Prof Dr Jasmin Riedl is a political scientist at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich with a focus on political communication and the digital public sphere. A particular focus of her research is the question of how politics and society change under the conditions of digital platforms. She works on election campaigns, populism, disinformation, digital violence and social polarisation. A central concern is not only to better understand such phenomena, but also to identify dynamics that promote democracy: Who and what ensures integration rather than division in digital public spheres? And how can we respond to anti-democratic mobilisation in a scientifically sound way?

She says: “We need a digitally resilient democracy, because the state of democracy depends on the democratic compatibility of digital media. That is why knowledge about the dangers must be used for preventive measures against hate, digital violence, racism and anti-Semitism.

Jasmin leads several interdisciplinary research projects on these issues. She has research collaborations with partners from federal and state ministries, civil protection, civil society organisations and international research institutions. Her work combines classical political science analyses with state-of-the-art computer science methods. For example, she and her team develop AI models for the fully automated analysis of social media data from various platforms.

She is also involved in science communication and democracy education, for example with workshops for schools, training courses for emergency services and interviews in national and international media.