On March 17-18, 2025, Baoning Gong, Miriam Milzner, Daniel Thiele and Dr. Kilian Buehling (all from Freie Universität Berlin and Weizenbaum-Institut), as well as Dr. Annett Heft (Universität Tübingen and Weizenbaum-Institut) and Prof. Dr. Barbara Pfetsch (Freie Universität Berlin and Weizenbaum-Institut) took part in the Winter School in Digital Political Communication and the Digital Public Sphere, hosted by Roskilde University (Denmark).
The event offered opportunities for academic exchange on current projects, as well as ample networking possibilities. Scholars from Universität Wien, Universität Passau, Universität Bern, and Roskilde University were also present, and discussions ranged from digital political communication and the evolving nature of the digital public sphere to the emergence of new research methodologies.
Baoning Gong held a presentation on comparing online identity repertoires in German and U.S. far-right movement networks across Twitter, Gab, Gettr, and Telegram, while Miriam Milzner showcased her analysis of coordinated social media manipulation on TikTok, using the 2025 German Federal Election as a case study. Dr. Kilian Buehling shared his insights on characterizing far-right and anti-democratic information ecosystems. Last, but not least, Daniel Thiele held a presentation, a condensed version of his upcoming PhD defense, titled “Populism from Below. A Computational Analysis on News Media Facebook Pages”.