Overview of our current research projects.

Relationship of journalism and its audience

  • DFG Project "Trust in Journalism in the Face of Structural Change in the Media".
    The project, led by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schweiger at the University of Hohenheim, investigates how trust in news media changes in the context of structural change in the media. Fabian Prochazka is mainly responsible for a survey on reasons for distrust and trust in journalism. Link to the project: online.uni-hohenheim.de/medienvertrauen
    DFG Network "Media Trust in the Digital World

  • DFG Network "Media Trust in the Digital World
    In the Network Media Trust (Head: Dr. Nayla Fawzi, LMU Munich, funded by the German Research Association, DFG), we are working with researchers from Germany and Switzerland to consolidate the field of research on media trust in the German-speaking world. Link: netzwerk-medienvertrauen.de

Online discourses

  • Dealing with media-critical User Comments in Journalism: Effects and Strategies (Own Funds)
    Together with Dr. Magdalena Obermaier (LMU Munich) we investigate how journalists should best deal with comments critical of the media.

Non-journalistic actors and political opinion formation in the digital public sphere.

  • Alternative Media and Alternative Influencers in the Corona Crisis (self funded).
    Together with Tilman Klawier (University of Hohenheim), we are currently investigating the reach and influence of alternative media and alternative influencers in the wake of the Corona pandemic. We are also interested in correlations with personal characteristics and beliefs in misinformation and conspiracy theories.

We are a member of the Erfurt Laboratory for Empirical Researchand the Erfurt Open Science Initiative