On March 4, Mike Schäfer, Daniela Mahl and Sophia Volk from the Insti­tute for Com­mu­nic­a­tion Sci­ence and Media Research (IKMZ) at UZH Zurich paid a vis­it to the RHET AI Cen­ter. Togeth­er, we presen­ted our respect­ive pro­jects and research approaches in a work­shop and exchanged ideas on sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion, tar­get groups, power struc­tures, AI skills and much more.

We star­ted with an intro­duc­tion by Olaf Kramer and Markus Gott­schling, who after giv­ing a the­or­et­ic­al intro­duc­tion to the con­nec­tion between sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion and rhet­or­ic briefly presen­ted our research cen­ter and gave an over­view of the indi­vidu­al fields of work and ori­ent­a­tions of our five units, before hand­ing over to our guests from Zurich.

Mike Schäfer provided us with an insight into the diverse top­ics that he and his col­leagues at the IKMZ deal with. There, around 90 employ­ees research media-medi­ated com­mu­nic­a­tion as a core com­pon­ent of mod­ern media and inform­a­tion soci­et­ies from a social sci­ence per­spect­ive. The indi­vidu­al depart­ments of the insti­tute, such as “Media and Inter­net Gov­ernance” or “Polit­ic­al Com­mu­nic­a­tion” or “Media Social­iz­a­tion and Media Lit­er­acy”, always depict com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­cesses from their own spe­cif­ic perspectives.

Anoth­er key pil­lar of Mike Schäfer's work is the CHESS Com­pet­ence Cen­ter – the Cen­ter for High­er Edu­ca­tion and Sci­ence Stud­ies. Here, research and pub­lic­a­tions on sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion are con­duc­ted from soci­olo­gic­al, edu­ca­tion­al, and eco­nom­ic per­spect­ives, act­ively con­trib­ut­ing to pub­lic dis­course and the fur­ther edu­ca­tion of research­ers in this field, includ­ing through a cer­ti­fic­ate pro­gram. Addi­tion­ally, CHESS provides con­sult­ing ser­vices for insti­tu­tions, includ­ing on com­mu­nic­a­tion-related topics.

After­ward, the ses­sion opened up, and all par­ti­cipants from Tübin­gen intro­duced them­selves, their research backgrounds—such as which unit they belong to at the RHET AI Center—as well as their per­son­al research focuses and interests. Dur­ing this exchange, ques­tions and top­ics related to sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion research and AI were col­lec­ted for later discussion.

Fol­low­ing a hearty meal of Swa­bi­an cuisine—where lively con­ver­sa­tions con­tin­ued, ran­ging from inter­na­tion­al­iz­a­tion in high­er edu­ca­tion to the mys­tery of "Kar­tof­felsch­lup­fer" and spe­cial­ized top­ics like lan­guage games—the group phase began:

Broadly speak­ing, the pre­vi­ously col­lec­ted aspects were cat­egor­ized into four them­at­ic areas: "Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion and AI," "Literacy/Competence," "Par­ti­cip­a­tion and Prac­tice," and "Power Struc­tures." Par­ti­cipants rotated between the them­at­ic tables every 20 minutes, ensur­ing that every­one had the oppor­tun­ity to engage with each top­ic. This exchange revealed numer­ous inter­sec­tions and par­al­lels in the par­ti­cipants' research while also spark­ing fruit­ful dis­cus­sions and inspir­ing new ideas.

A major com­mon thread among the diverse top­ics and dis­cus­sion dir­ec­tions was the crit­ic­al and reflect­ive engage­ment with AI—how it can be strengthened or even first estab­lished. This ranged from struc­tur­al and polit­ic­al approaches, such as AI act­iv­ism or gov­ern­ment­al AI reg­u­la­tions, to more indi­vidu­al-level strategies, such as effect­ive sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion and the devel­op­ment of AI literacy.

Dis­cus­sions in small groups at the top­ic tables. Pho­tos: RHET AI.

After­wards, all par­ti­cipants gathered once again and shared their thoughts and impres­sions togeth­er in a plen­ary ses­sion. Once again, it became clear how inspir­ing this exchange was for the indi­vidu­al research dir­ec­tions and pro­jects and that the net­work­ing between our Swiss guests from UZH and the RHET AI Cen­ter is also prom­ising for the future. We'd be delighted to meet again!