From June 4 to 8, researchers affiliated with SCOPE attended this year’s conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) in Cape Town, South Africa. At the international conference. They presented their latest research findings in the fields of political communication, environmental communication, and media effects.
Pascal Merz, Jennifer Bast, and Christian von Sikorski received a special honor. Their paper, titled “Countering Political Climate Change Disinformation through Source Discreditation,” was awarded the Top Paper Award by the ICA’s Environmental Communication Division.
In addition, other researchers associated with SCOPE presented their own work. Lena Iwertowski and Stephan Winter presented their research on the processing of (mis)information in the context of political orientation. Stephan Winter also participated in an international study on political disinformation on WhatsApp in Chile. Berend Barkela presented research on contextual factors in artworks addressing plastic pollution. Olga Zagovora presented research on stereotype dynamics in multilingual Large Language Models, focusing on gender and migration biases.
We are delighted with our successful participation in this year’s ICA and the enriching international professional exchange in Cape Town.