Technology, Democracy & Power
Technology, Democracy & Power
Core themes: Technology, democracy, and power – How emerging ICTs shape electoral campaigns, political discourse and representation, as well as power dynamics.
Methods: Social media analytics, Natural Language Processing (e.g., stance detection, sentiment analysis, hate speech/toxicity classifiers, dictionary approaches), network analysis, and statistical analysis of survey data.
Monitoring and nowcasting electoral campaigns on social media platforms (X, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram).
Analyzing how political actors are perceived, the issues they address (i.e., issue competition), and their strategies (e.g., negative campaigning).
The evolution, radicalization, and politicization of digital discourses in times of polycrisis (e.g., Covid-19, Russo-Ukrainian War, Israeli-Palestinian conflict).
Individual and contextual factors enabling (online) political participation and digital expression across countries.
Interaction and alienation between political actors and voters on social media.
Dynamics of intraparty conflict and public deviations from the party line in digital spaces.
The rise of extreme right parties as digital frontrunners.
Ideological positioning and worldviews of political and economic elites (e.g., Tech Elite, Members of the European Parliament, party members) through their social media and website publications.
The power of social media corporations: Methodological challenges in researching digital platforms, including limited data access (costly APIs, bureaucratic barriers) and concerns about data security and protection.