Francesca Giordano has been a member of the office management team at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | HBI since October 2025.
In 2023, she completed her training as an International Administration Manager with a focus on foreign languages, particularly Spanish and English. Prior to that, she gained diverse professional experience in the service and international sectors.
Francesca Giordano
Office Management
Leibniz-Institut für Medienforschung | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI)
Warburgstraße 30b
20354 Hamburg
Germany
Last update: 02.04.2026
For years, the democratic legitimacy of government public relations has been a topic of discussion in academic literature and constitutional jurisprudence. Tobias Mast reviews a recently published dissertation on the subject, exploring the untapped potential of interdisciplinary legal scholarship in relation to commonly accepted empirical assumptions.
Digital platforms have become central infrastructures for political communication and social negotiation processes. In his article, Jan Rau examines platform badges, which are tools that platforms use to fulfill their obligation to mitigate risk by creating positive incentives for users to adhere to certain communicative norms.
This working paper by Tobias Mast comments on the European Court of Justice's recent Russmedia ruling and sets out the premises for a relationship between EU legal acts in the digital single market that respects fundamental rights.
In order to develop the best practices for collecting and analyzing data on short video platforms, Gregor Wiedemann's Media Research Methods Lab at the HBI is participating in a Helmut Schmidt University project examining the German Armed Forces' representation on TikTok and YouTube.
The Euromedia Ownership Monitor provides policymakers and the general public with in-depth insights into the extent of media ownership transparency in the EU. It was updated in 2025.
The special issue of M&K titled "The Datafication of Communication: New Methodological Approaches and Challenges" has been published as Issue 1/2026. The guest editors are Julia Niemann-Lenz, Tim Schatto-Eckrodt, Emese Domahidi, and Merja Mahrt.
Dr. Claudia Lampert examines changing usage practices and possible implications for socialization research in the chapter “Growing Up in Data-Intensive and Automated (Media) Environments” of the handbook “Media Socialization in ‘Smart’ Environments. Self- and Social Development in the Context of Datafication and Automation,” edited by Laura Sūna and Wolfgang Reißmann.
How does attention-economy-driven algorithmic amplification of conflict-driven and negative-emotional communication distort public discourse? And does this distortion constitute a systemic risk under the Digital Services Act (DSA)? This blog article refers to our previous blogpost on "Platform Badges for Civic Communication", explains why such interventions are needed, and outlines how they could address these systemic risks.
AI applications are no longer used just for homework, but also as advisors and conversation partners. This blog post takes a look at young people's experiences with AI and shows that schools and parents often lack opportunities to discuss the role of AI in our daily lives. Safer Internet Day offers a good opportunity to start this conversation.
The use of generative AI, especially ChatGPT, is now firmly established among young people online. A study by Kira Thiel, Claudia Lampert and Eleysa Memis explores young people's views on generative AI, highlighting its significance in their daily lives.
For the project “Dialog Formats in Public Service Media,” Magdalena Stratmann conducted a literature analysis on “The Role of Public Service Media as Enablers of Dialogue in Digitalized Societies.” This analysis is now available for download as a working paper.
U.S. politicians accuse the European Union of endangering freedom of expression with the Digital Services Act (DSA). However, media law expert Dr. Christian Ollig argues that the DSA actually protects users' opinions from arbitrary censorship by platform operators. It also gives users a legal basis to assert their freedom of expression against large platform operators at the European level.
