Ulrike Klinger is a communication scientist and since 2020 Chair of Digital Democracy and member of the Board of Directors of the European New School of Digital Studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. She is an associate researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society in Berlin, where she led the research group “News, Campaigns, and the Rationality of Public Discourse” until 2020. She researches digital political communication, technology and power, and the transformation of digital publics.

Ulrike Klinger will take a transatlantic perspective on the 2024 election campaigns. In 2024, there will be elections for a new European Parliament in May and U.S. presidential and congressional elections in November. Her project will focus on actors and allegations that challenge the legitimacy of elections themselves, on election fraud campaigns and disinformation about the electoral process.

Awards

2017, 2021–2022 | Visiting Scholar, University of California, Santa Barbara

2018 | Top Paper Award, International Communication Association (ICA) Political Communication Division for “Social Bots in Germany’s 2017 National Election Campaign: Theoretical, Empirical and Methodological Implications”
 
2012 | Dissertation Prize, German Political Science Association (GPSA)
 

Selected Publications
 
2023 | with Daniel Kreiss and Bruce Mutsvairo: Platforms, Power and Politics: An Introduction to Political Communication in the Digital Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
 
2023 | “Algorithms, Power and Digital Politics.” In Handbook of Digital Politics, 2nd ed., edited by Stephen Coleman and Lone Sorensen. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
 
2023 | with Karolina Koc-Michalska, and Uta Rußmann: “Are Campaigns Getting Uglier, and Who Is to Blame? Negativity, Dramatization and Populism on Facebook in the 2014 and 2019 EP Election Campaigns.” Political Communication 40 (3): 263–82.
 
2023 | with W. Lance Bennett, Curd Benjamin Knüpfer, Franziska Martini, and Xixuan Zhang: “From the Fringes into Mainstream Politics: Intermediary Networks and Movement-Party Coordination of a Global Anti-immigration Campaign in Germany.” Information, Communication & Society 26: 1890–1907.
 
2020 | “Algorithmen, Bots und Trolle: Vom Ende der demokratischen Öffentlichkeit, wie wir sie kennen.” In Handbuch Demokratie, ed. Peter Massing, Andreas Kost, and Marion Reiser, 271–280. Frankfurt am Main: Wochenschau Verlag.