Digital Democracy Centre

Together, these handbook chapters provide a foundational overview of topics of extremely high relevance to the work of the DDC.
We hope they will prove equally useful to the wider field of #PolComm #PoliticalCommunication!

And an entry co-authored by SDU's Centre for Journalism and DDC member @kimandersen.bsky.social:
* Andersen, K., & Edgerly, S. (2025). News avoidance. In Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication (pp. 63–66). Edward Elgar Publishing. doi.org/10.4337/9781...

* Schatto-Eckrodt, T., & Frischlich, L. (2025). Conspiracy theories. In A. Nai, M. Grömping, & D. Wirz (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication. Edward Elgar Publishing. doi.org/10.4337/9781...

* Rieger, D., & Frischlich, L. (2025). Extremist propaganda. In A. Nai, M. Grömping, & D. Wirz (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication (pp. 563–567). Edward Elgar Publishing. doi.org/10.4337/9781...

* Knüpfer, C. B. (2025). Far-right communication. In A. Nai, M. Grömping, & D. Wirz (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication (pp. 11–15). Edward Elgar Publishing. doi.org/10.4337/9781...

* Knüpfer, C. B. (2025). Agenda surfing. In A. Nai, M. Grömping, & D. Wirz (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication (pp. 32–36). Edward Elgar Publishing. doi.org/10.4337/9781...

* Frischlich, L., Hahn, L., & Rieger, D. (2025). Inspirational media. In A. Nai, M. Grömping, & D. Wirz (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication (pp. 249–252). Edward Elgar Publishing. doi.org/10.4337/9781...

* de Vreese, C. H. (2025). Artificial intelligence. In A. Nai, M. Grömping, & D. Wirz (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication (pp. 88–92). Edward Elgar Publishing. doi.org/10.4337/9781...

📚DDC PUBLICATION UPDATE📚
The Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication
www.elgaronline.com/display/book...
by @alessandronai.bsky.social, @maxgroemping.bsky.social, & @dominiquewirz.bsky.social
Feat. DDC's @claesdevreese.bsky.social, @curdknupfer.bsky.social, @lenafrescamente.bsky.social 🧵⤵️

Enlightened faces after a day full of interesting and useful facts about requesting data from Very Large Online Platforms.
Clear path forward. Thanks to all the work done at the fantastic dsa40collaboratory.eu
😊

How can platform researchers make use of the #DSA40 (EU Digital Services Act)?
The @ddc-sdu.bsky.social is on the road today, visiting the with the University of Copenhagen to learn more from @dscheykopp.bsky.social, here from Berlin's @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social.

Class excursion day: @ddc-sdu.bsky.social is visiting Copenhagen University today to listen to @dscheykopp.bsky.social talking about data access under DSA - thanks @manuelmenke.bsky.social for the organisation!

Fellow in the Politics and Governance related to the Green Transition at University of Southern Denmark Discover Fellow in the Politics and Governance related to the Green Transition jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

New job opportunity at @sdu.dk! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPS207/f... The @d-ias.bsky.social and the Dept of PolSci & Public Mgmt @sdu.dk are seeking an outstanding candidate to fill a tenure-track Fellow (Assistant Professor level) position in the field of PolSci @ddc-sdu.bsky.social @sdutek.bsky.social

🎧DDC PODCAST RECOMMENDATION🎧
Our 2025 DDCxTrygFonden Fellow, Anders Høeg Nissen, has just launched his new podcast series, which was developed in part through our fellowship program.
The Podcast series deals with various aspects of AI in Denmark.
👂⤵️
pod.link/1591937564/e...

Fantastic to be able to continue my research in young voters and repeat my mobiletnographic studies from the Danish elections in 2019 and 2022 in the coming election (probably in 2026)

The 2026 Fellow cohort in the @ddc-sdu.bsky.social x TrygFonden program has just been announced.

What can I say... fabulous line up including @annaneifer.bsky.social Asger Nim, @jasminemcnealy.com, @leahellmueller.bsky.social and many more.

Check the full cohort 🚀⬇️

www.sdu.dk/en/forskning...

The @ddc-sdu.bsky.social (where I work), has an ongoing collaboration with TrygFonden, which allows us to fund project-based fellowships.
The upcoming cohort has 15(!) colleagues from academia, journalism, & policy coming in.
Cool stuff.
...And the fellowship will continue in 26/27. 👀

Very excited to start working with the brilliant crew at @ddc-sdu.bsky.social over the coming year! I'll be exploring whether and how data visualization can enhance public knowledge about political issues, and the prospects for using visualization to help build stronger democracies.

Learn more about the fellows and their projects here:
www.sdu.dk/en/forskning...

& watch this space for updates. 👀

Huge thanks to TrygFonden for enabling this programme! 💚

@claesdevreese.bsky.social; @lenafrescamente.bsky.social; @curdknupfer.bsky.social

From top-left to bottom-right: Anna Neifer, Asger Nim, Dominika Kuznicka-Blaszkowska, Emillie de Keulenaar, Jasmine McNealy, Karen Rønde, Kristoffer Frøkjær, Lea Hellmueller, Lucas Braun, Priyanka Kundu, Shangyuan Wu, Søren Schultz Hansen, Timme Bisgaard Munk, William Allen, Zea Kármin Szebeni

𝗔𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗗𝗗𝗖 𝘅 𝗧𝗿𝘆𝗴𝗙𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗙𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗖𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁!
We are thrilled to introduce the 15 (!) researchers, journalists, & policy experts from 9 countries to tackle one of the most pressing challenges of our time: the impact of digital technologies on democratic societies.

🗞️ Find the interview with first author Jonas Nygaard Blom and Lene Heiselberg here 👉 mediawatch.dk/Medienyt/Web...

🔎 Or read the full research paper 👉 t1p.de/t19c5

📣 DDC in the News
A paper co-authored by @dieheiselberg.bsky.social and Arjen Van Dalen (SDU's Centre for Journalism Studies) has been featured by Mediawatch. The study explores how media users perceive the growing use of AI in journalism.

Sandbox Journalism: The Role of Media Labs as Innovation Drivers in European News Organisations News organisations are seeking to innovate but face constraints related to time and resources for experimentation. In response, many have established in-house “labs” to support the development and ...

Full article [open access]: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

✨ New publication: 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐎𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 ✨

Happy to share latest research exploring how media labs are shaping the future of journalism across Europe. This study focuses on 6 European countries 🇧🇪 🇬🇧 🇪🇸 🇵🇹 🇮🇹 🇩🇪

Small 🧵

Call for Papers: AI, Public Opinion, and Democratic Resilience Special Issue of the International Journal of Public Opinion Research Guest Editors: Homero Gil de Zuñiga and Hugo Marcos-Marne Editor-In-Chief: Porismita Bora

Call for papers:

IJPOR has a call for a special issue on AI, public opinion and democratic resilience.

1000 word initial abstract submission

🗓️: deadline February 15, 2026

@ddc-sdu.bsky.social @aimediademlab.bsky.social @algosoc.org @polcomm.bsky.social #commsky

academic.oup.com/ijpor/pages/...

📖DDC PUBLICATION UPDATE📖
@hannescools.bsky.social on...
THE EVOLVING ROLE OF JOURNALISTS AS GATEKEEPERS IN THE AGE OF (GENERATIVE) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

...in The Handbook of Artificial Intelligence and Journalism.

🗳️DDC DANISH ELECTIONS UPDATE🗳️
...in which our Centre Director @claesdevreese.bsky.social draws on trends he recently witnessed in the Netherlands to argue that we should not trust chatbots with election advice. 🤖🙅‍♂️

European Democracy Shield and EU Strategy for Civil Society pave the way for stronger and more resilient democracies The Commission has presented today the European Democracy Shield, setting out a series of concrete measures to empower, protect, and promote strong and resilient democracies across the EU. An open civ...

The @ec.europa.eu 'Democracy Shield' plans have dropped.

The focus on free, independent media, fact-checking, literacy, election integrity etc make sense.

But: it needs to be acknowledged that many of these challenges are not from outside the EU only. Also from within.
ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

"I tell him everything that I do": An investigation of privacy and safety implications of AI companion usage

The paper co-authored with Oksana Kulyk, Peter Mayer, and Anne Gerdes can be found here:

portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/en/publicati...

Raha Asadi and Anine Henriksen presenting their research on the chatbot service Replika

At today's DDC BROWNBAG LUNCH TALK Raha Asadi & Anine Henriksen presented their research on users of the chatbot Replika, which simulates human interaction and connections -- raising various privacy & safety concerns.
Fantastic (if deeply concerning) presentation!
Lots of interest from our audience!