News
Reports, Publications, Projects, Blog Posts & Podcasts from the Institute
Claudia Lampert Appointed to Expert Commission
Dr. Claudia Lampert will be part of the expert commission appointed by the German federal government to examine the steps necessary for effective protection of children and young people in the media.
Glossary Entry on “Social Bots”
Dr. Gregor Wiedemann wrote a glossary entry on “social bots” for Diskursmonitor, a collaborative online platform that aims to educate and document strategic communication. This topic is marked by major controversy in academia, some of which has played out in public.
Diversity, Intersectionality, and Gender in Journalism
The third issue of M&K in 2025 is a special edition on "Diversity, Intersectionality, and Gender in Journalism," edited by Margreth Lünenborg, Ana-Nzinga Weiß, Yener Bayramoğlu, and Bernadette Uth. The nine articles are available open access on the Nomos eLibrary.
Positioning and Presentation of Articles in News Aggregators
In the study “Nudges for News Recommenders,” Dr. Nicolas Mattis, Lucien Heitz, Dr. Philipp K. Masur, Prof. Dr. Judith Möller, and Prof. Dr. Wouter van Atteveldt examine how the placement and presentation of environmental news in news aggregators can influence user behavior.
Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Media and Freedom of the Press?
Matthias C. Kettemann developed a quiz for the Leibniz Association and t-online's "Ten Questions, One Expert — The Science Quiz" format. The quiz focuses on the key question: "How does the U.S. media landscape differ from that in Germany?"
Digital Constitutionalism Rethought
In a chapter of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Constitutionalism, Matthias C. Kettemann and Anna Sophia Tiedeke explore digital constitutionalism from the perspective of various normativities. These are the diverse rules, values, and organizing principles that shape the digital space.
Social Media Ban Only Possible at EU Level
Media legal expert Stephan Dreyer explains the legal hurdles to banning social media for under-16s in Germany. According to Stephan Dreyer, German politicians have no regulatory authority in this area due to the primacy of the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in 2024. A ban could therefore only be implemented at EU level.
Babies and Toddlers as Family Influencers
The HBI is conducting a qualitative and quantitative study to examine how babies and young children under the age of five are portrayed on commercial German-language 'family influencing' profiles on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. A team led by Dr. Claudia Lampert and Dr. Stephan Dreyer is discussing the findings in relation to the existing legal framework and media ethics considerations.
2 Student / Research Assistants for Computational Social Science
The Leibniz-Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) in Hamburg is seeking to fill two positions as of October 1, 2025: Student / research assistants (m/f/d) for Computational Social Science – focus on social media, limited until 31.03.2026, monthly working hours 35-60 hours, location Hamburg
Event dates
Media Education Kitchen Talk #14
16. September 2025Dr. Stephan Dreyer will be a guest at the Media Education Kitchen Talk, hosted by FSM and GMK at the Museum for Communication in Berlin. The talk will take place from 3:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., on the topic of "Between Usage Reality, Youth Protection, and Children's Rights: Why Differentiated Usage Concepts Are Needed Instead of Blanket Debates on Prohibition."
Feminist Perspectives on the Narrowing of Public Discourse in the Digital Age
16. September 2025Katharina Mosene will give a virtual presentation on the consequences of digital violence and discriminatory algorithms. She will explain how hate speech and digital violence marginalize marginalized voices in digital public spheres, thereby putting democratic discourse under pressure. She will also address the strategies needed to make digital discourse spaces more inclusive, safe, and fair.
Childhood and Young People Under the Influence of Artificial Intelligence
17. September 2025As part of the workshop, "I Prompt the World to Be the Way I Want It to Be: Childhood and Young People Under the Influence of Artificial Intelligence," Federal Minister for Family Affairs Dr. Karin Prien, Dr. Stephan Dreyer, and others will discuss how to support children and young people in a needs-oriented and age-appropriate manner as they grow up with artificial intelligence.
Universe of Media Education
19. September 2025Dr. Claudia Lampert will speak about the challenges of media education at this year's Universe of Media Education. The one-and-a-half-day event is themed "Back to the Future: Media Education for Today's Challenges."
DSA40 Data Access Days
25. September 2025Prof. Dr. Judith Möller will participate in a panel discussion on “The Big Picture of Data Access” during the two-day conference. The "Data Access Days" are taking place for the first time.
Annual Conference of the DGPuK Divison of Journalism Studies
25. September 2025Anna von Garmissen, Prof. Dr. Wiebke Loosen, and Julius Reimer will be giving presentations at the annual conference of the Division of Journalism Studies of the German Communication Association (DGPuK) with presentations.
#LeibnizMediaLunchTalk
Measuring and Comparing News Media Polarisation in Australia and Beyond
25. September 2025To this Leibniz Media Lunch Talk we welcome Dr. Katharina Esau from the QUT Digital Media Research Center at Queensland University of Technology. She will talk about her research on measuring polarization in Australian news media. The event will be in English language.
#LeibnizMediaLunchTalk
Fighting the Fortress with Arrows.
Civil Enforceability of Due Diligence Obligations for Large Online Services
7. October 2025
We welcome Dr. Katharina Wunner from the University of Bayreuth to this Leibniz Media Lunch Talk. She will speak about the civil enforceability of due diligence obligations for very large online services under Article 54 of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Metaphor Analysis of the Meta-Journalistic Discourse on AI
23. October 2025Antonia Eichenauer will give a presentation entitled "It Could Be Different: Metaphor Analysis of Metajournalistic Discourse about AI” at the anniversary conference of the Center for Media, Communication, and Information Research (ZeMKI), “20 Years into the Future: What Is Our Vision of Media, Data, and Society?"
Digitalisation Research and Network Meeting 2025
6. November 2025The DigiMeet 2025 digitisation research and network meeting will take place online in November this year. It will focus on the topic of “Platform Governance & Power”. Doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers are invited to present their work. The submission deadline is 31 July 2025.