An article by Corinna Peil and Ricarda Drüeke on digitalization, family businesses, and communicative care work received an award in Cape Town.

The article “Mediated Care Assemblages: Maintaining Kinship and Work under Digitalization on Family Farms” by Assoz. Prof. Dr. Ricarda Drüeke and AP Prof. Dr. Corinna Peil received two awards at the 2026 annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) in Cape Town: the Top Four Paper Award and the John Garrison Memorial Award for Applied Research from the Interpersonal Communication Division.

This paper is based on qualitative case studies of family-run farms and examines how digital technologies are changing daily work routines, intergenerational relationships, and the distribution and redistribution of responsibilities on farms. The focus is on how families cope with the demands of digital administrative, communication, and information systems and what forms of support and knowledge transfer emerge in the process. Drawing on the concept of “Mediated Care Assemblages,” the authors argue that digitalization not only brings technical innovations but, above all, requires new forms of communicative care and maintenance work.

The award presented at ICA 2026 fits well with the conference theme “Communication and Inequalities in Context,” as the paper highlights the unequal distribution of communicative labor and new responsibilities in the context of digital transformation.