April 20th, 2020

Ulla Autenrieth, Denise Fluhr and Tanja Mettauer
present their findings.

„It’s all about video.”

The yearly conference of the Visual Communication Division of the German Communication Association (DGPuK) took place from 21 to 23 November 2019 in Basel. The conference themed “It’s all about video. Visual communication under the spell of moving images” began with a workshop organized by Felix Koltermann in which participants studied the practice of pictures in education. In the evening of November 21st, the official part started with a keynote by Catherine Johnson (University of Huddersfield) on the topic of “Online TV. Interrogating Television in the Internet Era”. In the subsequent get-together, the Best-Paper-Award for the best contribution by young academics (sponsored by Herbert von Halem) was awarded and the new print edition of “Handbuch Visuelle Kommunikationsforschung” (published by Katharina Lobinger) was presented.

The call for anonymous Extended Abstracts resulted in 16 submissions, 14 of which were selected through peer reviewing and presented in the “Artstübli” on Friday and Saturday. The submissions were thematically diverse and theoretical as well as empirical: they covered new ethic and methodic challenges regarding moving images as well as their application in PR and commercial communication. Further, we discussed the implications of technologies of the moving image for traditional TV and news stations and their influence on political communication. Other topics were changed user-preferences concerning moving images and the corresponding potential for interaction. The conference also organized a roundtable to #Ibizagate and its relevance for political communication. The Swiss broadcaster SRF then invited us for a guided tour around its newly opened studios in Basel. Finally, the conference ended with a VR-presentation by the University of Applied Sciences (FHGR).

45 People attended the event. The organization committee was: Ulla Autenrieth, Klaus Neumann-Braun, Matthias Künzler, Katharina Lobinger, and Cornelia Brantner. The conference was supported by the Freie Akademische Gesellschaft of the University of Basel, by the University of Applied Sciences (FHGR) and by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. The Herbert von Halem publishing house donated the Best-Paper Award and Springer sponsored the welcome drink on the first evening.

We thank all participants for their interesting presentations and animated discussions as well as all contributors for their support.

October 26th, 2019

Fiona Fehlmann and Ulla Autenrieth at the conference.

Ulla Autenrieth, Fiona Fehlmann and Matthias Künzler participated in the European Conference «The Youthification of Television & Screen Culture» at the University of Groningen (NL) from October 24th to 25th 2019. Here, two talks were given, presenting first results from the SNF and BAKOM studies with the focus on how young people use and asses Public Service Media content.

In a different talk, the team presented their idex for audiovisual innovations to their international colleagues for the first time and focused on how the Swiss Public Service Broadcasting institution (SRG SSR) is trying to implement innovations in their organisation.

This conference was organised by the ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Association) «Television Studies Section».

March 4th, 2019

Presentation of first results of our quantitative study at the International Public Media Conference Bern, Switzerland. On Swissinfo.ch you can find an initial report and interview with us.

Here is a link for the livestream of the conference and a link for a handout showing our results (in German).