Josefine Spürkel

Josefine Spürkel

Junior Researcher Digital Platforms

Josefine Spürkel joined the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) as a junior researcher in May 2022. In Research Program 2 “Regulatory Structures and the Emergence of Rules in Online Spaces” she works in the project Informing Regulatory Reasoning on Algorithmic Systems in Societal Communication with STEAM – The Socio-Technical Ecosystem Architecture Method (STEAM).

Josefine studied law in Leipzig with a focus on media law and is currently pursuing her doctorate at the University of Leipzig on platform regulation safeguarding the diversity of information and opinion. After her first state exam, she worked as a research assistant at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in the field of Data & Technology.

Contact information

Josefine Spürkel

Junior Researcher Digital Platforms

Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI)
Rothenbaumchaussee 36
20148 Hamburg
Germany

Last update: 03.07.2024

Works by Josefine Spürkel

Cover von Heft 1/2025 der Zeitschrift M&K
Publikation Available Open Access

Issue 1/2025 of M&K Published

Issue 1/2025 of our journal Media & Communication Studies (M&K) has been published, including articles on journalism in Germany in 2023, on the role of Google and YouTube in the dissemination of conspiracy theories, and on journalistic role expectations and ideals of social coexistence in the German population. All content can be downloaded for free from the Nomos eLibrary.

Cover des Nomos-Handbuchs Journalismusforschung
Publikation Recently Published

Journalism Research

A new Nomos Handbook, edited by Thomas Hanitzsch, Wiebke Loosen and Annika Sehl, offers an insight into the diversity of research on journalism in its social context. It looks, among other things, at actors, organisations and institutions, as well as at news, how it is produced and how it is used. The volume reflects the thematic, theoretical and methodological diversity of research.

Portrait Jan-Ole Harfst
Publikation Blog Post on Verfassungsblog

Elections in a Fortified Platform Democracy

The integrity of the German parliamentary elections and future European elections has been and continues to be threatened by influence peddling via social networks. The Digital Services Act (DSA) is supposed to provide a remedy against election manipulation. In a blog post on the Verfassungsblog, Jan-Ole Harfst explains why Art. 34-35 of the DSA could hardly remedy the systemic risks of this federal election campaign.

Deutschlandkarte auf dunklem Hintergrund
Beitrag RISC Blog Article

Elon Musk, the AfD and the Agenda-Setting of the Radical Right in the 2025 German Federal Election

The article explains how Elon Musk's communication interventions increase the media presence of Alice Weidel and the AfD, and how these dynamics are driven by the mechanisms of the digital attention economy.

Cover der Zeitschrift "Youth and Society" Ausg. 1/2025
Publikation Article in the Journal Youth & Society

Information and Political Engagement Practices of Disadvantaged Youth

In the study “Disinterested and Disillusioned? Information and Political Engagement Practices of Young People from Disadvantaged Backgrounds”, the information and participation practices of young people with a low level of formal education are examined.

Cover of Working Paper No. 75
Publikation Working Paper Available for Download

Labeling of Edited (Influencer) Photos: Necessity, Effect, Regulatory Approaches

Do digitally edited photos in social media have to be labeled? On behalf of the Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (KJM), the HBI investigated the necessity of a legal labeling requirement for edited photos and videos. The expert opinion was presented to the public on 5 February 2025 and is available for download here as a working paper.

Illustration: ein oranger Roboter sitzt inmitten schwarzer Figuren, die Menschen darstellen
Projekt Project of the DFG Research Group ComAI

Communicative AI and Deliberative Quality

What impact do social bots that use Large Language Models (LLMs) have on the quality of political discourse? The project investigates communicative AI in the social domain of political discourse using discourse monitoring and discourse intervention and thus with a largely experimental approach. The case studies are debates in German on the topic of climate change on X, Mastodon and Bluesky.

Cover of the online article on “Mediendiskurs”
Publikation Article on the Platform mediendiskurs

About Constant Dripping and the Sum of Its Parts

The article by Stephan Dreyer and Sünje Andresen examines the challenges that arise for the regulatory framework of child and youth media protection as a result of “micro content” and the cross-platform media use of children and young people, and investigates whether and how regulation can do justice to these new realities.

Cover of a publication
Publikation Conversational Atmosphere Report

Information Ecosystems and Troubled Democracy

Do information ecosystems weaken democracy and promote the viral spread of mis- and disinformation? In the report “Information Ecosystems and Troubled Democracy: A Global Synthesis of the State of Knowledge on New Media, AI and Data Governance”, an international team of researchers assesses the role of information ecosystems.

Mit Dall-E generierte Illustration eines Newsrooms, den ein Roboter und ein Mensch betreten
Projekt Project of the DFG Research Group ComAI

Automation of News and Journalistic Autonomy

The project, which is part of the DFG research group ComAI, investigates communicative AI in journalism by analyzing the associated challenges for journalistic autonomy at the interactional, organizational, and societal levels.

Handydisplay mit mehren App-Icons Chat GPT
Projekt Project of the DFG Research Group ComAI

The Juridification of Communicative AI

The project, which is part of the DFG research group ComAI, is investigating the legal framework for communicative bots (in particular ChatGPT) and social bots (in particular X and Facebook) – on the one hand from the perspective of communication law, and on the other hand from the perspective of emerging AI regulation.

Cover des Impulspapiers
Publikation Discussion Paper for the Friedich-Ebert-Stiftung

How Can the Resilience of the German Media System Be Strengthened?

Tobias Mast has published a paper in the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung's ‘FES Impuls’ series. The paper examines the legal and structural foundations of public broadcasting and makes it clear that reforms are necessary to ensure its independence in the long term.

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