Prof. Dr. Barbara Pfetsch

About

Barbara Pfetsch has been Professor of Media and Communication Science at the FU Berlin and head of the Division of Communication Theory and Media Effects Research until 2024. She is now working at the Weizenbaum-Institute with her research group Dynamics of Digital Mobilisation.

Her research and publications focus on international comparative studies of political communications and media, on the contents and structures of online issue networks and debates on the internet, on digital communication spaces and on the transformation of the public sphere due to digital communications. Barbara Pfetsch holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Mannheim and a habilitation from the FU Berlin.
 
She was previously a senior researcher at the WZB and in 2001 accepted a professorship at the University of Hohenheim. Fellowships and research grants took her to Hebrew University Jerusalem (Israel), the Center for Advanced Studies (CASBS) at Stanford University, the Shorenstein Center and the Minda de Gunzburg Center at Harvard University, and Georgetown University in Washington D.C. (all in the USA).

Memberships, committees and functions

• Membership European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA)
• Membership International Political Science Association (IPSA)
• Membership International Communication Association (ICA) https://www.icahdq.org/
• Ombudsperson. Weizenbaum Institute
• Membership European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR)
• Advisory board. Center for Advanced Internet Studies
• Advisory board Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy (DIID). Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf https://www.diid.hhu.de/en/
• Member Working group “Digitalization and Democracy”. German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
• Membership German Communication Association (DGPuK)
• Membership German Association for Political Science (DVPW)