Prof. Dr. Barbara Pfetsch is Principal Investigator of the Dynamics of Digital Mobilization research group and Professor of Communication Studies at the FU Berlin, where she heads the Division Communication Theory and Media Effects since 2008. Her research and publications focus on international comparative studies of political communications and media, on the contents and structures of online issue networks and debates on the internet, on digital communication spaces and on the transformation of civil society, public sphere and protest due to digital communications.
Barbara Pfetsch holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Mannheim and a habilitation from the FU Berlin.
From 1994 to 2000 she was a senior researcher at the WZB in the research group Public Sphere and Social Movements, from 2000 to 2007 Professor for Communication Studies and Media Policy at the University of Hohenheim. Fellowships and research grants took her to Helsinki University (Finland), Hebrew University Jerusalem (Israel), the Center for Advanced Studies (CASBS) at Stanford University, the Shorenstein Center and the Minda de Gunzburg Center at Harvard University, and Georgetown University in Washington D.C. (all in the USA).