Prof. Dr. Barbara Pfetsch
About
Barbara Pfetsch has been Professor of Media and Communication Science at the Freie Universität 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 Ph.D. in political science from the University of Mannheim and completed her habilitation at the Freie Universität Berlin. From 1994 to 2000, she was a senior researcher in the “Public Sphere and Social Movements” group at the WZB, and from 2000 to 2007, she served as a professor of communication studies and media policy at the University of Hohenheim. Fellowships and research stays took her to the University of Helsinki (Finland), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), the Center for Advanced Studies (CASBS) at Stanford University, Harvard University in Cambridge, and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. (all in the U.S.).
Positions
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Principal Investigator (PI) since 15 September 2022, Research Group: Dynamics of Digital Mobilization
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Principal Investigator (PI) until 14 September 2022, Research Group: Digitalisation and the Transnational Public Sphere
Contact
Fields of Research
Barbara Pfetsch conducts research:
- Media and online public spheres
- Political communication in international comparison
- Digital issue networks
- Agenda-setting and political mobilisation
- Transnational and European public sphere
- Methods of quantitative media research
Memberships, committees and functions
- Membership International Political Science Association (IPSA)
- Membership German Communication Association (DGPuK)
- Membership European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR)
- Membership European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA)
- Membership German Association for Political Science (DVPW)
- 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
- Ombudsperson. Weizenbaum Institute
- Membership International Communication Association (ICA) https://www.icahdq.org/
More Information
Publications
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