Welcome to the Department of Communication (IfK) at the University of Münster.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding a new Research Unit investigating the role of contradicting in democratic societies and the conditions under which it enables or constrains participation. The Research Unit “Media Practices of Contradicting in Networked Publics” (FOR 6017) comprises seven subprojects. As part of the Research Unit, Prof Dr Sigrid Kannengießer will lead the subproject “Media Practices of Contradicting in Platform Capitalism: Discursive Critique and Alternative Infrastructures” at the Department of Communication.

The 11th European Communication Conference (ECC) of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) will take place from September 8 to 11, 2026, in Brno, Czech Republic. Under the theme “Shifting Grounds: Paths, Connections, and Futures,” the international conference brings together communication and media scholars from Europe and beyond. Researchers from the IfK will also be presenting several papers at the conference.

Since the 2024/25 winter semester, IfK students have been supporting the prison magazine “Popshop” at the Herford Correctional Facility. As part of a working group at the Center for Media Practice, they design the layout of the magazine, which is published three times a year and gives adolescents and young adults in custody a voice of their own.

On July 24, 2026, the Department of Communication held a graduation ceremony in the castle’s auditorium to honor 123 graduates. Prof. Dr. Helena Stehle, Executive Director of the IfK, congratulated the graduates on earning 17 master’s degrees and 106 bachelor’s degrees in the summer semester of 2026.

The jury was most impressed by the master's thesis on the attribution of human characteristics to artificial intelligence.