Dipl. -Soz. Marco Höhn

We mourn the loss of Marco Höhn

In September 2020, Marco Höhn, first a research assistant and then a university lecturer at the ZeMKI for many years, died suddenly and completely unexpectedly for all of us.

Marco Höhn belonged to the small circle of those who built up communication and media studies at the University of Bremen with vigor and great commitment from the very beginning. After studying sociology at the University of Trier, he was a research assistant in the field of media economics at the Technical University of Ilmenau from April 2000 to September 2004. In October 2004, he moved to the University of Bremen, where he worked first as a research assistant and then as a university lecturer in communication and media studies, specializing in media economics and media practice. In addition to these professional positions, Marco Höhn was also repeatedly active in cultural and event management, at times with his own event agency.

With a lot of energy, calm perseverance and always in a good mood, Marco Höhn built up the media practice area of the communication and media science courses at the University of Bremen, which he was responsible for until the end. In doing so, he attached great importance to dovetailing university teaching with the media landscape in the state of Bremen and in Germany as a whole. Marco Höhn had a forward-looking view of future developments, focusing on the shift in the media industry towards digital at a time when many educational institutions in Germany were still taking a wait-and-see approach. He maintained close contacts with representatives from numerous areas of the media industry and supported them in word and deed. He was able to recruit many of them as lecturers for the ZeMKI and our students. All of this came together in his involvement in Klub Dialog, a networking platform for the cultural and creative industries in Bremen, of which he has been a board member since September 2018. University teaching and close contact with students have always been at the heart of Marco Höhn’s activities. He was a highly popular lecturer among students for his engaging lectures, his varied teaching concepts, his open ear, his intensive advice and his great support. Many – sometimes too many – wrote their theses with him, which he continuously supervised. For Marco Höhn, however, teaching was much more than just the seminars he gave. He invented and organized the “Media Practice” information events, which inform students about the job market and allow them to get to know future employers through formats such as “job speed dating”.

Marco Höhn’s name is also closely associated with krosse.info, a cross-media student magazine covering topics from culture, media, leisure and society. Many former students of the University of Bremen who went on to work in the media industry gained their first journalistic experience at krosse.info.

As a colleague, Marco Höhn was the calming influence in the bustling academic world. Always ready to talk and with inspiring, subtle humor, he jumped to our side in many intellectual “crisis moments”. In the sometimes chaotic everyday life at ZeMKI, Marco kept an eye on everything and was – often far beyond the usual working hours – a designer, advisor and problem solver at the same time.

Marco Höhn was a team player (and not just as a self-confessed HSV fan) and was on friendly terms with many colleagues at ZeMKI. His soccer tipping sessions, his earlier activities as a DJ and the concert and soccer stadium trips he organized were legendary.

We will miss Marco very much.