Personal details

• Research Areas

  ? ? ?digital media cultures
  ? ? ?meme studies
  ? ? ?television studies
  ? ? ?TV and streaming series
  ? ? ?Social media and video-sharing platforms?
  ? ? ?film historiography and film memory

• Curriculum Vitae

  2026–
  Research Coordinator Digital Hub, Bauhaus University Weimar, DFG Cluster of Excellence ?Imaginamics: Practices and Dynamics of Social Imagination“, Friedrich-Schiller-Universit?t Jena

  2022–2026
  Postdoc, Research Associate
  DFG Research Training Group “Configurations of Film”, Goethe University Frankfurt

  2015–2021
  Doctorate in Media Studies, University of Bonn
  (summa cum laude)

  Dissertation: Randerscheinungen von Fernsehserien als Indikatoren eines medienkulturellen Wandels [Paratexts of Television Series as Indicators of Media Cultural Change]

  2017–2022
  PhD Candidate, Research Associate
  University of Bonn, Department: Media Studies?

  2015–2017
  Research Assistant?
  University of Bonn, Professorship of Film Studies/Audiovisual Media Cultures

• Publications

  Monographs
  
  Zündel, Jana (2026). Streaming Series Transforming Television and Its Cultural Practices. London: Routledge (in print).

  Zündel, Jana (2022). Fernsehserien im medienkulturellen Wandel. Cologne: Herbert von Halem.

  Zündel, Jana (2016). An den Drehschrauben filmischer Spannung. Zeit und Raum bei Alfred Hitchcock. Stuttgart: ibidem.
  
  Edited volumes
  
  Till Heilmann, Kevin Pauliks, Laura Niebling, and Jana Zündel (eds.). Moving Image Memes. Lüneburg: meson press (under review).

  Philipp Dominik Keidl and Jana Zündel (eds.). (2025): Platforms and the Moving Image. Lüneburg: meson press. DOI: 10.14619/0733

  Articles
  (since 2022, selection)?

  Zündel, Jana (2025). “Undetectable Participation in Meme Culture – Meme Audiences Between Interpassivity and Emotional Gratification.” In: Popular Communication 24(1), pp. 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2025.2593440External link

  Zündel, Jana (2025). “Between Memeability and Televisuality: The (Self-)Memefication of Television Series.” In: Media and Communication 13, pp. 1–21. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.9408External link

  Zündel, Jana (2025). “Beyond Spreadability and Virality: Distributing Internet Memes in Limited Circles and Circular Motions.” In: Vinzenz Hediger, Matthias Krings and Cornelia Storz (eds.), Dis/Ordering Distribution: Thinking about the Productive Force of Infrastructures, Formats and Regulations (Research on the Sociology of Organisations). Leeds: Emerald Publishing, pp. 79–96. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20250000094006External link

  Zündel, Jana (2024). “Empfehlungen als Endlosschleife. Zur seriellen ?sthetik der Content-Vernetzung bei Netflix”. In: Olga Moskatova and Laura Katharina Mücke (eds.), Bild | Kan?le. Zur Theorie und ?sthetik vernetzter Medienkultur. Würzburg: K?nigshausen & Neumann, pp. 383–410.

  Zündel, Jana (2024). “Klassenfragen auf Streamingplattformen: ?konomische Barrieren und demografisches Targeting bei Netflix”. In: Florian Krau? and Moritz Stock (eds.), Fernsehen und Klassenfragen. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 283–301. Online: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-45224-7_14External link.

  Zündel, Jana (2024). “#officehumor – Verhandlungen eines kollektiven Erfahrungsraums in Büro-Memes auf TikTok”. In: Augenblick 88, pp. 99–118.

  Zündel, Jana (2024). “Television as a Plural and Transmedial Concept”. In: Denis Newiak, Dominik Maeder and Herbert Schwaab (eds.), Television Studies and Research on Series. Wiesbaden: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 17–35. Online: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42915-7_2External link.

  Zündel, Jana (2023). “?sthetik des Anfangens”. In: Sven Grampp and Olga Moskatova (eds.), Handbuch Televisuelle Serialit?t. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 1–26. Online: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35305-6_19-1External link.

  Zündel, Jana (2023). “Streaming”. In: Sven Grampp and Olga Moskatova (eds.), Handbuch Televisuelle Serialit?t. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 1–20. Online: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35305-6_38-1External link.

  Zündel, Jana (2022). “The Messiness of Memes. Versuch über ein unordentliches Bildph?nomen”. In: Montage AV 31(1), pp. 115–124. Online: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/23515External link.

  Other publications

  2026
  Concept and authorship for online dossier “Streaming – Medien und ?ffentlichkeit im Wandel” of the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb). Online: https://www.bpb.de/lernen/bewegtbild-und-politische-bildung/563071/streaming-medien-und-oeffentlichkeit-im-wandel/External link ?

• Further Activities

  Presentations
  (since 2022, selection)

  2025

  “Meme Templates als transmediale Chiffren? Zwischen digitaler Umgangssprache und visueller Codierung”.
  Presentation at the workshop “Visuelle Chiffren in Bildender Kunst, Literatur, Film und anderen Medien”, Universit?t Heidelberg, 13–14 November 2025.

  “Die “Memeability” von Theaterinszenierungen: Kritischer Diskurs über Bildende Künste und audiovisuelle Medien mit Internet-Memes”.
  Guest lecture at the workshop “Theaterkritik als Meme”, Hochschule für Musik und Theater München (study programme “Kulturjournalismus”), 3 November 2025.

  “Memes everywhere. Streifzug durch ein unübersichtliches Ph?nomen der Onlinekultur”.
  Guest lecture in the course “Text/Bild-Kulturen. Vom Emblem zum Meme” (Prof. Dr. Juliane Blank), Universit?t Freiburg, 2 July 2025.

  “‘I don’t understand that reference’. Uncovering and navigating the referential networks of internet memes”.
  NECS Conference, Lusófona University Lisbon, 18–21 June 2025.

  2024

  “Memetic Distribution Beyond Virality: Distributing Internet Memes in Limited Circles and Circular Motions”.
  CEDITRAA Conference “Dis/Ordering Distribution. Infrastructures, Formats and Practices in the Circulation of Culture”, Goethe Universit?t Frankfurt, 25–26 April 2024.

  2023

  “Between Memeability and Televisuality: The (Self)Memefication of TV Series”.
  ECREA Television Section Conference 2023: “Redefining Televisuality: Programmes, Practices, Methods”, Filmuniversit?t Babelsberg, 25–27 October 2023.

  Speaker in the panel “Hype & Memes as Success Factors in Series – B#tch, You Better Be Memeable!”, Seriencamp Conference, Cinenova K?ln, 14 June 2023.

  “Memefication as pop-cultural self-preservation: Television, (pre-)internet memes, and referentiality”.
  Pop Cultures: Cultural and Creative Industries, Concepts and Problems. A Global Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference (Progressive Connexions), Hotel Grandium, Prague, 18–19 March 2023.

  2022

  “‘Wir haben neue Folgen für Sie’ – Ansporn und ?berwachung von Fernsehen als fortlaufende Freizeitaufgabe”.
  Annual conference of the Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft e.V., Martin-Luther-Universit?t Halle-Wittenberg, 28 September – 1 October 2022.

  “The Ever-Changing Aesthetics of the Serial Intro”.
  British Society of Aesthetics Conference – “Television Aesthetics: Now What?”, University of Kent, 7–8 July 2022.

  Activities in Academic Organizations?

  Co-founder and co-spokesperson of the Network for German Meme Studies (since 2023)

  Editorial board member of Montage AV. Journal for the Theory and History of Audiovisual Communication (since 2022)

  Spokesperson of the Working Group Television (Society for Media Studies, since 2020)