Doctoral student at the 75th ICA Annual Conference in Denver

From June 12 to 16, 2025, the 75th annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) took place under the motto "ICA@75: Disrupting and Consolidating Communication Research" at the convention center in Denver, Colorado, USA. The anniversary conference brought together over 4,000 communication researchers from all over the world to discuss current developments, theoretical innovations and methodological advances in communication research.

Among the participants was Majid Ali (photo above), a doctoral student of the Boysen-TU Dresden- Research Training Group (Project E4), who presented his research in the field of science and environmental communication. As part of the panel "Developments in Social Media Analysis", he presented the paper "Understanding the Green Hydrogen-Related Discourse on YouTube With Automated Unified Topic-Based Sentiment Analysis", which he co-authored with Markus Leyser (Project E5).

The paper is part of his dissertation with the working title "Hydrogen technology and economy in the media - an international comparative analysis of their journalistic construction with special attention to the MENA countries and the representation of medium-sized companies", which is being written under the scientific supervision of Prof. Dr. Lutz M. Hagen. It deals with the German YouTube discussion on green hydrogen and uses a new method called Unified Topic-Based Sentiment Analysis (UTBSA) for the automated evaluation of YouTube comments. Using the large language model GPT-4o, both topics and associated sentiments are identified in a single step. The study focuses in particular on the discourse in Germany and the Maghreb states (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco), which could play a central role for the German energy transition as future hydrogen exporters.

The results presented show that the online discussion focuses heavily on energy, politics and the economy, with hydrogen being rated surprisingly positively compared to other topics. The research thus not only makes an innovative methodological contribution to sentiment analysis in the field of sustainability communication, but also provides practical advice for stakeholders from the media, politics and industry.

In addition to the presentation, the conference was a valuable opportunity for doctoral student Majid Ali to exchange ideas with renowned scientists, gain new impulses for his research and expand his own network in the field of communication science. The international orientation and interdisciplinary diversity of the ICA provided a unique forum for academic dialog at the highest level. Participation in the ICA 2025 marks another milestone in Majid Ali's academic career and underlines the relevance of his research in the global discourse on sustainable technologies and their social communication.