Eight colleagues from the Communication Studies Department represented KoWi Salzburg at the 76th ICA Conference in Cape Town—delivering award-winning research and emerging scholarship across critical divisions of global communication studies.

The International Communication Association’s annual conference brought together leading scholars from around the world to examine Communication and Inequalities in Context. From June 4–8, the Communication Studies Department sent a substantial delegation: Ricarda Drüeke, Corinna Peil, Nils Förster, Mhairi Louise Rundell, Thawab Hilal, Hanan Badr, Thomas Birkner, and Antonia Bockamp.

A Major Award for Research on Digital Care and Labor

Ricarda Drüeke and Corinna Peil’s paper, “Mediated Care Assemblages: Maintaining Kinship and Work under Digitalization on Family Farms,” earned two prestigious honors: the Top Four Paper Award and the John Garrison Memorial Award for Applied Research from the Interpersonal Communication Division.

The research examines qualitative case studies of family-run agricultural operations, revealing how digital technologies reshape daily work, intergenerational relationships, and the distribution of labor and care responsibilities. Rather than treating digitalization as purely technical innovation, Drüeke and Peil theorize how it demands new forms of communicative care and maintenance work—”mediated care assemblages.” The findings directly address unequally distributed communicative labor emerging under digital transformation, a theme that resonated deeply with the conference’s central focus on communication and inequality.

Emerging Scholarship on Sport and Media

Thomas Birkner brought emerging research to prominence at the International Sport and Media Symposium, where he presented his media analysis framework alongside selected master’s theses by Viola Birkenmaier and Jonas Frey. The panel demonstrated the department’s commitment to developing and showcasing student research on international platforms.

Critical Voices on Progress, Exile, and Activism

Nils Förster, Mhairi Louise Rundell, and Thawab Hilal presented collaborative work at the Philosophy, Theory, and Critique Research Escalator, posing critical questions about the constructive and destructive dimensions of scholarship on inequality.

Hanan Badr contributed extensively across multiple divisions addressing urgent contemporary issues. She moderated a roundtable on exile journalists alongside international scholars including Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova, Celeste González de Bustamante, Carlos Arcila Calderón, Anda Rozukalne, and Summer Harlow. Badr also presented a joint paper with Carola Richter developing a theoretical framework on exile journalism, and collaborated with Alice Beazer on research exploring pro-Palestinian activists in Germany.

Antonia Bockamp presented research on how NGO discourses frame exiled journalism, foregrounding questions of voice, representation, and displacement.

A Department on the Global Stage

This collective presence at ICA 2026 reflects the department’s engagement with pressing questions about technology, labor, care, voice, and social inequality—research that speaks directly to how communication shapes inequality and how communities navigate digital transformation.

The Department of Communication Studies was represented at the 75th annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA)which took place this year in Denver, USA, with several contributions.

The ICA is one of the world’s leading academic conferences in the field of communication and media studies. It brings together researchers, teachers and experts from all over the world to discuss current topics, present research findings and actively shape the future of the discipline. The 2025 conference was held under the motto “ICA 75 – Looking Back, Forging Ahead” and marked the 75th anniversary of the organization.

Thomas Birkner, Head of the Division Journalism research, was active on several occasions. Together with his international colleagues Dariya Orlova, Magdalena Saldaña, Aysha Agbarya, Yuval Katz and Rachel Mourão, he discussed the challenges faced by journalists in countries such as Ukraine, Chile, Israel, Palestine, Germany and Austria. Together with Annika Keute, Senior Scientist in the department, he also presented key findings from the research project A Century of Journalism.

Anna Mavrikou, PhD student at the Division Journalism research, gave a lecture on the migration backgrounds of journalists in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and highlighted issues of diversity and representation in editorial offices.

Hanan Badr, Head of the Division Public Spheres and Inequalities, was invited to participate in the launch event “Looking Back, Forging Ahead” – a sign of international recognition of her expertise in the field of global communication inequalities.

Mhairi Rundell, Thawab Hilal and Peter Winkler were also represented in Denver.

About the ICA

The International Communication Association (ICA) is the world’s leading association for communication and media studies. The annual conference is a central forum for international scientific exchange and the presentation of groundbreaking research.