The article “Epistemic Authority in the Digital Public Sphere”, co-authored by Thorsten Quandt, has received the 2026 ASCoR Denis McQuail Award. The award goes to first author Anne Bartsch.
A successful #ICA26 is behind us, and we look back on exciting presentations, inspiring discussions, and the Top Poster Award received by Felix Reer, Saïd Unger, and Thorsten Quandt.
The research team of the ERC project DANCE is now complete. Since the project's launch in March 2026, the researchers have been working together to investigate toxic dynamics in digital youth and online cultures. Learn more about the team.
At the annual conference of the International Communication Association, we present current research from a range of thematic areas. We have prepared an overview of all OCL presentations for you.
Anastasia Glawatzki and Paula Philine Jung have investigated usage practices of ChatGPT and anthropomorphic role attributions. The interview study was published in the journal Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft.
In May, the new collaborative project “SynDIKAT” on synthetic disinformation data for social media research was launched. Paula Philine Jung and Malin Zoe Richter are joining the OCL team as part of this project.
In a newly published article, Shangyuan Wu, Saïd Unger, and Thorsten Quandt analyze how alternative media are understood, practiced, and used in different social and political contexts beyond dominant Western perspectives.
A new book chapter by Thorsten Quandt, Johanna Klapproth, Saïd Unger, and Svenja Boberg examines the growing role of Generative AI in disinformation and public communication through the lens of the five dimensions of Dark Participation.
Prof. Axel Bruns (Queensland University of Technology) visited the OCL. The program included an internal workshop on “Practice Mapping” and a guest talk titled “Revisiting ‘the’ Public Sphere and Its Algorithmically Shaped Publics.”
Last week, the Online Communication Lab (OCL) and the Department of Communication at the University of Münster welcomed Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos who gave a guest talk on “AI to Empower Media, Politics, and Democracy in the Global South?”.
From March 18 to 20, 2026, the 71st Annual Conference of the German Communication Association (DGPuK) took place at the Institute of Journalism at TU Dortmund University. The program also featured several contributions from the Online Communication Lab.
In February 2026, a team from the Online Communication Lab (OCL) followed the invitation of the Bridge Research Consortium and visited the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Find out more about our stay.
On March 1, 2026, the project “DANCE – Dark Nerd Communities: A multi-method exploration of toxic degradation in the adolescent technosphere” officially kicked off.
