Research Group Journalism and Democracy

The research group Journalism & Democracy (JourDem) is an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented research group focused on the transformation of journalism and its implications for democracy and the public sphere. 

In well-functioning democracies members of the public have to maintain a connection to the wider organization of society. We study the role played by journalism and media in facilitating this role by examining news production, news use and news content as well as the development of media technologies upon which it is built.

JourDem provides a vibrant community for junior and senior scholars conducting research on media and journalism understood as an interdisciplinary field. In our research, we touch on different fields of research across the social sciences and humanities, including media and communication studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, rhetoric, cultural studies and data science. 

We focus on both the users and producers of news media content in a broad sense and investigate the changing boundaries of the journalistic field. Among the many areas that we do research in are: Newsroom studies, media history, media sociology, political communication, news use and audience practices, media discourse, media events, media scandals, press ethics, gender and journalism, media system research, alternative media, polarization and misinformation, digitalization and datafication, media infrastructures, news media publics, and social media research. 

We draw on a wide array of research methods, from (auto)ethnographic and interview studies, document analysis, qualitative and quantitative content analysis, survey studies and network analysis to the large-scale analysis of big data with computational methods. 

We collaborate with the media industry and other relevant stakeholders in many of our research projects. We strive to make our research accessible to the wider public by serving as experts in the media and by publishing our research also beyond traditional academic formats. Moreover, we organize internal feedback seminars, guest lectures, conferences, and host international scholars for research stays, talks and workshops.