Dr. Matthias J. Becker

About

Matthias J. Becker is a linguist specializing in pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis, and media studies. At the Weizenbaum Institute, he is part of the research group “Dynamics of Digital News Dissemination,” where he investigates antisemitic and anti-democratic communication in digital environments, focusing on how social media foster the spread and normalization of hate speech.

He studied linguistics, philosophy, and literature at Freie Universität Berlin and earned his PhD at TU Berlin in 2017 on antisemitic projections in German and British media discourse. Since 2020, he has led the international project Decoding Antisemitism (TU Berlin, University of Cambridge), which combines qualitative discourse analysis with quantitative and AI-based approaches. His publications include monographs, edited volumes, and numerous studies on antisemitism, digital hate communication, and social media studies.

In addition to his research, he advises institutions such as the European Commission, the U.S. Department of State, as well as companies like META. In 2024, he edited the Decoding Antisemitism Lexicon, comprising more than 45 contributions. Becker is committed to fostering knowledge transfer between academia, politics, and civil society.

Research Group: Digital News Dissemination