04/14/2025
As part of this year’s Future Day, 21 pupils visited the IfKW to gain insights into the field of communication science — from exploring how science connects with technology, to learning about current research and engaging in practical activities involving artificial intelligence. After a shared introduction in the lecture hall, participants split into small groups to dive deeper into the topic of AI. A key focus was the use of systems like ChatGPT: What can this technology already do? Where are its limitations? And how can it be critically examined from a communication science perspective?
At various interactive stations, the students tested AI tools. They conducted a thought experiment on gender stereotypes, tried to spot deepfakes, and created their own newspaper on the topic "AI in schools." Along the way, they were supported by digital tools such as the TU chatbot, Microsoft Designer, and Character AI.
After an active break, the day wrapped up with a quiz on communication science and artificial intelligence. The winning group took home the IfKW Trophy.
Here are some impressions from the day.
04/14/2025
On April 4th 2025, Kaija Biermann successfully defended her cumulative dissertation titled "Public Communication of Scientific Experts on Social Media during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Role Performance, Online Engagement, and Public Perception."
In her dissertation, she examined the public communication of scientific experts on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on their role performance, as well as the public's online engagement with their communication on these platforms and their perception, particularly in comparison to perceived experts. The results of all studies taken together indicate a partial discrepancy between the actual performance of their roles and the public's demand for evidence-based communication, as well as their reluctance to express opinions and political statements.
The reviewers were Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken and Prof. Dr. Nicole Krämer (University of Duisburg-Essen). Prof. Dr. Christian Ebner was the chair of the committee.
We congratulate you on completing your doctorate!
04/14/2025
Monika Taddicken has been a Professor of Communication Science at TU Braunschweig for 10 years. We celebrated this anniversary extensively with a surprise breakfast, IfKW cake, PowerPoint karaoke and successes and milestones of the last 10 years and looked back on some memories! We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this journey and look forward to what the future holds!
Here you can see some impressions of the anniversary celebration.
03/31/2025
Kaija Biermann has recently published an article in the handbook ‘Science Communication and Trust’ (Antoinette Fage-Butler, Loni Ledderer, Kristian H. Nielsen). In her chapter, she examines the role of scientists in digital communication fields, especially in the context of topics such as climate change and Covid-19. She shows how scientists act as trustworthy knowledge brokers in digital spaces and how their communication is shaped by the platforms and interaction with the public. Using a case study of scientists on Twitter/X during the pandemic, it offers new insights into science communication.
Click here for the publication.
03/24/2025
From the 19th to the 21st of March 2025 this year's annual conference of the German Communication Association (DGPuK) took place in Berlin, where the IfKW was represented with a presentation and a poster. Esther Greussing, Evelyn Jonas, Monika Taddicken and Lars Guenther presented their quantitative and qualitative findings on the perception of generative AI as an epistemic authority. In addition, Nicola Peters and IfKW master's student Matthias Gerecht gave first insights into an automated analysis of the role of values in the Telegram channel of Compact magazine in their poster presentation.
Here are some impressions.
03/03/2025
Together with international researchers, Esther Greussing recently published an article in the journal Public Understanding of Science. In the study, the authors examine how generative AI is perceived and used in the search for scientific information. The study is based on a cross-national examination and offers first insights into the perception and use of GenAI at an early stage of acceptance. In addition the study shows how AI shapes public understanding of scientific topics as an information provider.
Click here to access the publication of the study.
03/03/2025
An article by Kaija Biermann, Lennart Banse and Monika Taddicken was recently published in the Journal of Science Communication. In the qualitative interview study, the authors analysed the subjective relevance of public engagement in science communication by professional university communicators. In particular, this study highlights the complexity and challenges of public engagement in practice and emphasise the opportunities for optimised digital science communication strategies.
You can find the publication here.
02/10/2025
On Monday, we welcomed Dr. Inbal Klein-Avraham as a guest speaker at our research colloquium. Inbal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and a member of the ALIES research group. She gave fascinating insights into her research on the development of an AI knowledge scale. We would like to thank Inbal for her interesting and thought-provoking presentation!
02/04/2025
In the new episode of ‘Campus on Air’ - the science podcast from the Institute of Communication Science, students Hanna Storm and Dominik Dauter from the TU Braunschweig talk about astronomy. During their trip to Sternfreunde Braunschweig Hondelage, long-standing experts told them many exciting and interesting facts, which they now share in the episode. The podcast was created in cooperation with Radio Okerwelle. Students who are also interested in producing a podcast can register for the seminar ‘Campus on Air - the science podcast’ (lecturer Carmen Woisczyk) in the winter semester.
You can listen to the new episode of the podcast here.
02/03/2025
IfKW students visited the Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants and the NDR Studio Braunschweig. The excursions were part of the seminar ‘Up close - in conversation with science journalists and PR professionals’ in the winter semester 2024/25. The lecturer and radio journalist Carmen Woisczyk explained that it was an exciting insight into professional practice and a great opportunity for the students to experience the work of journalists and press spokespeople up close. The head of public relations at the JKI, Stefanie Hahn, guided the participants through the greenhouses and experimental fields, where they received information about current research. In the NDR Braunschweig radio studio, studio manager Ute Andres answered students' questions and provided interesting insights into the work behind the scenes at the studio.
11/12/2024
At an interdisciplinary symposium organized by the Center for Rhetorical Science Communication Research on Artificial Intelligence (RHET AI) in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS), experts discussed the social impact of generative AI. The symposium, which was held in Tübingen from November 12 to 14, 2024, focused on the fundamentals, functionality and communicative implications of generative AI. On November 12, a panel discussion on the topic "Is AI Inevitable?" took place as part of this event. Dr. Esther Greussing, Annette Leßmöllmann (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT) and Moritz Hardt (MPI-IS Tübingen) took part in the panel discussion. The focus was on main questions about the role of artificial intelligence in areas such as democracy, education and fairness. Both the opportunities and challenges associated with generative AI were examined.
09/30/2024
The Institute of Communication Studies was strongly represented at the 10th European Communication Conference: Monika Taddicken, Esther Greussing, Irene Broer, Kaija Biermann, Evelyn Jonas and Lennart Banse presented a total of six studies to an international audience at the conference in Ljubljana (Slovenia). Their presentations covered a wide range of topics, including public engagement with science topics, the role of scientific experts in social media, perception of and trust in generative AI and more.
Here are some impressions.
09/16/2024
From the 11th to the 12th of September 2024, the Wisskomm Connected Conference of the Transfer Unit took place at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in Berlin, where the IfKW and the junior research group fourC were actively represented. With five contributions, Lennart Banse, Kaija Biermann, Dr. Irene Broer, Julian Fick, Dr. Esther Greussing, Dr. Friederike Hendriks and Nicola Peters presented their research and research projects in panel discussions, workshops, discussion rounds and short presentations.
Here you can see some impressions of the various presentations.
06/25/2024
The Institute of Communication Studies (IfKW) at the TU Braunschweig was represented with four digital presentations at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association (ICA) in Gold Coast (Australia) from June 20-24, 2024. Dr. Anne Reif and Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken, together with Prof. Dr. Lars Guenther and Justin T. Schröder (LMU Munich) as well as Prof. Dr. Peter Weingart (Bielefeld University), presented their results of a two-wave panel study on the trust in science of digitized publics in Germany. The presentation by Evelyn Jonas, Dr. Esther Greussing and Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken dealt with the hybrid trustworthiness of AI-based chatbots as part of a qualitative study of users' perception of ChatGPT and Bing Chat as intermediaries for science-related information. Lennart Banse, together with Dr. Friederike Hendriks and Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken, presented the results of his study on linking the communication of scientists with laypeople and their professional role identities. Nicola Peters spoke about uncivil communication and concerns about epistemic trustworthiness in public online discussions about scientists during the Covid-19 pandemic.
06/24/2024
From the 6th to the 7th of June 2024, the IfKW was represented with several presentations at the annual conference of the unit "Science Communication" of the German Communication Association (DGPuK) in Zurich on the topic of "Science Communication in the Age of Artificial Intelligence". As part of the open panels, Kaija Biermann and Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken spoke about the credibility of professional and non-professional experts in YouTube videos. Additionally, Lennart Banse, together with Kaija Biermann and Monika Taddicken, presented results regarding centralized and decentralized science communication at universities. In relation to the conference topic "Science Communication in the Age of Artificial Intelligence", Evelyn Jonas, together with Dr. Esther Greussing and Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken presented her results of a qualitative interview study on the trust of laypeople in scientific information from LLM-based chatbots. Dr. Esther Greussing spoke with Evelyn Jonas and Prof. Dr. Monika Taddicken about the influence of transparency in scientific information from LLM-based chatbots. In another presentation, Dr. Esther Greussing, together with Prof. Dr. Lars Guenther, Prof. Dr. Ayelet Baram-Tsabari and others, gave some insights into a multinational survey on predicting and describing the use of generative AI in science-related information searches. Furthermore, Dr. Esther Greussing and Dr. Friederike Hendriks spoke about two experimental studies on the perception of large generative language models (LLM) as a source of scientific information.
05/21/2024
As part of the closing event "Listen to the (real) Experts: The role of researchers in social media in crises" of the DFG project SCan on the 1st of October 2024 at the Kaiserin-Friedrich-Stiftung in Berlin, researchers are warmly invited to present their latest results in various areas of science communication.
Abstracts for poster presentations can be submitted by email to k.biermann@tu-braunschweig.de by the 15th of July 2024.
More detailed information on the topic and framework condition can be found here.
05/20/2024
On the 1st of October 2024 from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the closing event "Listen to the (real) Experts: The role of researchers in social media in crises" of the DFG project “Science Communication during Pandemics and the Role of Public Engagement” (SCan) with the guests Prof. Dr. Melanie Brinkmann and Prof. Dr. Christian Drosten will take place at the Kaiserin-Friedrich-Stiftung in Berlin. Representatives from science, the media and politics as well as the interested public are warmly invited to take part in the discussion on the dynamics and consequences of science communication in social media. You can find more detailed information about the event here.
Registration is possible until the 15th of August 2024. Please note that places are limited.
04/15/2024
At the conference "Interactions With Language-Based AI" at the Leibniz Institute for Knowledge Media (IWM) Tübingen, Dr. Esther Greussing and Evelyn Jonas presented initial results of a qualitative study from the ALIES research project. In their poster presentation "Beyond the Bot: Hybrid Trust and Transparency in GenAI-Mediated Science Communication" (Greussing, E., Jonas, E. & Taddicken, M.), they talked about the conceptualization of trust in AI-based chatbots such as ChatGPT and Bing's Copilots from a user perspective as well as the role of transparency in the context of communicating scientific information.
03/22/2024
At the 6th Conference for Scientific Cooperation between Lower Saxony and Israel from the 18th to the 19th of 2024 in Hanover, Dr. Esther Greussing and Evelyn Jonas were represented with a presentation on the AI research project ALIES ("Talking to machines, deciding with machines: Public engagement with science in the era of Artificial Intelligence”), funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture. The research project investigates how AI systems influence science-related decisions in everyday situations at the interface of science communication, human-machine communication and educational research. The IfKW is cooperating with researchers from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.
