News

We are happy to announce the publication of a new paper by our colleagues from the project “Political Discourse: ComAI and Deliberative Quality” in the ComAI research unit, Patrick Frey and Cornelius Puschmann (ZeMKI, University of Bremen), and Smita Bhattacharya and Gregor Wiedemann (Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut), titled „Can AI Gauge Deliberative (…)

The latest episode of BredowCast, the podcast of the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI), features our research unit. It was recorded around the ComAI Summer Retreat on 5–6 October and the subsequent Summer School from 7 to 9 October at the HBI in Hamburg, where researchers from all nine projects came together. (…)

For the 10th HumAIn Talks at the University of Oslo, ZeMKI Speaker Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp will give a talk on Silicon Valley, pioneer communities, and AI futures this coming Friday, October 23.  About the Talk Where do Silicon Valley’s visions of the AI future come from? A superficial answer to this question is: from (…)

On 5 October 2026, sociologist Elena Esposito gave a ComAI Lecture as part of the research group’s meeting at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI). Prediction is the core principle of generative AI, yet we still lack a theory of prediction. Starting from this observation, Esposito asked what it means when algorithms (…)

From September 28 to October 2, 2026, the 43rd Congress of the German Sociological Association took place at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. The congress focused on the theme “Futures of Society”. The projects conducting research on ComAI in Pioneer Communities (P1), Journalism (P5) and in the personal sphere (P7) presented empirical research findings at the (…)

In August, Andrea Heisse (P7) presented her PhD research at the 17th ESA conference in Warsaw. Artificial intelligence receives increasing attention from the sociology of professions, raising questions about the algorithmic capacity to make knowledge claims, take over professional tasks, and implicate professional autonomy. In her presentation, Andrea approached these questions, drawing on empirical insights (…)

On 18 September 2026, ComAI PI Christian Katzenbach delivers a keynote at the 11th Annual Conference of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft (KWG), titled “Kritik und Kultur” (Criticism and Culture; 16–19 September 2026, Berlin). His talk is part of the panel “Argumentieren und Erzählen mit KI: Narrative, Rhetoriken und epistemische Praktiken in kommunikativen Aushandlungen” (Arguing and narrating (…)

Rahel Winter won the Best Poster Award at the 11th European Communication Conference (ECC 2026) in Brno. The award was presented during the poster session for early-career researchers, organized by YECREA, the ECREA Young Scholars Network. The audience voted, and Rahel’s poster on her dissertation project about resistance to AI received the most votes. Rahel (…)

What role does conversational artificial intelligence play as a conversation partner in different areas of life and for different generations? Juliane Jarke explores this question in an article in the anniversary issue of “Krone bunt,” which was published on August 30, 2026. In it, Juliane Jarke highlights how naturally communicative AI is now used in (…)

From September 8 to 11, the 11th Conference of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) will take place in Brno (Czech Republic). The conference’s theme is “Paths, Connections, and Futures.” Numerous ZeMKI members will present their research. Overview of presentations featuring our ComAI members: Wednesday, September 9, 2026: 3:00 – 3:15 PMFA I (…)

From July 21 to 24, 2026, the ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI 2026) took place in Bremen. The theme of this year’s conference was “Conversational AI: Agency and Identities!” Laura Spillner and Johanna Rockstroh from Project P2 “Interfaces” served as local chairs on the organizing committee and presented their ongoing research there. 

From July 1 to 3, 2026, the Anticipation Conference took place in Milan, bringing together policymakers, researchers, designers, and practitioners to rethink how ideas about the future operate under conditions of uncertainty and unknowing. Juliane Jarke, Ren Aldridge and Sara Skardelly from the P8 project “Health: Caring through ComAI” presented ongoing research. Juliane Jarke and (…)