News

The ECREA European Doctoral Summer School is currently taking place from August 3 to 9 at Södertörn University in Stockholm. ZeMKI member Prof. Christian Schwarzenegger is participating as a lecturer and discussant. In addition to providing feedback on several European dissertation projects, he is also offering a workshop on working with qualitative data. Patrick Frey and Luisa Runge are presenting their own dissertation projects and receiving feedback from international experts.

The recent security incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face has reignited the discussion about the safe use of powerful AI systems. In an interview with Horizont, Andreas Hepp analyzes the latest developments and explains their significance for research, society, and regulation.

The latest version of OpenQDA has been released. Users can now add and manage variables for their project materials (sources). This lays the groundwork for the upcoming implementation of cases and sets.

Since July 2026, Ananth Shreyas is a Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Religion and Related Didactics at the University of Bremen, working under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler within the ZeMKI Media and Religion Lab.

How can media outlets, universities, companies, and public institutions reduce their dependence on the major platform corporations? ZeMKI member Dr. Leif Kramp, together with co-author Dr. Stephan Weichert from the VOCER Institute for Digital Resilience, addresses this question in an op-ed for the taz.

Emilija Gagrčin (ZeMKI, GLaMS Lab) contributed to the 13th FILE – Forum on Intercultural Learning and Exchange, held by Fondazione Intercultura in Colle di Val d'Elsa on 13–15 November 2025 under the theme "Encouraging Value-Based Behaviors: From Pupils' Mobility to Civic Engagement."

The gamevironments Special Issue "Beyond Play" is out now! It features eight articles covering genre, neurodivergence, feminist gaming culture, streaming, YouTube videos, and digital diplomacy—reimagining gaming. Highlights include an introduction titled "Beyond Play: Towards a Non-Gaming-Centric Gaming Research" by ZeMKI members Christian Schwarzenegger, Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, and Karsten D. Wolf.

The Gamevironments Research Day is a workshop exclusively for early-stage researchers, graduate students and doctoral students. It welcomes research on media-centered approaches, perspectives of game developers and publishers, and viewpoints of gamers. The workshop provides a unique opportunity for participants to engage in discussions and debates about theoretical approaches for studying the intersection of religion, culture, and video gaming.