Lab Media and Religion

In June 2020, the highly anticipated sequel to “The Last of Us” game was released. Within hours of its release, the game’s Metascore dropped to 3.3, while previous reviews from journalistic media had accumulated to a score of 95. What had happened? – The common reading of this “review-bombing” event is that players, unhappy with (…)

Professor Kerstin Radde-Antweiler explores climate change in relation to video games and gaming practices, analyzing discussions on environmental games and their narratives. Despite the prominence of climate change themes in games, her research reveals a lack of discussions about their content and connections to real-world events on gaming forums compared to other media platforms. However, (…)

This year, the ZeMKI welcomes a total of four Visiting Research Fellows as part of its Visiting Researcher Program. From over 85 applications, the steering committee of the Center for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen selected five researchers who will work together with two ZeMKI labs in interdisciplinary research for (…)

ZeMKI member Dr. Dom Ford has been invited to give a talk at the University of Regensburg on ‘A World to Escape to: Gameworlds as Otherworlds in Datafied Society’ at the symposium ‘Videogames as Folkworlds: Nationalism – Democracy – Sustainability’, 11–12 April. About the event: Funded by the Vielberth Foundation and sponsored by the Leibniz (…)

ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler is currently a Research Fellow at UNC Greensboro. Since last year, UNCG has established an E-Sports Center (https://esports.uncg.edu/), which offers study programs as well as research on the topic of digital gaming. During her three-month stay, she will collaborate with the Network for the Cultural Study of Videogaming (https://cas.uncg.edu/ncsv). The stay (…)

The International Academy for the Study of Gaming and Religion (IASGAR)  and the Research Area Digital Gaming at the ZeMKI – Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research is hosting its third IASGAR Research Day. Exclusively for early-stage researchers, graduate students and doctoral students, the workshop welcomes research on media-centered approaches, perspectives of game developers and publishers, and viewpoints (…)

ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler takes part in a panel discussion at the hybrid conference “Church History and Game Studies? Explorations of Religion and History in Digital Games” at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. The conference is a collaboration between the Chair of Church History at the Department of Protestant Theology at Goethe University Frankfurt, (…)

Vít Šisler, Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, Xenia Zeiler Game studies has been an understudied area within the emerging field of digital media and religion. Video games can reflect, reject, or reconfigure traditionally held religious ideas and often serve as sources for the production of religious practices and ideas. This collection of essays presents a broad range of (…)

On 23.04.2024, ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler is giving a lecture as part of the lecture series “Religious Practice in Digital Change” in the theme year “The Digitization of Religion” at the University of Münster. The subject of the lecture series is the question of how different churches and religious communities deal with the (…)

Exploration of religion and history in digital games. From March 4-6 in Mainz at the theological department of the University of Mainz in cooperation with the working group Humanities and Digital Games, the medieval blog and Mittelalter.Digital https://kggames.uni-mainz.de/

The members of the Media and Religion Lab Prof. Dr. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler and Dr. Hannah Grünenthal presented the project “Recov-19: The Changing Role of Religion in Societies Emerging from Covid-19” at the spring meeting of the Network of German-speaking Researchers of Religion and Culture in Times of Deep Mediatization (GeNet-ISMRC). Together with the project “Covid-19 (…)

Come and work with us!  Our Fellowship Program invites international researchers to Bremen for four weeks to deepen and connect their research in the transformation of media, communication, and information. We are looking for established scholars who want to enjoy the thriving interdisciplinary research environment at ZeMKI.

Where: Room 60.070, Linzer Str. 4 When: December 20, 2023 – 16:15 to 17:45h   Abstract: My paper explores the audiovisual design of videos by contemporary Muslim preachers. I hope to offer a broader perspective on this emerging field that considers the complexity of audiovisual material. I propose audiovisuality as a conceptual addition to existing (…)

Editors-in-Chief: Prof. Dr. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, Prof. Dr. Xenia Zeiler Managing Editor: Dr. Dr. Lisa Kienzl Language: English ISSN 2364-382X Video games are undeniably an important factor in cultural and religious socialization today. Research on this influential sector in the field of media is also taking place in academic discourse. As the first academic peer-reviewed online (…)

The invitation to the event with the abstract of the lecture and more information about Prof. Dr. Christoph Günther can be found here.

ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler and Dr. Kathrin Trattner will discuss “The Last of Us and Postmdern Ambiguities” with international colleagues in the panel “Death, Dying and Beyond Unit” on Sinntag. D. Hannah Grünenthal, also a ZeMKI member, will give a lecture with Kerstin Radde-Antweiler on Monday on the role of religion in secular (…)

ZeMKI member Prof. Dr. Kerstin Radde-Antweiler will give a lecture on “The Discussion of Climate Change in Gaming Discussion Forums” in the panel “Building a better World through Videogaming?”. The lecture is on 09.11.2023 in Busan/South Korea as part of the 7th World Humanities Forum. More information about the program and the forum can be (…)

On Wednesday, November 8, games researcher and ZeMKI member Dr. Dom Ford will give a guest lecture as part of his research stay at the University of Malta. In line with Dom Ford’s research, the talk entitled: “Approaching From Software’s Souls series as myth`at the Institute for Digital Games”, will focus on the notion of (…)

ZeMKI members Dr. Dom Ford and Bodil Stelter will be at CEEGS 2023 in Leipzig from 19 to 21 October. This year’s CEEGS is entitled “Meaning and Making of Games” and is being hosted by Macromedia University of Applied Sciences. Dr. Dom Ford will give a lecture entitled “The city, according to city builders: the (…)

This year’s student symposium 2023 is entitled “Religion – Values – Media.” ZeMKI students and the ZeMKI Lab “Media and Religion” are involved. When: 11.10.2023 – 1 pm to 6:15 pm 12.10.2023 – 9 am to 5:15 pm Where: SFG 1020/1030 Click here for the program. First semester students are welcome!

The anthology “Medienvielfalt – Religionsvielfalt: Facetten der Transformation von Medien und Religion” from the book series “Medien, Kultur, Kommunikation” was edited by ZeMKI member Anke Offerhaus. The following texts by Anke Offerhaus were also published in the anthology: Media Diversity – Religious Diversity: Facets of the Transformation of Media and Religion (Introduction)) Online mourning also (…)

Under the title “Oldenburg School for the Social Sciences and the Humanities”, a series of events will take place in Oldenburg at the beginning of October to promote young academics in the humanities and social sciences. When: 04. to 06.10.2023 Where: Smart House, Oldenburg On October 6, ZeMKI member Dr. Dom Ford will give a (…)

At the end of August, the members of all four projects met in Bremen to discuss their results and plan the next steps. In this context, the first results of the group’s research on religion and digitalization in times of Corona were presented and discussed in a public lecture. The guests were colleagues from Canada, (…)