Prof. Dr. Franziska Keller

Assistant Professor

Institute of Communication and Media Studies

Phone
+41 31 684 84 08
E-Mail
franziska.keller@unibe.ch
Office
A 123
Postal Address
University of Bern
Institute of Communication and Media Studies
Fabrikstrasse 8
3012 Bern
Switzerland
Consultation Hour
Please make an appointment by E-Mail (franziska.keller@unibe.ch)
private website
www.fbkeller.net
ORCID No
orcid.org/0000-0001-9728-7447

Research Interests

  • Social networks
  • Authoritarian regimes
  • Country experts
  • Political elites
  • (Dis)information campaigns
  • Social media
  • China
  • Russia

Curriculum Vitae

Franziska Barbara Keller (PhD 2015, Department of Politics, New York University) is a political scientist investigating the role of social networks in authoritarian regimes and (dis)information campaigns. As an assistant professor at icmb, she will lead a SNSF-financed project on the role of experts and their networks in generating our knowledge about the politics in China and Russia from 2025 until 2030. Before joining the icmb, she was an assistant professor at the Division of Social Science of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, a position she left because of the deteriorating political situation in Hong Kong and China. She has also done PostDocs at Columbia University (2015-16) and UC San Diego (2017-18, financed through an SNSF Postdoc. Mobility grant). Before returning to academia, she has assisted protecting refugees in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, for the UNHCR (2009-10), helped fight human trafficking in the United Arab Emirates with the NGO vivere (2009) and worked as assistant editor for the Chinese-language site of swissinfo.ch (2004-06).

Memberships

  • Swiss Political Science Association
  • American Political Science Association
  • International Network for Social Network Analysis
  • European Political Science Society
     
Publication Year Type
Publication Year Type

Current Projects

Swiss National Science Foundation

Through a Glass, Darkly: How to Study Authoritarian Regimes (2025 - 2030)

BAKOM, Stiftungen, Universität

Extracting information on the relations of political actors from unstructured text (2021-)

Completed Projects

OFCOM, Foundations, University

Preparing the mainstream media for the next pandemic – when does mainstream media content foster belief in conspiracy theories? (2022 – 2024)

Political Astroturfing on Twitter (2016-2022)
Social Network Analysis in authoritarian regimes. Comparing Networks of Power in China and the Soviet Union. Postdoc.Mobility project (2015-2018)
Exploring the informal network between government and citizens in Kazakhstan (2013-2016)
Networks of Power Using Social Network Analysis to Understand Who Will Rule and Who is Really in Charge among Chinese Communist Elites (1982-2012).Dissertation project (2012-2015)
(Why) Do Revolutions Spread? (2010-2012)

Courses in the spring semester 2026

Vorlesung: Qualitative Methoden der Sozialwissenschaften 28558

Previous courses (Last semester the course was held)

Forschungspraktikum: Politische Eliten in den Medien 410898 (HS 2024)

Forschungspraktikum: Staatspropaganda in sozialen Medien? (HS 2023)

Forschungspraktikum: Falsche und echte Basisbewegungen in sozialen Medien (FS & HS 2022)

2016, 2018-2021: The World of Politics (Introduction to Political Science)

2017, 2019, 2020-2021: Introduction to Social Network Analysis

Dissertations

  • Qian'ge Liu (in progress)

Bachelor's Theses

  • Enea Atroce: Framing Analyse des Blutskandals Berichterstattung in Grossbritannien (2025)
  • Raya Cristina Keller: Die Macht der Emotionen Wie Social-Media-Kommunikation die US-Wahlen 2024 prägt (2025)
  • Lucy Kopp: Euroskeptizismus in der Schweizer Parteikommunikation (2024)
  • Christophe Marcel Hutmacher: Wahlvorhersage mit Twitter-API-Daten: Ein retroperspektiver Versuch im Kontext der Bundestagswahl 2021 (2022)