Project description
The research project focuses on how anti-media messages spread in digital public spheres, especially during social crises, and which actors are involved. The focus is on social crisis events, such as the coronavirus pandemic, the war against Ukraine, and climate change, in which journalistic media are exposed to increasing mistrust and targeted attacks.
By media hostility, we mean a general rejection of journalistic media and/or journalists, who are portrayed as immoral, selfish, conformist, and/or manipulative.
The aim is to analyze patterns of argumentation, networks of actors, and channels of dissemination of media-hostile statements. The central assumption to be tested is whether networks of actors have formed that spread media-hostile arguments across crises.
In addition, the project aims to contribute to improving public communication in digital media by experimentally testing and developing intervention options in the form of an AI-supported chatbot, on the one hand, and by developing general recommendations on what forms of intervention can be used in addition to purely legal regulation to effectively counteract disinformation campaigns, on the other.
Project team
Prof. Dr. Hannah Schmid-Petri
Member of bidt's Board of Directors | Chair of Science Communication, University of Passau
