g., prompt documentation, model versioning, audit trails)
Key Dates:
- November 30, 2026: Submit an extended abstract (in English, max. 6,000 characters, including spaces) to the M&K editorial office, Christiane Matzen (c.matzen@leibniz-hbi.de)
- Mid- to late December 2026: Notification of selection
- March 15, 2027: Submission of full texts, followed by M&K’s standard double-blind peer review
- Publication: Issue 4/2027
The full call is available here