Doctoral Projects (2)

Given the growing religious, cultural, and linguistic diversity in learning groups—which presents the challenge of addressing learners’ varying backgrounds and needs in the classroom—the search for innovative teaching approaches in religious education is becoming increasingly important. Numerous studies show that the use of escape rooms in an educational context can increase learners’ motivation to learn and perform. However, the specific language-building design of such formats in religious education has hardly been researched to date.

The discourse on the future of AI is currently dominated by commercial systems, profitable use cases, and promises of economic growth driven by Big Tech. Various actors from the non-profit sector and beyond regard this dominance of commercial AI as a threat to the social fabric: systems such as ChatGPT or Grok are criticized for their at times problematic response behavior, while companies like OpenAI, xAI, and Palantir are accused of collaborating with authoritarian regimes and subverting democratic institutions.

Grounded in the theoretical premise of platform power, reflected in the ability of platforms to structure user behavior and shape communication dynamics through content governance, this dissertation examines how platform designs and governance strategies mediate the visibility and diversity of climate change discussions.

Political actors use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to influence potential voters and other key audiences such as journalists and civil society actors. This research will examine the self-promotion strategy of politicians from the perspective of visual framing and textual framing on Instagram. For data analysis, supervised deep learning will be used to (…)

The video games “Last of Us” (2013) and “Last of Us 2” (2020) caused heated discussions during their release periods. While the first game prompted players’ to reflect on their moral compass through depictions of difficult decisions in crisis situations, the second instalment, published in the middle of the corona-pandemic, caused a polarizing controversy about (…)

The dissertation focuses on new journalistic tools under the conditions of digital media change. The tools are understood as „boundary objects“ (Star&Griesemer, 1989). Such a socio-technological perspective makes it possible to analyze their (technical) specifics as well as to grasp the negotiation processes in the context of concrete development and appropriation processes. Methodologically, the work (…)

PhD project On the internet, the old business model of mass media is no longer viable and journalism must seek the attention of the audience in the area of conflict between quality reporting and personalized experience. An audience turn has taken place, which is also changing journalistic narrative styles.Hendrik Kühn’s dissertation project examines how this (…)

PhD project The research field of communication and media studies has changed significantly in recent decades with the spread of the internet and advancing digitalization. This applies not only to the subject area itself, but also to the methodological approach used to analyze it. Research software is an important tool in the implementation of numerous (…)