ZeMKI Research Report 2023/2024

We are introducing a new feature with the 2023/24 research report: From now on, we want to cover a specific topic more comprehensively in each of the research reports, this year it is communicative AI. There is a simple reason for this: the ZeMKI has continued to grow and research has become far too broad and diverse for us to be able to present everything in the depth that the respective projects and publications actually deserve every year. The respective focus topic then also determines the now changing cover of the research report. 

Choosing communicative AI as the focus topic for 2024 is very simple: On April 3 and 4, 2024, we had the “on site review” of our research unit “Communicative AI: The automation of societal communication”, which was successful. The research unit (RU) can now start on January 1, 2025 with a total of 9 projects and a coordination project and will investigate how societal communication changes when generative AI becomes part of it. Much more has already been created around this, not only the ComAI Lectures series, but also a  cooperative conference on “Shaping 21st Century AI” and was organized by Christian Katzenbach and his team. It therefore made sense to devote more space to this topic area – in the coming years, there will be others. 

But there is also a lot more that is new: the appointment of Christian Schwarzenegger has created another ZeMKI lab (“Media Change and Long-Term Transformation Processes”) and the ZeMKI now also has a third main research area on “Digital Gaming”. It is fitting that the labs of Kerstin Radde-Antweiler and Karsten D. Wolf have moved into the ZeMKI building and that we can now set up the long-planned “Gaming Studio”. This new focus was celebrated with an international conference in October 2024 – another conference had the topic “Generative Imageries: Challenges of Visual Communication (Research) in the Age of AI” which was organzied by Stephanie Geise and her team after the editorial deadline of this research report in November 2024. 

We are also continuing with the development of our research software. On the one hand, this concerns our commitment to “digital and computational methods”, which is also reflected in ZeMKI‘s participation in Data Nord. In addition, OpenQDA has seen the light of day – and we very much hope that this infrastructure for qualitative social and media research can become an important support for many within and beyond the ZeMKI. 

The 2023/24 reporting period was also a year of doctorates. This concerned Mara Josepha Fritzsche (topic: “1968/69 On the history and aesthe­tics of documentary protest films in Argentina and Mexico”), Katharina Heitmann-Werner (topic: “Civil society actors in the communicative fi­guration of the city. An actor-centered analysis of the urban public sphere”) and Patrick Zerrer (topic: “Political Action and news use of the Fridays for Future Movement in Germany – Factors Impacting Political Action”). While Patrick Zerrer continues his research as a postdoc in the “INDI” project at the ZeMKI, Mara Fritzsche works in the Hamburg school service. Katharina Heitmann-Werner is responsible for coordinating the further development of the learning platform itslearning at the education authority of the state of Bremen, after having helped us to set up molo.news. 

Finally, we once again had many international guests – too many to mention with our conferences. But we would definitely like to mention the ZeMKI Fellows. In the winter semester 2023/2024 and summer semester 2024, we were visited by Prof. Dr. Luca Rossi (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Dr. Christoph Günther (University of Erfurt, Germany) and Prof. Dr. Nicola Righetti (University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy). 

In 2025, we all have something very special to look forward to: ZeMKI will be 20 years old! We want to celebrate this together on October 23-24, 2025 with a conference on the topic “20 Years into the Future: What is our vision of media, data, and society?”. You are all cordially invited to come. A call for this anniversary conference can be found at the end of this research report. 

We hope you enjoy reading it!

The 2023 /2024 research report is available here.