How dangerous are disinformation campaigns? Prof. Dr. Matthias Kettemann, a legal expert, questions the often-invoked link between misinformation and the “threat to democracy”. In an interview with Anna Henschel on the portal Wissenschaftskommunikation.de, he refers to findings he recently published in the volume “Information Ecosystems and Troubled Democracy: A Global Synthesis of the State of Knowledge on New Media, AI and Data Governance”.

To the interview “Wir müssen nicht den Abgesang auf die Demokratie anstimmen“ [We do not have to sound the death knell for democracy]

Abstract from the Interview

Kettemann: “Democracy is resilient. We don’t have to sound the death knell for democracy when we look at the fundamental changes of the last 20 years brought about by the digital transformation. Communication cultures and structures have changed – and yet opinion-forming works by and large.

However, if we judge this change negatively, saying, “This is the end of democracy,” then that is value-driven. But one should not act as if it were indisputable that democracy is in crisis.

It is always important to monitor the right and left fringes. It is always important to support civil society engagement. It is always important to stand up for the law – especially in online spaces. So it makes perfect sense to take a critical look at newer trends in the development of democracy. But you should neither be afraid nor complacent.”

How are concentration camp memorials using the platform TikTok for remembrance work? Liv Ohlsen and Dr. Hans-Ulrich Wagner take a look at the so-called Historytoks for Generation Z and show in a three-part blog series how concentration camp memorials are taking up this new form of digital remembrance work on their TikTok accounts.

The blog series “On the Digital Remembrance Work of German-Speaking Memorials on TikTok” was created as part of the interdisciplinary Leibniz research alliance “Value of the Past”. The third part of the series was published on 27 January 2025, the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp.

Overview:

Part 1: #learnontiktok

Liv Ohlsen and Hans-Ulrich Wagner discuss the origins and early days of memorial work on TikTok. Click here for the first part.

Part 2: Storytelling

Analysis of the storytelling of selected accounts. Click here for the second part.

Part 3: Digital Stumbling Blocks

First summary and identification of open questions for the future of digital remembrance work. Click here for the third part.

Further information on the Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past” can be found on the alliance’s website.

Photo by Kadir Celep on Unsplash.

How much influence do far-right accounts have on Elon Musk’s perception of Europe? Quite a lot, as the French newspaper Le Monde has pointed out in a recent article. Jan Rau was interviewed as an expert on the topic of “the extreme right and social media”. The article shows how a few accounts on the platform shape Musk’s view of Europe through selectively curated, often anti-migrant and anti-Islamic content. These accounts include, for example, “RadioGenoa” and “Peter Sweden”, which present European events in English from a profoundly ideological perspective.

Jan Rau is quoted on the case of Naomi Seibt, whom Musk helped organize a public conversation with Alice Weidel (AfD). “She is one of the few personalities in this milieu to have first gained her audience on an international level. The vast majority of important figures in the German or Austrian extreme right first became known locally and through publications in German,” Rau told Le Monde.

The full article is available in French in Le Monde.

The first edition of the new online discussion series “Spotlight” by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) focused on Mark Zuckerberg’s (CEO Meta) decision to end the collaboration with external fact-checkers in the US for all of Meta’s platforms (Facebook, Instagram and Threads) and to rely instead on “Community Notes” – an approach similar to that of the platform X.

After short inputs from Prof. Dr. Jeanette Hofmann (HIIG) and Prof. Dr. Matthias C. Kettemann, a discussion took place. The event was moderated by Katharina Mosene.

Click here to watch the recording of the event

The digital event series “Spotlight” provides a forum for current social issues and is conducted via the Zoom platform. Registration is required.

“Spotlight” is part of the DSA Research Network project, which is funded by the Mercator Foundation.

Further information about the event can be found on the website of the HIIG.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels

In early 2025, Antonia Eichenauer, Jonah Wermter and Moritz Wiechert joined the team of the DFG-funded research group “Communicative AI (ComAI) – The Automation of Societal Communication” at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) as junior researchers.

Antonia Eichenauer and Jonah Wermter are working on the project “Journalism: The Automation of News and Journalistic Autonomy”, while Moritz Wiechert is working on the project “The Juridification of Communicative Artificial Intelligence”.

Welcome to the HBI!

How do young people process social media posts about the war in the Middle East? In an interview with the online magazine LEIBNIZ, Kira Thiel talks about her research on the experiences of children and young people in the digital world, as well as the opportunities and risks associated with them.

From the interview

LEIBNIZ: Ms. Thiel, news and images of the war in the Middle East are everywhere. Children and young people encounter them on Instagram and TikTok, for example – where they are usually without adult supervision. You examined how young people perceive images and videos of war on social media very soon after the 7th of October 2023. How did you approach this?

KIRA THIEL: So far, we know very little about what war content young people come into contact with on social media and how they perceive it. However, we had the impression that they come across much more explicit content on social media than in journalistic reporting. A wild mix of content is circulating on social media in a wide variety of forms and from a wide range of sources: journalistic articles, clips from those affected, expressions of solidarity from influencers, or content from the warring parties, such as videos recorded by Hamas terrorists with body cams. Since we are already working with a Hamburg school on other projects, we had the idea of talking directly to the students about their experiences and views: How often do they come into contact with war content? And what role does it play in their everyday media use?

Read the full interview (in German) in the online magazine LEIBNIZ

Photo by Josh Felise on Unsplash

In the SWR live session “Fühl ich! Nachrichten & du” [Feeling it! News & You] as part of the ARD Youth Media Day, Michael Reiss talked about current trends in news consumption, particularly news avoidance. The stream is available in the ARD media library (in German) until the 13th of November, 2029.

Information about the Live Session “Fühl ich! Nachrichten & du”

There is more than enough bad news. According to the 19th edition of the Shell Youth Study, published in October 2024, more and more young people between the ages of 18 and 24 are avoiding news because they feel exhausted.

The session “Fühl ich! Nachrichten & du” [Feeling it! News & You] provided insights into young people’s media behavior and strategies for dealing with negative news.

The session was livestreamed on ARD alpha on the morning of the 13th of November, 2024.

Information about the ARD Youth Media Day

On the ARD Youth Media Day, the regional broadcasting companies open their studios to students from the eighth grade up, visit schools and offer an extensive online program. In the “Year of the News”, the focus was particularly on journalistic information gathering, recognizing disinformation, fact-checking, and rules for public broadcasting reporting.

Image: screenshot from the SWR live session “Fühl ich! Nachrichten & du” from 13 November 2024, Michael Reiss is sitting on the far left

Christian Ollig has successfully defended his dissertation on the topic “European Platform Constitutions – The Constitutionalization of Digital Communication Spaces through Art. 14 Para. 4 Digital Services Act”. We congratulate him warmly on this achievement and are very happy for him!

The dissertation was supervised by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulz (left in the picture).

In his dissertation, Christian Ollig examines the regulation of digital platforms by the European Union. He develops an innovative understanding according to which platform companies are directly bound by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – via a reference in the Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA marks a fundamental change in the understanding of the roles of state and private actors. Christian Ollig shows that the traditional separation between these actors is becoming increasingly less important in the digital space – a process he describes as “hybridization.” His doctoral thesis provides a new perspective on key challenges of platform regulation, particularly with regard to global companies operating in the European Union and Germany that have significant influence on public opinion.

The publication of the dissertation is planned for the first half of 2025.

Christian Ollig has been working as a research assistant at the Chair of Media Law and Public Law including its Legal Theoretical Foundations at the Law Faculty of Universität Hamburg since October 2021. He supports Prof. Dr. Schulz in research and teaching and coordinates the work between Universität Hamburg and the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut. He studied law at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, the Université de Cergy-Pontoise and the College of Europe in Bruges (LL.M.). His studies were supported by the German National Academic Foundation, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Franco-German University.

In the podcast FREEDOM, Judith Möller and other experts discuss the following questions: What hurdles will challenge our freedom in the future? How will our ideas of freedom change in view of the internet, artificial intelligence or the economic and power-political strengthening of autocratic states?

Kenza Ait Si Abbou, an artificial intelligence specialist and professor of empirical communication research focusing on media use and social media effects at Universität Hamburg, is working together with the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut and Prof. Dr Judith Möller as well as the China expert and professor of contemporary Sinology at the University of Trier, Prof. Dr Kristin Shi-Kupfer. Together with the freelance journalist Wiebke Keuneke (Studio van Meer), they discuss the future of freedom.

It is time to fight for freedom. This is the motto of the 2024 Science Year – Freedom, organised by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The last part of the six-part podcast FREIHEIT [freedom] is about the obstacles to freedom.

The podcast FREIHEIT [freedom] of the Science Year 2024 on the subject of freedom is a production of Studio van Meer in collaboration with the agency neues handeln AG; initiated by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.