The prevalence of speech assistants taking orders, social bots influencing debates, and machines generating texts underscores the increasing sophistication of automated communication. Simultaneously, public discourse on these phenomena reflects the ongoing challenges associated with the automation of communication. It seems that the intricacies of today’s complex societies compel a reliance on automation to meet communication needs, while also generating additional issues for which automated communication appears to be the most plausible solution.
Research in nine projects plus coordination project
The “Communicative AI“ Research Unit, funded by the DFG and the FWF, is investigating in nine projects and one coordination project how societal communication changes when communicative AI becomes part of it. Top researchers from the fields of media and communication studies, informatics, sociology and law are involved. The research focuses on pioneer communities, the development of interfaces, the legal handling and governance of communicative AI, its role in journalism, in public (online) discourse, in everyday personal life through technological companions, in the health sector and in learning and teaching.
A new working paper by Göran Bolin entitled “On the concept of communication in the face of artificial conversational agents” was recently published. What is it about? There are, as of course well known in the philosophy of communication, several conceptualisations of the phenomenon of communication throughout media and communications research. Examples include the intersubjective (…)
Few technological developments spark more debate today than artificial intelligence. From promises of human advancement to fears of existential risk, AI generates a multitude of visions, conflicts, and societal debates. This “imaginative landscape of AI” goes beyond technical issues, encompassing political struggles, social movements, and ideas about the future of communication and society. The International (…)
As part of project P1 on pioneer communities within the “Communicative AI” research unit, interviews are currently being conducted to capture the ‘imaginative landscape of AI’ in the San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley) and the greater Berlin area. By ‘imaginative landscape of AI,’ we mean the entirety of visions, positions, and conflicts seen in relation (…)
From 21 March to 12 June 2026, Prof. Axel Bruns (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane) will join the research group Communicative AI (ComAI) at the University of Bremen as a Mercator Fellow. During his stay, he will contribute to cross-project discussions of our collaborative research, with a particular focus on the current theme of triangulations (…)
At the University of Bremen, the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) is seeking to fill, starting at the earliest on 01st January 2026, a position as Research Associate (f/m/d). Pay group 13 TV-L, full-time (39.2 hours per week), limited to 36 months (in accordance with § 2 WissZeitVG) for the development of (…)
We are very pleased to announce that the “ComAI Lectures” Series will soon be starting a new round. For the first time, we have also planned a three-hour workshop. This will take place on 30 September from 10:00 to 13:00 in the conference room at ZeMKI.Our guests will be Prof. Dr. Nathan Schneider (University of (…)
From July 21 to 23, 2025, the first AI Lab of the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (HFD) will take place in Münster. The aim of this new format is to bring together and further develop strategic and practice-oriented perspectives on the use of artificial intelligence in higher education. Also taking part is the ComAI project “Communicative AI (…)
In a recent guest article for the “Nachgefragt” section of APA-Science (Austria Presse Agentur), Juliane Jarke and Sara Skardelly explore key questions from their ComAI subproject “Health: Care Work through Communicative AI” at the University of Graz. The article addresses a profound shift in how society perceives aging and health: aging is increasingly seen as (…)
Our research unit Communicative AI: Researching the Automation of Societal Communication (DFG/FWF Research Unit RU 5656) is presenting itself with a new visual identity. At the center is a newly developed logo that combines the name “ComAI” with graphic elements evoking digital infrastructures and communicative networks. As part of this relaunch, the ComAI website has (…)
The ComAI sub-project “Everyday Life and Communicative AI Companionship” (P7) will be represented at two international conferences in July 2025. Marvin Waibel, Andrea Heisse, and Michaela Pfadenhauer will present their methodological and empirical work on AI-based companions. The project explores how forms of digital companionship are being reshaped by artificial intelligence – particularly at the (…)
On September 30, 2025 at 10:00 a.m., the workshop “Protocols and Intellectual Landscapes of AI” will take place in the meeting room of ZeMKI (Linzer Str. 4, Bremen) as part of the ComAI Lectures series. Abstract: The workshop aims to explore the concepts of “protocological governance” and “intellectual landscape”, and their interconnectedness. “Protocological governance” seeks (…)
Paula Goerke, Veronika Graceva and Andreas Breiter will be presenting two papers at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) in Belgrade from September 9 to 12, 2025. The presentation on “Journeys of Policy Papers: Institutional Guidelines for ComAI in German Higher Education” deals critically with the methodological approach via data journeys to analyze the (…)
10. July 2025
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp
ZeMKI, Center for Media, Communication and Information Research
University of Bremen
Universität Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-67620
Sekretariat (Ms. Schmidt): +49 421 218-67606
E-mail: andreas.hepp@uni-bremen.de
