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ComAI members represented at the 71st Annual Conference of the DGPuK in Dortmund

The 71st Annual Conference of the German Communication Association (DGPuK) takes place from March 18 to 20, 2026 at TU Dortmund University under the theme #Science #Communication #Democracy. Members of the research group „ComAI – Communicative AI“ contribute numerous presentations, bringing perspectives from the Research Space as well as subprojects P1, P4, P5, and P6 into the discussions.

Publisher Panel: Scientific Publishing and AI

Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp (University of Bremen / ZeMKI, subproject P1) participates as discussion partner in the Springer VS publisher panel on “Scientific Publishing and AI: An Invitation to Dialogue.” Together with Dorothee Fetzer and Barbara Emig-Roller (Springer VS), he discusses ethical, legal, and organizational frameworks for the responsible use of AI in the publication process. –> Thursday, March 19, 2026, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM, SRG 2.028*

Panel Presentations

Prof. Dr. Wiebke Loosen (Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut, subproject P5) contributes three presentations to the conference, together with fellow ComAI members Jonah Wermter and Antonia Eichenauer:

• Panel 9 “Topics as boundary objects: How journalists create a general public by addressing specific social groups” (with Julius Reimer and Louise Oberhülsmann) –> Thursday, March 19, 1:30 – 3:00 PM, SRG 1.024*
• Panel 24 “Journalism as a functionally differentiated world system: Tracing transnational role and value profiles” (with Jonah Wermter and Anna von Garmissen) –> Friday, March 20, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM, SRG 1.004*
• Panel 35 “Between pioneering spirit and practice: Competing visions for the future of journalism with communicative AI” (with Antonia Eichenauer and Jonah Wermter) –> Friday, March 20, 1:30 – 3:00 PM, SRG 1.005*

From subproject P6, Dr. Gregor Wiedemann (Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut) and Prof. Dr. Cornelius Puschmann (University of Bremen) contribute a total of three presentations:

• Panel 20 “From controversy to normalization? An argumentation analysis of the media debate on arms deliveries in Germany” (Gregor Wiedemann with Laura Liebig, Kostiantyn Yanchenko, and Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw) –> Friday, March 20, 9:00 – 10:00 AM, SRG 1.004*
• Panel 26 “Methodological challenges of applying vector autoregression in the study of digital information flows: A multiverse approach” (Cornelius Puschmann and Gregor Wiedemann with Jan Rau, Philipp Kessling, and Daniel Dzikowski) –> Friday, March 20, 10:30 AM‚Äì12:00 PM, SRG 1.024*
• Panel 30 “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most toxic of them all? Toxicity in political party tweets and corresponding user debates” (Gregor Wiedemann with Azade Kakavand) –> Friday, March 20, 1:30 – 3:00 PM, SRG 1.024*

Special Format: Data, Archive & Tool Demos

In the special format session “Data, Archive & Tool Demos: Open Research Infrastructures and Resources for Communication and Media Studies” (organized by Christian Strippel et al.), the ComAI group is strongly represented with four short presentations –> Thursday, March 19, 3:30 – 5:00 PM, SRG 1.001*

• “OpenQDA 1.0.3 – a CAQDAS as a communication and media studies contribution to research infrastructure” (Florian Hohmann, Andreas Hepp, Jan Küster, Philip Sinner & Karsten D. Wolf)
• „Platform Governance Archive (PGA): Research data on rules in social media and generative AI” (Kim Ermler & Christian Katzenbach, subproject P4)
• “Sharing sensitive data for communication and media studies: A community data trustee for researching the far right online” (Jan Rau, Nils Jungmann, Moritz Fürneisen, Gregor Wiedemann, Pascal Siegers & Heidi Schulze)
• “ComAI Research Space: A research infrastructure for studying AI discourses and AI trends” (Andreas Hepp, Florian Hohmann, Christian Katzenbach, Wiebke Loosen, Alexander Ohlei, Cornelius Puschmann, Gregor Wiedemann & Rahel Winter)

Poster

• Poster Presentation II “What do LLMs ‘understand’ about framing? A critical examination of frame classification with LLMs” (Gregor Wiedemann with Laura Liebig and Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw) –> Thursday, March 19, 3:30‚Äì5:30 PM, SRG 2.008*

In total, eleven members of the ComAI research group are represented with twelve contributions at DGPuK 2026. The topics reflect key research interests of the group, from the role of communicative AI in journalism and the development of open research infrastructures to the methodological analysis of digital information flows and questions of scientific publishing in the age of AI.

More information on the conference program: dgpuk2026.de