Professor and Director of the Institute of Communication and Media Science
I am Professor of Political Communication and Director of the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at the University of Bern since 2010. I am particularly interested in how political communication is changing through processes of digitalisation and transnationalisation. I want to understand which forces (can) shape political debates, how they are constituted and how they influence each other. Furthermore, I am interested in how our ideological attitudes shape our information behaviour and what effects result from this.
At the moment I am researching a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the German Research Foundation. We are asking how political attitudes shape our use of information and how this ultimately influences our attitudes. Here we combine panel surveys, with web tracking and text analysis.
I studied communication science with specialisations in political science, political analysis/consulting and communication research at the University of Hohenheim (1995-2001, Diploma) and Boston University (1999, MA). I completed my doctorate in 2006 at the University of Hohenheim on the topic "Symbolic Networks in Europe. The Influence of the National Level on European Public Spheres. Germany and France in comparison" ). Afterwards, I went to the FU Berlin as a post-doctoral fellow. There I did research in the interdisciplinary collegial research group "The Transformative Power of Europe".
Research stays brought me to the University of Washington (Seattle, USA) and the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies. I also received the Robert M. Worcester Prize for the best paper in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, a journal prize from the German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies, the Science Prize from the University of Hohenheim and the Dr. Alois Mock Europe Foundation.
