Topics & Supervisors
Master's thesis can only be written in English.

Ass.-Prof.in Dr.in Viorela Dan
Topics
- AI and misinformation / disinformation
- Strategic political communication (especially the effects of strategies employed in election campaigns, human-AI interaction)
- Journalism (especially the effects of fact-checking, the effects of audiovisuals in journalism, human-AI interaction).
Methodological Approach
- Experiment

Dr. Mag. Oliver Leistert
Topics
- Media theory
- Theory of media technologies
- Political economy of media
- Critique of AI
- Surveillance and social media
- Surveilance and AI
- Ecological impact of media technologies
- Climate change & media technologies
- Subjectivation processes and social media
- Media and social movements
- Media philosophy
- Cybernetics
- Critical data studies

Assoz.-Prof.in Mag.a Dr.in Petra Missomelius
Topics (in the following research fields)
- Film and moving images
- Critical diversity studies
- Personal data sovereignty
- Media, Knowledge, and Education
- Evolving media practices in dynamic technological cultures
Methodological Approaches
- Theoretical frameworks
- Mixed-methods research
- Ethnographic inquiry
- Qualitative methods

Dr. Franz Reiter, BA MA
Topics
- Campaign communication (e.g., negative campaigning, dirty campaigning, disinformation campaigning)
- Negativity in the media (e.g., social media, traditional media)
- Alternative and mainstream media
- Disinformation in the public discourse
- Political participation
- Methodological Approach
- Quantitative methods (e.g., survey, experiment, quantitative content analysis)

Univ.-Prof.in Mag.a Dr.in Uta Rußmann
Topics
- Social media platforms (e.g., usage, ethical considerations)
- Visual communication (especially digital/online)
- Campaign communication
- Strategic political communication
- Political public relations
- Strategic corporate communication
- Deliberative communication
Methodological Approaches
- Qualtitative methods
- Quantitative methods: quantitative content analysis & surveys
- Mixed methods

Dr.in Natascha Zeitel-Bank
Topics
- Gatekeeper diversity and new classifications of journalism
- Strengthening European integration through cross-border networking at the political and civil society levels
- Perception of European issues using Eurobarometer analyses (country analyses)
- Public service media caught between their information mandate and platform economy
- Democracy and media freedom – developments and current challenges
- Strategic communication in European politics – a comparative analysis (at the municipal level with reference to European municipal councils)
- The role of AI influencers in political communication
- Request from ORF regarding “Chanson d'Eurovision” in terms of entertainment and political communication
Methodological Approaches
- Qualtitative methods
- Mixed methods
- Network analysis
- Methods for measuring media and press freedom (secondary data analysis