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On 11 September 2025, the future of local journalism took centre stage in Berlin. Around 150 experts from the fields of politics, academia, media regulation and practice gathered at the Local Journalism Congress to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing local information services in the digital age.

From 24 to 26 September 2025, the annual conference of the DGPuK Journalism Research Section took place on the topic of ‘Journalism and Borders’. The conference was hosted by the Department for Communication Studies (IfK) at the University of Münster. 

Anne Mollen, Sigrid Kannengießer, and Anastasia Glawatzki have been awarded the prize for the "Best Innovative Contribution" by the Digital Communication division of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK) and the ICA's Human Machine Communication (HMC) division. The award was presented on September 16, 2025, during the joint conference "Machines as (new) actors in digital communication: challenges and opportunities for science and society" held by the DGPuK and ICA in Dresden.

The new fellow at the Centre for Research on Digital Public Spheres comes from the United Kingdom: Dr Janna Joceli Omena from King's College London will be visiting the IfK from September.

Just Börne, Kiepenkerl and bicycles? What do people in other parts of Germany think about Münster and how do they feel about the city? The cooperation project between the IfK and the City of Münster focuses on a comprehensive analysis of the perception and evaluation of the external image of the city of Münster.

The student initiative ‘campus relations e. V.’ is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and shows how student engagement can bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical experience. Students – especially those studying communication science – have the opportunity to gain practical experience in public relations, take on responsibility and build professional networks.

On 18 July 2025, a total of 89 graduates of the Institute of Communication Science (IfK) were bid farewell in the castle auditorium. Prof Dr Helena Stehle, Managing Director of the IfK, congratulated a total of 13 Master's and 73 Bachelor's degrees as well as 3 doctorates from the summer semester 2025.

Johanna Stahl and Noemi Struckmeier bring science to the feeds of their fellow students at the SchlauRaum science festival.

For her extended abstract "Debate Spaces Audiences Actually Want? A Case Study of the Public Spaces Incubator" Hannah Ötting was honoured with the Top Extended Abstract Award of the ICA Journalism Studies Division. Florian Wintterlin received the ICA Journalism Studies Division Top Faculty Paper Award for his work on ‘Comparing News Beat Structures Across 13 Countries: From Geographic to Topical and Sub-Specialised Division of Labour’. This year's annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) took place from 12 - 16 June 2025 in Denver, Colorado, USA.

Prof Dr Thorsten Quandt has been awarded a 2.5 million euro ‘ERC Advanced Grant’ by the European Research Council (ERC). Over the next five years, he will use this funding to research how certain online communities, which are primarily made up of young men, become dangerous environments. In a two-stage selection process with over 2,500 applications from all disciplines, a total of 281 researchers have now been awarded one of the coveted Advanced Grants, including 35 from Germany.

This year's annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) is focusing on ‘Disrupting and Consolidating Communication Research’ and will take place from 12-16 June in Denver, Colorado, USA. Researchers from the IfK Münster will also be represented at the internationally relevant conference, which brings together communication researchers from all over the world to discuss current specialist topics.

The new fellow at the Centre for Research on Digital Public Spheres has come to Münsterland from the United States: Prof. Dr. Seth Lewis from the University of Oregon (USA) is currently visiting the IfK.

Social media, artificial intelligence and misleading or deliberately false information (‘fake news’) are playing an increasingly important role in public discussions on polarising topics such as climate change and vaccinations. Prof. Dr. Julia Metag will join the newly established Hot Science Communication Lab to investigate how controversial scientific topics are presented and disseminated online in text, images and sound, how this multimodal mix influences opinions on scientific topics, and what consequences this has for research communication. The Volkswagen Foundation is funding the project with €840,000 over four years as part of its Momentum – Funding for First Appointments initiative. Prof. Dr. Julia Metag is the first communication scientist to receive this funding.

The think tank for strategic communication has appointed Prof Dr Helena Stehle to its Scientific Advisory Board. The board is made up of the Academic Society's research partners and advises them and the Executive Board on research projects, knowledge development and transfer.

The open access journal of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK) and affiliate journal of the International Communication Association (ICA) has appointed Prof Dr Helena Stehle from the Department of Communication at the University of Münster as a new member of the editorial board.

We are delighted to welcome two visiting academics from Brazil to the IfK: Prof Dr Ana Larissa Oliveira and Dr Bruna Távora.

The 70th annual conference of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK) is currently taking place. From 19 to 21 March, high-ranking researchers from German universities will meet in Berlin to discuss the social significance of communication science research. Under this year's motto ‘Public sphere(s) and their values’, the focus will be on the importance of values that characterise social coexistence and influence public discourse. Numerous researchers from the Department of Communication Science (IfK) Münster are also represented at the conference.

The ‘Facepager for NFDI’ project has been successfully completed. The open source programme Facepager, which makes it easier for researchers to get started with automated data collection, has been expanded in recent months specifically for applications in the field of digital humanities.

Writing journalistic texts in a juvenile detention centre? This has been the norm at Herford Prison for several years now. The prisoners publish the print magazine ‘Popshop’ several times a year - with informative texts on all kinds of topics, from biographies and true crime to recipes. The magazine is produced in collaboration with pupils from Georg-Müller-Gesamtschule in Bielefeld, who discuss the content of the latest issue with the prisoners in monthly editorial meetings and work on it together. Last winter semester, the IfK also took part in this cooperative, voluntary project: as a design partner, around 10 students took care of the formal design of the magazine. To this end, working groups were formed to deal with all layout-related issues, allowing them to express themselves creatively. The result is an exciting winter issue. The participants in the design workshop have now visited Herford Prison.
 

The comprehensively updated and expanded second edition of the Handbook of Media Reception has been published. Edited by Volker Gehrau, Helena Bilandzic, Holger Schramm and Carsten Wünsch, the 770-page handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the subjects and theories of reception research. 

On 31 January 2025, a total of 79 graduates of the Institute of Communication Studies (IfK) were bid farewell in the Schloss auditorium. Prof Dr Julia Metag, Managing Director of the IfK, congratulated a total of 29 Master's and 50 Bachelor's graduates from the winter semester 2024/25.

The Master's thesis on analysing reporting on the Last Generation within different media attention phases impressed the expert jury.

Last weekend, the bachelor students of the practical media course ‘Junior Agency - Can I pitch it? Yes you can!’ won first prize at the GWA Junior Agency Award together with the husare agency. The young talent competition organised by the German Association of Communication Agencies (GWA) is regarded as the most important university competition in the country. A total of seven teams from various universities competed in front of a high-calibre jury in Mittweida.

The newly designed and fundamentally revised fourth edition of the Handbook of Public Relations was published at the beginning of the year. Edited by Peter Szyszka, Romy Fröhlich and Ulrike Röttger, the handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the research and action field of public relations on around 1,100 pages.

The IfK Münster has a new partnership with the Department of Media and Communication at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Starting in the coming winter semester 2025/26, bachelor's and master's students at the IfK will have the opportunity to study in the Hungarian capital for a semester as part of the ERASMUS programme.
 

All IfK facilities will close on Friday, 20.12.2024 at 12:00 noon and will remain closed until 05.01.2025 inclusive. The entire building E will be closed from 23/12/2024, 16:00, up to and including 05/01/2025.

Jakob Jünger and Henrieke Kotthoff have released version 3.0 of the volkeR package on CRAN. The new version now includes cluster analyses and principal component analyses. This allows groups to be identified in data sets and variables to be summarised into dimensions in order to clearly present complex relationships.
 

In autumn 2025, the IfK will host the annual conference of the Journalism Studies/Journalism Research Group in Münster on the topic of ‘Journalism and Borders’. The conference will take place from 24 to 26 September as a face-to-face event in the rooms of the Language Centre at Bispinghof. A doctoral colloquium will also open the conference on 24 September.
 

Last week, 11 IfK students visited the WestLotto office in Münster. Jens Könning and Robin Funke, Public Affairs Officers, gave the participants a guided tour of the head office and provided fascinating insights into communications work in a highly regulated market.

What is hidden in the dark? 14 IfK students asked themselves this question as part of the ‘Magazine Journalism’ seminar in the 2024 summer semester. They spoke to people about the Münster crime scene, depression, stalking and long party nights. The result is the magazine DUNKEL.

There is growing pressure on companies to speak out and position themselves on socio-political issues and events. Stakeholders such as customers, politicians and investors expect companies to take a stance on issues and events that are the subject of critical and often polarised debate in society. A new research project by the two departments Strategic Communication I (Prof. Dr Ulrike Röttger) and II (Prof. Dr Helena Stehle) at the Department of Communication Studies is exploring the significance, design and challenges of attitude communication.

IfK graduate Anke Oßwald's dissertation entitled ‘Public Relations and Decision. On the communicative form of PR in the digital age’ has been awarded the dissertation prize of the PR and Organisational Communication section of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies. The award ceremony took place as part of the specialist group conference on 31 October 2024 in Berlin.
 

Dr Marianne Ravenstein, former Academic Director of the IfK, passed away on 26 October at the age of 67. As Vice-Rector for Studies and Teaching and Equal Opportunities Officer at the University of Münster, Marianne Ravenstein rendered great services to the university. However, the IfK was also significantly characterised by her knowledge, her ideas and her commitment for over twenty years.

The new Fellow of the Centre for the Study of Digitised Public Spheres comes to Münsterland from the far north: Prof. Dr Cornelia Brantner from Karlstad University (Sweden) is currently a guest at the IfK.
 

Following the successful completion of the first project phase in 2022, the DFG-funded research project ‘When is a Like a Like?’ will be continued since September 2024 in the Digital Media & Computational Methods department.

The final workshop of the DFG-funded research project ‘Communicative means for accessible survey research’ took place on 1 October. Volker Gehrau, Benjamin Bigl and Ketevan Gognelashvili presented key findings from the DFG project and recommendations for action. The aim of the project was to find out how accessible means of communication can improve participation in standardised online surveys.

Henrieke Kotthoff M.A. was awarded this year's forsa / Paul Lazarsfeld scholarship last Friday, 20 September 2024 at the DGPuK specialist group conference ‘Methoden & DigiKomm 2024'. The award recognised the outstanding methodological approach of her master's thesis on ‘Automated extraction and classification of data visualisations in COVID-19 and climate reports’.

From September 24 to 27, the tenth European Communication Conference (ECC) of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) will take place. Under the theme "Communication & social (dis)order", researchers from European universities will discuss the (dys)functionality of current communication and its societal implications. Numerous scholars from the Departmant of Communication at the University of Münster will also be present at this year's conference in Slovenia.

Lea von den Driesch, research associate at the IfK, took office this week together with Maike Körner from the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt as a member of the spokesperson team of the "Mittelbaunetzwerk Journalismusforschung" (mijofo). For over a decade, mijofo has served as an important platform for professional exchange on journalistic practice, journalism research and methodological innovations in both fields. At the current annual conference in Berlin, von den Driesch and Körner are now officially acting as members of the speaker team for the first time.

From 2 to 13 September, Prof. Marina Joubert from Stellenbosch University in South Africa will be a guest at the Center for Digitized Public Spheres Research (Department of Communication) as part of a fellowship. Marina Joubert is an associate professor of public engagement with science and will be giving a guest lecture on researchers’ participation in science communication.

A city like Münster thrives on the commitment of individuals who dedicate themselves to the common good, diversity, and participation. Therefore, students of the media practice course "Listening is key – Podcast and radio journalism" set out to search for everyday heroes from the Münster area and met individuals who, despite their remarkable efforts, often remain largely unnoticed. The resulting podcast aims to give more attention to these impressive people.

In times of advancing digitalisation and datafication, a data-based construction of reality is becoming increasingly important. As a result, the possibilities for human action are constantly evolving. A special issue on “Agency in a Datafied Society” has now been published in the journal Convergence, edited by Dr. Stephan O. Görland (Department of Communication Münster) and Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp (Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research Bremen).

What makes a good journalistic TV feature? Students of the IfK seminar "Idea, Research, Filming, Editing, Text. The Path to a TV Feature" led by Florian Bauer have pursued this question. The result is a nearly 40-minute magazine that includes five different investigative features – from Münster to the edge of Europe.

Last Friday, July 19, 2024, IfK bid farewell to a total of 85 graduates at the auditorium of the university. Prof. Dr. Julia Metag, the Managing Director of the department of communication, congratulated the recipients of 14 master's and 70 bachelor's degrees from the summer semester of 2024. Anke Oßwald, a doctoral candidate at IfK, also received congratulations on her successful Ph.D. completion.

Last week, 12 students from the Department of Communication visited the Sputnik agency at the Münster harbor. Through practical workshops, the participants received direct insights into the workings of a PR agency.

The ambitious National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) project, initiated in 2018 to enhance the competitive edge of German science, has gained a new participant: Through the initiative of Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jakob Jünger, the University of Münster has joined the NFDI4Culture consortium. Jünger is tasked with coordinating the development of the open-source program Facepager within the consortium.

Students attending the bachelor's lecture on journalism research at the University of Münster were treated to a unique session on June 25: The ensemble from the Kleiner Bühnenboden staged a dramatic reading titled "Secret Plan Against Germany", based on investigative research by CORRECTIV from the winter of 2023/24.

This summer semester, 16 students from the Institute for Communication Science (IfK) visited the Westfälischer Anzeiger in Hamm for a firsthand look at the print journalism industry. Text editor Holger Drechsel and editor-in-chief Michael Schlösser guided the students through the media house of the Ippen Group, providing practical insights into the workings of journalism.

This year's annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) is centered around the theme "Communication and Global Human Rights" and will take place from June 20-24 in Gold Coast, Australia. Researchers from the Department of Communication at the University of Münster are also represented at this internationally relevant conference, where scholars from around the world gather annually to discuss current topics in the field.

Justas Kažys, PhD, is currently a guest researcher at the Department of Communication in Münster. Justas Kažys teaches and researches at the Institute of Geosciences at Vilnius University in Lithuania as an associate professor in the field of climate science. He focuses on climate change processes and their representation in public communication.

The threat of communicative violence online runs through all segments of society: Potentially, anyone can become a target of hate speech, trolling, or cyberstalking, which can carry severe consequences for those affected. In a new three-year research project led by Prof. Dr. Nina Springer and assisted by Hannah Ötting M.A., M.Sc., one of the primary questions being addressed is how individuals can be pedagogically prepared to handle communicative violence online.

Together with the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS), the Department of Communication (IfK) will host this year's MISDOOM conference from September 2 to September 4, 2024. This international and interdisciplinary conference not only brings together perspectives from communication and computer science, but also offers a networking platform for practitioners from journalism and fact-checking, as well as experts from the business sector.

Dr. Bernadette Uth is now part of the new spokesperson team of the Journalism Studies/Journalism Research Section of the German Association for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK). The results of the election for the spokesperson team were announced last week. 91 percent of participants voted for the team of spokespersons. Uth will lead the specialist group together with Dr. Valerie Hase and Prof. Dr. Jonas Schützeneder (Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences).

As concerns of fake news continue to rise in the digital age, more attention has been placed on how this issue might be addressed by actions of the community or the state. In a guest lecture on Wednesday, May 5, Dr Shangyuan Wu from the National University of Singapore evaluates the effectiveness of civic and legislative interventions for decreasing the spread of fake news.

Former student and doctoral candidate at the Department of Communication, Dr. Matthias Potthoff, was granted the venia legendi for the field of communication science by the Faculty Council 06 at the University of Münster on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. This marks the successful completion of his postdoctoral qualification process initiated in October 2023, which included a cumulative dissertation and a postdoctoral lecture with a colloquium.

Hydrogen is discussed in political discourse as one of the key technologies for the energy transition. Stakeholders from various industry sectors also see it as a means to achieve the goal of climate neutrality. At the same time, politics and industry attribute to hydrogen the potential to address recurrent economic issues in the German economy. But how is hydrogen discussed in social discourse? What potential and challenges are attributed to hydrogen? Who are the voices in this discourse, and how do these stakeholders evaluate hydrogen's sustainability and capacity for innovation?

In the summer semester 2024, PD Dr. habil. Kathrin Friederike Müller joins the IfK as an interim professor for Communication Studies, while Prof Dr Volker Gehrau in on research sabbatical.

The IfK Münster has recently entered into a new partnership with the University of Stavanger. Stavanger is the fourth largest city in Norway and is located in the south-west of the country. From the coming winter semester 2024/25, IfK Bachelor's and Master's students will have the opportunity to study there for a semester as part of the ERASMUS programme.

The 69th annual conference of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK) is currently taking place. From 13 to 15 March, high-ranking researchers from German universities will meet in Erfurt to discuss the social significance of communication science research. Under this year's motto "Visions for a better life – media and communication in tomorrow's society", the focus will be on the future relevance of the subject. Numerous researchers from the Deparment of Communication will also be represented at the conference.

On 1 January 2024, the BMBF-funded project "Sustainability governance, networks and practices at universities – a comparative analysis" was launched at the Department of Communication (IfK). The project is being implemented by Prof. Dr Sigrid Kannengießer and Monika Dzialas M.A. as research assistants. The aim of the project is to analyse current governance, networks and practices at universities that pursue the goal of sustainability.

The Department of Communication (IfK) has recently entered into a new partnership with Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). From the autum semester 2024/25, IfK Master students will have the opportunity to study in the Norwegian capital for a semester as part of the ERASMUS programme.

For a week, texts were read, theories were pondered, codes were written and data was analyzed: Eight scientists from the University of Calgary (Canada) and the King's College London (UK) completed an intensive hackathon together with the team of Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt. Their joint research work was focusing on the interplay of foreign information manipulation and the communication of extremist groups.

In cooperation with the English Department at the University of Münster, the Institute of Communication Studies now has a partner university in the UK: Up to 4 Bachelor students can complete their studies abroad at Loughborough University from the winter semester 2024/25. The university is located in the county of Leicestershire in the United Kingdom.

Twenty academics from Stavanger, Oslo and Münster met for an intensive two-day exchange on the premises of the Professional School.

On Thursday, 7th December, Prof. Laura Ahva from Tampere University in Finland will give a guest lecture on “The position and power of data specialists in journalism”. Ahva, Doctor of Social Science, is Associate Professor in journalism studies. Anyone interested is warmly invited to attend the event.

Chronic diseases are among the most common health problems in industrialized countries. One important factor in coping with these diseases is personal management – which can be supported and optimized by digital media. A newly founded research group of the German Research Foundation (DFG) is currently investigating the advantages of digital media for self-management of diseases, but also potential negative consequences. One of the six sub-projects of the research group is headed by Prof. Dr. Julia Metag and is funded by the DFG with around 377,000 euros.

A remarkable achievement for an IfK scholar: Professor Dr. Thorsten Quandt was appointed as an ICA Fellow at the International Communication Association (ICA) conference in Toronto. Only the most distinguished representatives of the field are inducted into communication studies' „Hall of Fame".

This year's International Communication Association (ICA) conference will be held May 25-29 in Toronto, Canada. It is dedicated to the main topic of authenticity – and how honesty and credibility can be reclaimed in the communication of the current age. Now in its 73rd year, this year's conference is themed "Reclaiming Authenticity in Communication." Researchers from the Department of Communication in Münster are represented with a total of 21 contributions.

A recent issue of the open-access journal Media and Communication is dedicated to the topic of science communication in the digital age. The "Thematic Issue" was co-edited by Prof. Dr. Julia Metag, Dr. Florian Wintterlin and Kira Klinger M.A. The issue contains 12 different contributions that deal with potentials and challenges of online communication for science communication.

Dr Shangyuan Wu from the National University of Singapore will begin her visiting fellowship at WWU’s Department of Communication in April 2023. She will work with Professor Thorsten Quandt on a research project on alternative media and teach the Master’s course “Digital Journalism and Society: Mapping Journalistic Trends and Transformations” for the duration of the summer semester.

Miriam Kroman Brems from the Danish University of Aarhus (AU) will be a visiting PhD student at the Department of Communication Studies from February until June. She will collaborate with the research group for online communication led by Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt and give a guest lecture on alternative media.

Mariela Bustos-Ortega from the Spanish University of Granada (UGR) will be a visiting researcher at the Institute for Communication Studies (IfK) from June 30. She will support the research group for online communication led by Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt for three months.

This year's 72nd annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) focuses on "One World, One Network‽" and will take place from 26.-30. May for the first time after the corona pandemic in presence in Paris. Researchers from the Institute for Communication Science are represented with 35 contributions there.

For the guest lectures in his master's seminar "Post-journalism: The reconstruction and deconstruction of journalism" Thorsten Quandt could recruit six international journalism researchers in the 2022 summer semester to discuss the current transformation processes in journalism.

In collaboration with Bruno Takahashi (Michigan State University, USA), Suzannah Evans Comfort (Indiana University, USA) and Jagadish Thaker (University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand), Prof. Dr. Julia Metag edited “the Handbook of International Trends in Environmental Communication”, which has now been published.

The pandemic is not only a crisis for global health and social systems, but also a critical moment for journalism. The latest issue of the journal "Digital Journalism" takes up this topical issue and gathers a dozen contributions on Covid-19. The 'Special Issue' is edited by IfK professor Thorsten Quandt with his colleague Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, and it is just the prelude to further publications.

Disinformation campaigns on the net were a major social media topic during the election campaign and are also during the coronavirus period. Central questions are still unresolved: Who is behind them, how do such campaigns work, how can they be identified, distinguished from 'real' news and perhaps combated? These questions are being addressed by a new joint project of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), in which IfK is also playing a major role.

This year's 71st Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) with the main topic "Engaging the essential work of care: Communication, connectedness, and social justice" will take place from 27-31 May as a virtual conference. Researchers* from the Münster Department of Communication will be represented with 21 contributions.

This semester, Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt was able to invite eight international journalism researchers, as well as a journalist of a major news agency, to give guest lectures in his Master's seminar "Global journalism: News systems, organizations and actors across the world".

Social media and online communities are plagued by hate communication and trolling these days, and even moderated journalistic forums seem to degrade into toxic environments. This ‚reversed‘, dark form of online participation has become an area of heightened scientific interest, in communication studies and related fields. The latest thematic issue of open access journal Media and Communication contains more than a dozen papers focusing on dark participation, including the work of IfK scholars.

Wer im Wintersemester 2021/22 oder Sommersemester 2022 in Frankreich, Norwegen, Spanien oder weiteren europäischen Ländern Kommunikationswissenschaft studieren möchte, kann sich für das ERASMUS-Programm des Instituts für Kommunikationswissenschaft anmelden. Die jährliche Bewerbungsfrist endet am 26. Februar 2021 und gilt einheitlich für das Winter- sowie Sommersemester, deshalb frühzeitig planen und bewerben!

This semester, Prof. Thorsten Quandt was able to attract six of the most sought-after international journalism researchers* and two journalists from Spiegel Online and Süddeutsche Zeitung for guest lectures in his master's seminar "Dark Participation: The Rise and Fall of the "Participation" Concept in Journalism and (New) Media".

This year's 70th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) with the main topic "Open Communication" will take place from 20-26 May as a virtual conference. Researchers* from the Münster Department of Communication will be represented with 14 contributions.

From 10 to 12 March, the 65th annual conference of the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies (DGPuK) will take place on the topic "#Mensch #Medien #Gesellschaft - Fragen und Antworten der Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft in Zeiten rapiden Medienwandels" (#People #Media #Society - Questions and Answers of Communication and Media Studies in Times of Rapid Media Change). About 400 communication scientists will participate, among them also employees of the Münster Department of Communication (IfK).

From February 5th to February 7th, the Department of Communication organizes the joint annual conference of the DGPuK (German Communication Association) divisions Science Communication and Communication History.

Last Friday, the Münster Department of Communication (IfK) celebrated 61 graduations. Four doctorate, 29 master graduates and 28 bachelor graduates received the congratulations of Prof. Volker Gehrau, managing director of the IfK.

Wer im Wintersemester 2020/21 oder Sommersemester 2021 in der Schweiz, Spanien oder weiteren europäischen Ländern Kommunikationswissenschaft studieren möchte, kann sich für das ERASMUS-Programm des Instituts für Kommunikationswissenschaft anmelden. Die jährliche Bewerbungsfrist endet am 28. Februar 2020 und gilt einheitlich für das Winter- sowie Sommersemester, deshalb frühzeitig planen und bewerben!

Journalism is currently experiencing numerous transformations. The new DFG Project "The century of journalism – the history of journalism in Germany from WW I to Digitalization" explores general developments in media and society in order to gain a deeper understanding of journalisms current challenges.

Last Friday, the Münster Department of Communication (IfK) celebrated 97 graduations. Three doctorate, 29 master graduates and 65 bachelor graduates received the congratulations of Prof. Volker Gehrau, managing director of the IfK.

On Thursday, June 27, Daniela Stoltenberg and Daniel Maier will give a short workshop on how to collect, process, and analyze communication networks from the social media platform Twitter. As more and more public discourse moves online and onto social networking sites in particular, the capability of analyzing such networks is rapidly gaining importance in the social sciences.

On Monday, June 24, the Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a Digitized World” organizes three public lecturse (of which one will be held in English) adressing current questions concerning research ethics. Subject of discussion will be the tension between good scientific practise, the quesion of reproducibility of scientific findings, and the role of ethics in times of increasingly pubic science.

Flowers, golden balloons and musical accompaniment by the jBM Saxophone Quartet – it felt just like a real birthday. In this manner, the ceremony on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Department of Communication (IfK) was celebrated on Saturday, May 11th, at the Münster City Castle. Framed by a get-together and a poster exhibition showcasing the department’s history and – of course – a party, about 300 current and past IfK-members, as well as numerous guests jointly remembered the department’s evolution from its beginnings to its current state.

With the theme of “Communication Beyond Boundaries” the 69th annual International Communication Association (ICA) Conference takes place in Washington D.C. from May 24th to May 28th. The Münster Department of Communication (IfK) is represented by some of its researchers with 25 contributions.

On Friday, May 7, Fabian Gülzau will give a short workshop in which he introduces students to the technique of webscraping with R. Participants will learn a general scheme that can be applied to scrape information from the web. First, the workshop provides a brief introduction to the underlying structure of the modern web. Second, after acquiring this knowledge, we will go through the individual steps that are necessary to retrieve information from a website.

On the 15th of May 15, US-American Communication Scholar Jesse Fox will give a public lecture with the title “A sceptic’s guide to Virtual Reality research. Challenging assumptions, debunking myths & improving practices”.

Online social networks and online news offer the opportunity to access large text corpora. Automated text analysis makes it possible to analyze large amounts of data efficiently. In a guest workshop on the 7th and 9th of May, Professor Vicente Fenoll (University of Valencia, Spain) will give an introduction to automated methods of content analysis.

On 1 April the research project “Is health communication successful?”, headed by Prof. Dr Bernd Blöbaum and Prof. Dr. Volker Gehrau, was launched at the Department of Communication. The three-year project revolves around the question of how scientific results and expert knowledge on health prevention can be communicated effectively.

As of September 1. 2019, Julia Metag will fill the vacant Professorship for Communication Studies and thereby succeed Prof. Frank Marcinkowski, who followed a call to the University of Düsseldorf in the Winter Semester 2017. With her expertise, especially in the fields of political and science communication and media effects, Julia Metag will strengthen both research and teaching at the IfK in these crucial areas.The Department of Communication at the University of Münster has been shaped by a lot of different people over the last 100 years. We would like to revive and tell the history of the deparment for the anniversary year 2019 with more than 100 heads and objects.

In the summer semester 2019, PD Dr. Christoph Kuhlmann, currently working at the Department of Empirical Media Research and Political Communication (Technical University of Ilmenau) will teach at the Münster Department of Communication. He substitutes a W3 professorship that is vacant since October 2017 and that will be filled again in the Winter Semester 2019/20.

Last Friday, the Münster Department of Communication (IfK) celebrated 66 graduations. Two doctorate, 30 master graduates and 34 bachelor graduates received the congratulations of Prof. Volker Gehrau, managing director of the IfK.

The Department of Communication at the University of Münster has been shaped by a lot of different people over the last 100 years. We would like to revive and tell the history of the deparment for the anniversary year 2019 with more than 100 heads and objects.

Over the next three years, the German Research Association (DFG) is funding a scientific network on the topic “Media Trust in the Digital World” with 50,000 Euros. The applicant is Dr. Nayla Fawzi of the LMU München. From the Department of Communication, Prof. Bernd Blöbaum and Dr. Katherine M. Engelke are involved. Both have already conducted research on media trust in the DFG Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a Digitized World” and other research projects.

At this year’s “summa cum laude” ceremony at the Münster City Castle, Katherine M. Engelke won this year’s dissertation award for her dissertation “The Depiction of Trust, Distrust, and Trust Problems within the Context of Digitalization in the Media”. The dissertation award is endowed with 3500 Euros.

As part of this year’s Late Autumn School, organised by the interdisciplinary DFG Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a Digitized World”, two public lectures by international researchers will be held on Friday, November 16.8.

In this year’s 7. European Communication Conference, organized by the European Communication and Research and Education Association (ECREA) will be held in Lugano, Switzerland from 31 October to 3 November. Researchers from the Münster Department of Communication (IfK) are taking part with 15 contributions. Amongst these are four contributions presenting the results of studies carried out by master’s students in the context of two research seminars in the summer and winter semester of 2017 and 2018.

For her master’s thesis with the title “Text-Classification Using Machine Learning”, IfK-Graduate Anke Stoll receives the Paul Lazarsfeld-Prize.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Münster Department of Communication (IfK), the next annual DGPuK (The German Communication Association) conference will take place in Münster from May 9th till May 11th, 2019. The conference with the title “Integration through Communication in digitized public spheres“ will bring together around 500 participants.

Last Friday, the Münster Department of Communication (IfK) celebrated 101 graduations. Two doctorate, 17 master graduates and 82 bachelor graduates received the congratulations of Prof. Volker Gehrau, managing director of the IfK.

In his master’s thesis, Christian Wengert investigates the question of explanatory factors for the willingness to express opinions on controversial political topics on public situations – and answers it a more comprehensive and differentiated manner than many previous studies, explains the jury.

Customer: Career Service. Order: Revision of its communication concept. Students of the media practice seminar led by Magdalena Bollmann M.A. met the challenge in the winter semester 2017/18. First results of their work were now implemented, amongst which the new cover on the current semester program (WS 2018/2019), published every semester by the Career Service.

As part of the lecture “Introduction into Communication Studies”, hosted by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Annie Waldherr, two guest speakers will give insights into their working life on the *26th of June* and the *3rd of July*.

Faculty members Daniela Stoltenberg and Jun. Prof. Annie Waldherr have received a best paper award by the Computational Methods interest group at the annual convention of the International Communication Association (ICA) in the end of May 2018 in Prague. Together with their colleague Daniel Maier (Freie Universität Berlin) they were honored for their paper “Community Detection in Online Networks of Civil Society: Theoretical Guide and Empirical Assessment”.

From May 30th to June 2nd, 2018 nine public lectures by renowned international communication scholars will take during the 4th international Summer School „Trust in mediated communication“.

In this year’s 68th annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA,) takes place from May 24th to May 28th 2018 in Praque/Czech Republic. Researchers from the Münster Department of Communication (IfK) are taking part with 21 contributions.

At this year’s 63th DGPuK (German Communication Association) conference, Annie Waldherr received the 1st award for the best journal article in 2017 for her article “Öffentlichkeit als komplexes System. Theoretischer Entwurf und methodische Konsequenzen" (“Public Sphere as a complex system. A theoretical draft and methodological consequences”), published in the autumn edition of the German journal “Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft“.

On Monday, May 14th, Carsten Linnhoff will be guest speaker in the seminar “News Agencies between Public Service and Economic Profit” of Dr. Hannah Lorenz.

This year’s 63th. annual conference of the German Communication Association (DGPuK) will take place from May 9th to May 11th. About 400 communication researchers are participating in the conference on the topic “Self-Determination in the Digital World”. Amongst the participants are numerous researchers of the Münster Department of Communication (IfK).

On Monday, May 07, 2018, Dr. Geeske Scholz will be guest speaker in the seminar „Complexity Theory and the Public Sphere“ of Jun.-Prof. Dr. Annie Waldherr.

After a career of 31 years at the University of Münster of which she was working 25 years at the Department of Communication (IfK), Dr. Marianne Ravenstein was bid farewell on her retirement on Tuesday, 10 April 2018 in an official ceremony in the Münster City Castle.

Since April 1st 2018, the beginning of the summer semester, the Department of Communication has a new managing director. Prof. Volker Gehrau succeeds Prof. Quandt after his two-year term of office.

Accompanying the featured theme "Digitalisation at Münster University", the Press office published expert interviews featuring Prof. Bernd Blöbaum und Katie M. Grosser, as well as a guest article by Felix Brinkschulte und Dr. Lena Frischlich. The video interview with Prof. Bernd Blöbaum started off the 6-month period in which WWU features "Digitalisation".

From March till July 2018, Prof. Thorsten Quandt, director of the Münster Department of Communication will be guest professor at the Universities of Oxford and Stanford.

The Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) will fund Stefanie Geise’s and Annie Waldherr’s working group «Computational Social Science», which has been applied for in cooperation with Uwe Engel, Professor of Sociology and Head of the Social Science Methods Centre at the University of Bremen. With the funding CAIS provides financial and structural resources to facilitate cooperation among national and international experts joining together in workshops. The aim of the working group is to reflect the consequences of an increasing usage of computational methods for the further development of the empirical social sciences.

Led by Prof. Ulrike Röttger and Dr. Christian Wiencierz, the new research project „External Interfaces of Communication Management” aims to develop this new research field from a communication science perspective.

Cooperation project of PD. Dr. Stephanie Geise (WWU Münster) in association with political scientists Prof. Diana Panke (University of Freiburg) and Dr. Axel Heck (University of Kiel) .Since October 2017, the Friede-Springer-Foundation has sponsored the research project «Still Images – Moving People», situation at the WWU. The inter-disciplinarian project-team will now commence with a pre-study. Lead by PD Dr. Stephanie Geise and in cooperation with two colleagues from political sciences, Prof. Dr. Diana Panke (University of Freiburg) and Dr. Axel Heck (University of Kiel) the project team will examine the (inter-)relationship between perception, typification and processing of positively and negatively framed media images of selective protest movement and their protest-issues with regards to the political participation willingness of citizens.

On February 2 nd, 2018, the Münster Department of Communication (IfK) celebrated 72 graduations. One doctorate, 10 master graduates and 67 bachelor graduates have been congratulated by Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt, managing director of the Department of Communication.

On January 30, 2018, Dr. Neta Kligler-Vilenchik will be guest speaker in the seminar „Media Hypes“ of Jun.-Prof. Dr. Annie Waldherr. Neta Kligler-Vilenchik is Assistant Professor for Communication and Journalism at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her research focuses on civic and political engagement in the context of the changing media environment, particularly among young people. In her talk she will present current findings of a study on „Youth Political Expression in the Context of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election“, where she analyzes how young people creatively expressed themselves online and discussed with their peers about the last U.S. presidential election results.

A new research project, led by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Annie Waldherr (University of Münster) and Prof. Dr. Barbara Pfetsch (FU Berlin), is investigating digital urban public spheres. Starting in January 2018, the four-year project at the Department of Communication will focus on the Twitterspheres of Berlin and Jerusalem. The research will be conducted in cooperation with Dr. Neta Kligler-Vilenchik (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and received roughly 500,000 Euros in funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

How do Online Propaganda and related phenomena spread, which effects do they have and how can media users be assisted, in order to resist manipulation attempts online? Starting January 2018, the interdisciplinary junior research group “Democratic Resilience in Times of Online-Propaganda, Fake News, Fear- and Hate speech” led by Dr. Lena Frischlich will investigate these questions. With nearly one million euros, the project is funded by the Land of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW), NRW, through the funding line “Democracy’s Protection and Reinforcement in the Digitized Society”.

Entitled “Silversurfer 70plus. Qualitative Fallstudien zur Aneignung des Internets in der Rentenphase“, Prof. Jutta Röser and the Students from her research seminar at the Department of Communication (IfK) published their findings.

How can collaboration of municipal communication in the different departments of a city become organized future-oriented, while its duties and responsibilities are increasingly extensive? The project „Interfaces and Collaboration in Municipal Communication“ which is conducted in cooperation with the city of Münster, is aiming to answer this question. The project starts at December 1st and will be led by Prof. Dr. Ulrike Röttger and Dominik Czeppel.

Led by Dr. Thomas Birkner (WWU) and Dr. Benjamin Krämer (LMU), the new DFG-project “Media Biographies of German Chancellors” aims to explore the significance of the media in the chancellors’ biographies. Sebastian Mallek (IfK Muenster) and Katharina Schmidt (IfKW Muenchen) will be research assistants in the two-year project, funded with 250.000 Euro from the DFG.

How does Trust arise? Three public lectures of international scientists at the Late Autumn School 2017 of the DFG Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a Digitized World”

On July 28th, 2017, the Münster Department of Communication (IfK) celebrated the 78 graduations. One doctorate, 10 master graduates and 67 bachelor graduates received the congratulations Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt, managing director of the Department of Communication.

 In this year’s 67th annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA,) which takes place from May 25th to May 29th 2017 in San Diego/USA, researchers from the Department of Communication of the University of Münster (IfK) take part with 26 contributions. This conference’s title is “Interventions: Communication Research and Practice”.

The media sector and journalism in particular are subject to a massive change. This also affects the work conditions and the job market for comm studies alumni. Many newcomers, but also established journalists turn to innovative and flexible start ups instead of the traditional media companies. Canadian professor Mary-Lynn Young from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, will discuss the challenges of launching a journalistic start up. She will draw from her own practical experiences in the world of start-ups and ‚slightly different’ journalism.