M. Saïd H. Unger

First DDC Brown Bag Lunch talk of 2026:
This Thursday (Feb 19th), @curdknupfer.bsky.social and @andre-k-rodarte.bsky.social present ideas and ongoing research on "Connective Factions".
If you are at SDU, grab some lunch and join us in Dynamo, at 12!

Postdoc position(s) at The Digital Democracy Centre Application deadline: February 15th, 2026, 23:59 CET/CEST.

4 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (𝐏𝐡𝐝, 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐜, 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐫) 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐃𝐂!!! 😯🤩
The DDC is expanding its team with *4* new opportunities for researchers passionate about the intersection of AI, media, democracy, & society.

Deadline: 📅 Feb 15 for 3 of these roles!
The Professorship deadline follows in March.🧵👇

New @gesis.org data set publication: "Social Media Accounts of German Candidates from the German Federal Election 2025"
doi.org/10.4232/1.14...

Identifying #SyntheticDisinformation: @nilsvief.bsky.social, @boesch.bsky.social, @mshu.bsky.social, Johanna Klapproth, @zwizwasvens.bsky.social, @thorstenquandt.bsky.social, & @christianstoecker.de investigated detection strategies of German elite actors. doi.org/10.5771/2192...

We’re kicking off the year with the announcement of our 2025 special issue on how #SyntheticMedia challenge epistemic institutions. Many thanks to Alexander Godulla and @cphoffmann.bsky.social for their excellent work as guest editors. doi.org/10.5771/2192...

Authors’ gender and productivity as predictors of reciprocal dynamics in publications and citations in communication Abstract. Gender bias in academic publishing and citation practices in communication has been discussed extensively, yet the link between the two remains p

Such important work! Men across the globe publish around 40% of articles in communication and get almost 60% of the citations. Women publish almost 60% but get only a little over 40% of the citations. This gap has remained almost constant since 2000. #frozen #comsky academic.oup.com/anncom/advan...

Professors in the media: dynamics of cumulative advantage, reputation, and gender Abstract. Translation of science to a general public is increasingly important in modern academia. Yet, there is little knowledge on whether and why scient

📢 New #OpenAccess!

Why do some professors appear in the media far more than others?
#RH_Heiberger @BasHofstra #S_Unger find both patterns of cumulative advantage & gender inequality, with men more likely to become “short-listed”!

➡️ Read it ungated at: doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcaf037

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After a long time in development, {traktok} #rstats is now finally on CRAN!

Whether you have access to the Research API or just want to scrape some pages, traktok has you covered

jbgruber.github.io/traktok/

Professors in the media: dynamics of cumulative advantage, reputation, and gender Abstract. Translation of science to a general public is increasingly important in modern academia. Yet, there is little knowledge on whether and why scient

Find out more about our theoretical resoning, the dataset and additional results in our open access full text here: doi.org/10.1093/esr/...

The reputation of professors measured in prior citations has a significant effect on whether or not a professor is mentioned in the media, but not on the number of future media attention. Reputation might get you into the media but it may not keep you there.

Importantly, the cumulative advantage for the number of future media mentions is tronger for men than for women. Together with on average less mentions in the media for women which points to inequalities in media attention for women in science.

We find that having appeared previously in the media significantly increases the probability to appear in the media again and on average increases the number of future media mentions, lending strong support to a cumulative advantage effect of media appearences for professors.

Public outreach is ever more important for scientists, so we look at who actually appears in the media. For over 2000 German professors from the social sciences, we look at cumulative advantage, reputation and gender as possible effects on whether or not someone gets mentioned in legacy media.

Professors in the media: dynamics of cumulative advantage, reputation, and gender Abstract. Translation of science to a general public is increasingly important in modern academia. Yet, there is little knowledge on whether and why scient

What gets professors into the media?
📢 New open access publication in @europeansocreview.bsky.social together with Raphael Heiberger from @s7css.bsky.social and @bashofstra.bsky.social!
👉 doi.org/10.1093/esr/...

📣 Come work with us!

The language similarity between corona protest mobilizers on Telegram and German politicians on Twitter Protest movements against COVID-19 containment measures, like Germany’s Querdenken, aim to put their position on the political agenda. The German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) acted...

✨ New open-access paper ✨

We explored language similarity between Querdenken (Telegram) and German politicians (Twitter). In short: AfD’s communication most similar, but parts of FDP and CDU/CSU also find common ground through discrediting left-wing politics.

Full paper:

🔗 doi.org/10.1080/1369...

New publication, out in Political Analysis:

There is an increasing array of tools to measure facets of morality in political language. But while they ostensibly measure the same concept, do they actually?

I and @fhopp.bsky.social set out to see what happens.

😅 Late to share this one (summer + other projects got in the way), but this #aBitOfCCS episode with @ellamcloughlin.bsky.social is too good to skip.

How do you measure something as complex as uncertainty in political speech? 🎙️

🎧 Listen here: aboutccs.net/abitofccs/
#PoliticalSpeech #CSS

Trolls Behind the Mask of Journalists: How Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Patriot Media Group Was Organized The Patriot Media Group, sponsored by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Kremlin’s “troll farm,” represents a distinct type of media organization that does not fit any of the contemporary Russia...

My first academic paper is out (open access). It's a study of the organisation of Prigozhin's Patriot Media Group, based on a dataset of 818 CVs of its employees downloaded shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. doi.org/10.1080/1075... The main findings are in the thread below.

Thinking about using #CSS methods to study #racism, #stereotypes or #hate speech in text? 📐

👉 Check out my first dissertation paper co-authored by @fabiennelind.bsky.social and @hajoboo.bsky.social just published in Annals of the ICA! @icahdq.bsky.social 🥳

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/annc...

Our study highlights the awareness of disinformation across societal sectors as well as the importance of tailored approaches according to sectors and specific roles. Bringing expertise from different sectors together (where it doesn't happen already) could lead to better mitigation strategies.

Experts focusing on a single feature, experts focusing mostly on features of individual disinformation pieces, experts focusing mostly on features of disinformation campaigns and experts with a multidimensional perception of disinformation.

Drawing on their perception of features of individual features of disinformation and features of disinformation campaigns, we provide a typology of disinformation foci including four major types:

While most interviewees share a similar definition of what disinformation entails, they provide very different insights into the actors, reasons, targets, audiences and processes of disinformation.

Johanna Klapproth, @zwizwasvens.bsky.social, @nilsvief.bsky.social, @boesch.bsky.social, @christianstoecker.de, @thorstenquandt.bsky.social and I conducted and analysed 58 expert interviews with politicians, the governmental sector, journalists, and representatives of private businesses.

Features of disinformation: an expert interview study on the perception of disinformation among political, governmental, media and business elites in Germany To curb the spread of disinformation, societal decision-makers are working intensively on the design of effective intervention strategies. Primarily elites from the sectors of politics, administrat...

✨New Publication in JEPOP✨
How do societal stakeholders understand and detect disinformation?

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

EU-Forschungsrat zeichnet Thorsten Quandt mit Advanced Grant aus Der Kommunikationswissenschaftler Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt von der Universität Münster erhält einen mit 2,5 Millionen Euro dotierten „ERC Advanced Grant“ des Europäischen Forschungsrats. Mit dieser F...

Still confused, but uber-happy. The news came out right after #ICA25 has ended:

The European Research Council #ERC has awarded me an ERC Advanced Grant!

Project DANCE on "Dark Nerd Communities" runs for 5 years with 2.5 million Euros funding. Immensely grateful!

erc.europa.eu/.../erc-2024...

EU-Forschungsrat zeichnet Thorsten Quandt mit Advanced Grant aus Der Kommunikationswissenschaftler Prof. Dr. Thorsten Quandt von der Universität Münster erhält einen mit 2,5 Millionen Euro dotierten „ERC Advanced Grant“ des Europäischen Forschungsrats. Mit dieser F...

Der Kommunikationswissenschaftler Prof. Thorsten Quandt erhält einen mit 2,5 Mio. € dotierten „ERC Advanced Grant“ des Europäischen Forschungsrats. Damit wird er in den kommenden 5 Jahren erforschen, wie bestimmte Online-Gruppen, die vorw. aus jungen Männern bestehen, zu gefährlichen Milieus werden.

@jbgruber.bsky.social & @vanatteveldt.com argue that as data become more difficult to collect (no APIs, scraping more difficult) we need to share existing data more. And how non-consumptive research is a way to do that without goi g to jail! #ica25

You want to study German covid-19 protests? @maxzehring.bsky.social, @hdschulze.bsky.social and @buehling.bsky.social got you covered with their dataset! #ica25