Speakers

Anja Bechmann is the Research Director of AU Datalab, Assoc. Professor at the Media Studies Department and a Fellow at Aarhus Institute for Advanced Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark. She conducts multidisciplinary research at the intersection between algorithms and media sociology, entangling how algorithms create meaning from digital human communication and behavioural data, and the challenges in doing so both regulatory, ethical and in relation to sociology and information design. She is a member of the EU commission high level expert group on fake news and disinformation.

Prof. Gary Bente (Ph.D., University of Trier, Germany, 1985) has served as a professor of Psychology at the University of Cologne until 2017. He is now a professor in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University and the director of the Center for Avatar Research and Immersive Social Media Applications (CARISMA) at the School of Communication Arts and Sciences. He has pioneered the use of Virtual Reality Technologies in Communication Research and published over 250 peer reviewed articles in the fields of Media and Communication Psychology. He teaches classes in media effects research with an emphasis on continuous response measurement, psychophysiology and eye tracking as well as classes in nonverbal communication and Virtual Reality.

David DeAndrea (Ph.D., Michigan State University, 2011) is an associate professor and the director of graduate studies in the School of Communication at the Ohio State University. His research examines how features of communication technology affect the way people evaluate the credibility of information online and strategically manage impressions online across a variety of contexts including relationships, e-commerce, health, and politics.

Malte Elson is a postdoctoral researcher in the Educational Psychology Research Group at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany where he studies human learning. His research interests are learning and problem solving processes in IT security, media effects, behavior research methods, and meta science. He is a founder member and currently serves as board member of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS).

Lena Frischlich studied psychology at the University of Cologne, where she completed her PhD in social- and media psychology in 2016. She has joined the Institute for Communication Science (research division on online communication) at Münster University in the summer of 2016, working as a post-doc in the PropStop project on detection, identification and combating of covert propaganda-attacks via online media. In January 2018 she will start her own junior research group on democratic resilience in times of online-propaganda, fake news, fear- and hate-speech (DemoRESILdigital).

Prof. Nicole Krämer studied psychology at the University of Cologne from 1992 to 1997, where she worked as a research assistant and lecturer with Gary Bente from 1998 to 2007. In 2003/2004 she was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge. After her habilitation in 2006, she was appointed professor for "Social Psychology - Media and Communication" at the University of Duisburg-Essen in the Faculty of Engineering in 2007.

Prof. Eun-Ju Lee (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Professor in the Department of Communication at Seoul National University, Republic of Korea. Her research has focused on social cognition and social influence in computer-mediated communication and human-computer interaction. She has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Communication and co-edited Media Psychology. She is the current Editor-in-Chief of Human Communication Research.

Teresa Lynch (Ph.D., Indiana University, 2017) is an assistant professor in the School of Communication at the Ohio State University. Her research examines the processing of social and emotional content of video games and how interactions among individuals, groups, digital environments contribute to emotion, cognition, and behavior.

Prof. Jörg Matthes (PhD, University of Zurich) is professor of communication science at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Austria, where he chairs the division of advertising research and media effects. His research focuses on advertising effects, the process of public opinion formation, news framing, and empirical methods.

Nicholas Matthews (Ph.D., Indiana University, 2016) is a visiting assistant professor in the School of Communication at The Ohio State University. His research examines how interpersonal and mass communication influence the formation and evolution of moral attitudes. Additionally, his work investigates how experiential states influence the processing and effects of mediated violence.

Ashley Muddiman (PhD, University of Texas at Austin) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas, as well as a Faculty Research Associate with the Center for Media Engagement housed in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research explores political media effects, specifically those related to political incivility, misinformation, and digital politics.

Mary Beth Oliver (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991) is a distinguished professor in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. Her research in media psychology focuses on viewers' emotional responses to media entertainment, and the intersection of media use/effects with social cognition.

Prof. Ron Tamborini (Ph.D., Indiana University) is the Director of Doctoral Studies and a Professor in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University where he teaches courses in media process and methods of communication inquiry. His research examines both traditional and new media, with a focus on how characteristics of technology alter the psychological experience and influence of media.

Annie Waldherr (PhD, Freie Universität Berlin) is assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Münster. She studies the changing structures and dynamics in today’s digitized public spheres and is devoted to applying and developing computational methods in the social sciences.

Oscar Westlund, Ph.D., is Professor at Oslo Metropolitan University, and holds adjunt positions at at Volda University College and University of Gothenburg. Westlund specializes in areas such as media production, digital journalism and media use. He is Editor-in- Chief of Digital Journalism and currently guest edit special issues for this journal, as well as Communicar, New Media & Society and Media and Communication. Throughout 2017-2020 he leads a research project called the epistemologies of digital news production, funded by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciencies.