Media Studies

Academia on Screen

A director's chair in front of a black background

A computer room with large screens on the ceiling

A glass passageway between two buildings

A reading room of the university library

Bird's-eye view of the Nikolakloster and Philosophicum

Bird's-eye view of the old town of Passau

Students in the lecture hall toss their graduation caps in the air.

Academia on Screen: The World of Higher Education in Film and TV Series Across the Globe will be the title of a volume of selected contributions from an international conference on representations of academia in film and television, to be published with Palgrave Macmillan in 2026.

The conference, held at the University of Passau on March 20–21, 2025, was organized by Daniela Wawra and Lucia Krämer from the Department of English Studies. It brought together researchers from India, the United States, Europe, and China to discuss how academia is portrayed on screen.

Over two days, participants explored representations of universities, research, teaching staff, students, and university politics across the globe, highlighting both cultural differences and shared themes — and reflecting on how these depictions relate to real-life academic and institutional experiences.

You can read more about the conference and its insights in the Digital Research Magazine.

Media Communication was chosen as the topic of a special edition of the journal Anglistik (ed. Daniela Wawra) because the enormous technological progress in recent years has posed significant challenges to our media-based cultures, impacting both the future of society and the individual. The new capabilities for automatic storage and processing of vast amounts of data threaten privacy in ways and on a scale never seen before. This issue transcends borders, as digital data do not adhere to national boundaries. Researchers from various disciplines were invited to contribute to this volume. They analyze media discourses and offer a range of approaches to media communication, encompassing different types of media, cultural contexts, and historical perspectives.

Medien und Wandel (Media and Change) is the title of an edited volume that emerged from the collaboration of members of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Media Research (IfIM) at the University of Passau, with Daniela Wawra among the editors. It presents various disciplinary perspectives on the topic.

Medienkulturen (Media Cultures) was the theme of the first colloquium for early-career female researchers at the University of Passau. Organized by Prof. Wawra in her role as the University’s Gender Equality Officer (2004-2009), it served as a platform for academic exchange and networking. The contributions are published in an edited volume of the same title.

More studies on media communication are available in the publication lists.