Doctoral Projects

Grounded in the theoretical premise of platform power, reflected in the ability of platforms to structure user behavior and shape communication dynamics through content governance, this dissertation examines how platform designs and governance strategies mediate the visibility and diversity of climate change discussions.

Time and temporality are social constructs reflecting the ideological and practical circumstances of society. They are intertwined with other social processes, such as the sociotechnical emergence of automated communication. While automated communication technologies are in a mutually transformative relation with time and temporality, the social construction of time and temporality around emerging communicative AI is (…)

Political actors use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to influence potential voters and other key audiences such as journalists and civil society actors. This research will examine the self-promotion strategy of politicians from the perspective of visual framing and textual framing on Instagram. For data analysis, supervised deep learning will be used to (…)

The video games “Last of Us” (2013) and “Last of Us 2” (2020) caused heated discussions during their release periods. While the first game prompted players’ to reflect on their moral compass through depictions of difficult decisions in crisis situations, the second instalment, published in the middle of the corona-pandemic, caused a polarizing controversy about (…)

The dissertation focuses on new journalistic tools under the conditions of digital media change. The tools are understood as „boundary objects“ (Star&Griesemer, 1989). Such a socio-technological perspective makes it possible to analyze their (technical) specifics as well as to grasp the negotiation processes in the context of concrete development and appropriation processes. Methodologically, the work (…)

PhD project On the internet, the old business model of mass media is no longer viable and journalism must seek the attention of the audience in the area of conflict between quality reporting and personalized experience. An audience turn has taken place, which is also changing journalistic narrative styles.Hendrik Kühn’s dissertation project examines how this (…)

PhD project The research field of communication and media studies has changed significantly in recent decades with the spread of the internet and advancing digitalization. This applies not only to the subject area itself, but also to the methodological approach used to analyze it. Research software is an important tool in the implementation of numerous (…)

Films can impressively shape the everyday image of mental disorders (mental illness) and develop complex forms of expression for the representation of mental disorders that go beyond the scientific descriptions (such as the ICD-10 or DSM). In addition, they reflect scientific characterizations of mental disorders and open up new, everyday-based insights for the health sciences. (…)