Lab Digital Communication and Information Diversity

The Lab “Digital Communication and Information Diversity” systematically investigates digital media use and focuses in particular on the aspect of information diversity and quality. Information on politically and socially relevant topics increasingly reaches us online. Mobile apps and websites operated by major private and public media brands play an important role, as do niche offerings, popular blogs and gimmickry, dubious or even manipulative sources (clickbait, fake news), some of which is mediated by non-human agents (social bots, algorithmic personalization). In addition to changing and accelerated usage through the ubiquity of smartphones, profound changes are also taking place in the media market. On the one hand, we are faced with every more information and news from a variety of sources. On the other hand, powerful information intermediaries that rely on algorithmic personalization steer us to certain types of content rather than others with objectives other than providing reliable information and diverse views.nThis shifting environment makes well-founded empirical research on the use of digital media essential for research, but also for society. This is where the Lab comes in: In order to adequately map digital media use, it is necessary to systematically combine social science research methods (surveys, experiments) with approaches from applied computer science (automated content analysis, network analysis).