Our current research projects cover the following topics.

• How will the use of AI change media business models in the future?
  The use of RAG models provides further access to curated knowledge. Experiments with them show different experiences and depend strongly on the topic and context: Scientific publishers deal with it differently in the context of open access, AI-based access to information and the generation of analyses and texts than do specialist publishers who claim to provide knowledge and practical application for companies, or consumer publishers, who in turn defend immersive reading or clear and compact access to credible authors.
  The guiding research questions are:
  What significance will the individual work still have in the future? And how do questions of copyright protection and exploitation arise from this?
  Who will offer themselves as aggregators to provide customers with reliable access to knowledge?
  At what point does curation become relevant and how does the added value for the customer look?
  

• How is our information behavior changing? And what impact does this have on how we address our customers?
  We analyze the changes in the market through global networks and the impact on the acquisition of knowledge by companies and individuals.
  In doing so, we consider the different forms of regulation and control in the networks. These range from minimal restrictions on all forms of expression to the promotion of certain narratives and strict censorship in certain areas or subject areas. The possibilities and limitations of AI are considered.
  AI-generated content also makes it more challenging for humans to verify the truth of information.
  The guiding research questions are:
  What strategies do people develop to verify information in terms of relevance and truth? And when and why is information not checked, but instead evaluated as “trustworthy” or “acceptable”?
  Where do (digital) spaces open up for a critical, well-founded and at the same time respectful examination of socially relevant topics?
  What are the implications for corporate communication strategies?
  
  

• How should the relationship between humans and machines develop in the future?
  The current technological revolution is accompanied by dazzling descriptions: We talk about artificial “intelligence”, ascribe reasoning to AI and describe the functioning of algorithms as a “chain of thoughts”. The increase in anthropomorphism indicates an increasingly complex interweaving of human-machine interaction. Following Luciano Floridi, one can speak of a 4th revolution that challenges our self-understanding as thinking, creative beings.
  The guiding research questions are:
  What do we imagine human characteristics to be in contrast to machines?
  What does this mean for our understanding of human creativity?
  What does this mean for our understanding of human intelligence?
  
  

• How do we talk about leadership and change? And what role does intercultural communication play?
  The prevailing ideas of leadership and change management are assumed to apply to companies everywhere. Reasons are mainly given for one or the other form of leadership or the reasons why companies have to change in which direction. So far, too little space has been devoted to the narrative of leadership and change: How and in which formats and media is a common narrative founded, formed and discussed? The modern buzzword "storytelling" is mainly associated with the appropriate approach in marketing and dramaturgical processes in the form of heroic stories. But this is only the tip of the iceberg.
  The leading research questions are:
  At what point does the narrative take the place of an analytical justification and where are the limits of scientifically provable paradigms?
  Which form of narrative is really convincing in which cultural context?
  What cultural imprints do we need to pay attention to when developing our narratives of good leadership and change management?
  Which formats and media are the right ones for communicating our message?