Brigitte Huber

IU International University of Applied Sciences | IU

Social media is recognized as a crucial source of information about food and nutrition. Research shows that while TikTok offers a substantial number of nutrition-related videos, the quality of the information provided varies. The development of nutrition literacy is, therefore, only growing in relevance. Through a quantitative content analysis of n...

Tagungsband der IU-Fachtagung zum Thema Content Marketing 2.0 vom 14.06.2023

Short Abstract: This paper presents three studies which aim to understand the role of musicians as sustainability communication agents and their impact on promoting sustainable behaviours among their fan bases. Study one consisted of an online survey with 1,290 active concert goers in Germany, revealing that respondents hold positive attitudes towa...

Today, women scientists are still underrepresented in media coverage and confronted with gender stereotypes. However, social media might have the potential to challenge current gender stereotypes of scientists, foster diversity in science communication, and open new ways of becoming visible. We explore this potential by analyzing TikTok accounts of...

Sustainability communication is of increasing importance. While sustainability communication in traditional media has already been well researched, more research is needed about social media platforms in this regard. By focusing on sustainability communication on TikTok, this study makes an important contribution to the literature. More specificall...

Studying incivility in online discussions is a crucial research endeavor, especially in light of a pandemic, as user comments have been shown to be an important source of information and basis for opinion formation. Scholars are increasingly interested in studying incivility from a comparative perspective. This study contributes to this strand of l...

Democracy is under pressure. Not only populist and authoritarian movements contribute to this, but also digitalisation, the internet and social media. This volume presents answers to questions that move us all: How should we meet the challenges posed by hate and deepfakes, by polarisation and platform giants? The authors come from very different di...

Im Meinungsbildungsprozess zum Thema COVID-19 ziehen Bürger:innen verschiedene Quellen heran. Eine vom Einfluss auf persönliche Einstellungen sowie auf die Einschätzung des Meinungsklimas nicht zu unterschätzende Informationsquelle stellen Nutzerkommentare unter Nachrichtenartikeln dar. Die vorliegende Studie analysiert am Beispiel der österreichis...

Objectives Scholars are increasingly investigating the role of citizens’ personality in activating political behavior. We test whether extraversion is associated to collective political activities (i.e., activities that include social interaction) and individual ones (i.e., activities that do not include social interactions). Methods We use origin...

Using data from a two-wave panel survey among 18 countries worldwide, this study investigates the individual- and country-level antecedents of the “News Finds Me” perception (NFM). Results show that older, more educated, and individuals belonging to the ethnic majority are less prone to develop the NFM. However, social media (news) use, incidental...

Scholars are increasingly interested in investigating sustainability communication. In this book chapter, we use the case of honey bee colony losses to illustrate how journalists refer to the term sustainability in news reporting. Results from a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles in Austrian daily newspapers show three different way...

Today, people are increasingly exposed to news on various channels without actively seeking it. However, less is known about the link between the so-called incidental news exposure (INE) and actual news consumption. Using a two-wave panel data set from 18 countries around the world, we study the so-far under researched relation between INE and news...

Emotionalization is increasingly used in the daily news. However, communication scholars have only just begun to explore how journalists use emotionalization in coverage of scientific and environmental topics. This study contributes to filling this research gap by investigating emotionalization in reporting on honey bee colony losses. The aim of th...

Today, people are exposed to vast information flows while online or on social media. This abundance has led some people to believe that they no longer have to actively seek the news to be well informed about public affairs and that important news will find them through social media or other online channels. Recently, academics have offered a first...

This study explores the individual-and country-level factors that influence how getting news from social media relates to people's beliefs about anthropogenic climate change. Concepts of psychological distance and motivated reasoning are tested using multilevel analysis with survey data in 20 countries (N ¼ 18,785). Results suggest that using socia...

The growing importance of social media for getting science news has raised questions about whether these online platforms foster or hinder public trust in science. Employing multilevel modeling, this study leverages a 20-country survey to examine the relationship between social media news use and trust in science. Results show a positive relationsh...

Second screening politics is an emerging communication practice for engaging with public affairs content. Scholars are increasingly interested in exploring pro-democratic effects of dual screening during news events and election cycles. This paper examines the potential for second screening practices to develop social capital on social media platfo...

Since introduced by Professor McLeod and the Wisconsin School at the turn of the century, a large body of research has employed the communication mediation model. Yet, most of these studies rely on cross-sectional and individual-level survey data collected in the United States. This paper seeks to address these shortcomings by testing a specificati...

This study uses the online discourse surrounding an Austrian publicly-funded study about “Islamic kindergartens” as a case study to approach communication about the social sciences in the online public sphere. Results from a discourse analysis of 937 user comments in online forums of two Austrian daily newspapers show that the social sciences are o...

Slowly approaching the second quarter of the 21st century, research on social media and its effects over democracy has quickly permeated across various fields in social sciences, particularly political communication. Based on accumulated evidence in this strand of literature, this paper briefly summarizes several established research areas. First,...

In the context of the United States, research shows a positive relationship between network heterogeneity and political expression on social media at the individual level. This study builds on that research, relying on multilevel analysis that (1) leverages a twenty-country comparative survey and (2) includes country-level data on freedom of expres...

This study examines the relationship between peoples' personality traits and social media uses with data from 20 societies (N = 21,314). A measure of the ''Big Five'' personality traits is tested on key social media dimensions: frequency of use, social interaction, and news consumption. Across diverse societies, findings suggest that while extraver...

The article examines an online discourse induced by two advertising posters created by photographer David LaChapelle for the Life Ball, an AIDS charity event in Vienna in 2014, depicting a nude transgender model. We consulted 1,897 posts on highly frequented Austrian online forums to explore and analyze the discourse's organization, thematic and ar...

Ausgangspunkt der vorliegenden Studie ist die Debatte über die Medienöffentlichkeit der Kommunikationswissenschaft. Bislang liegen noch keine empirischen Daten zur Berichterstattung über das Fach vor. Hier schließt der Beitrag an und liefert erstmals entsprechende Daten einer Inhaltsanalyse deutschsprachiger Qualitätszeitungen der Jahre 1999 und 20...