Jonas Kaiser, PhD

Education

• Dr. Phil., Zeppelin University, Germany
• MA, University of Hamburg, Germany
• BA, Zeppelin University, Germany

Affiliations

• Faculty Associate, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
• Member, Spotify Safety Advisory Council

Research Interests

• Digital journalism
• Misinformation
• Political extremism
• Digital methods
• Content moderation
• Generative AI

Current Research

My research is situated at the intersection of Digital Journalism, Political Communication, Public Sphere theory, and Digital Methods. I am interested in how the internet contributes and facilitates the formation of communities and the role journalism plays for these groups. More specifically, I am interested in the role social media and algorithms, and generative AI play for the formation of communities and what that means for society.

In the past, my research focused on climate change skepticism in Germany and the far-right in Germany and the United States. This research has been published in high quality peer-reviewed journals and the book “Like, subscribe, radicalize: The internet in the hands of the far-right” on the far-right in Germany and the U.S. is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. My research has been covered by news outlets such as The New York Times (U.S.), The Guardian (U.K.), Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), O Globo (Brazil), La Stampa (Italy), or El Mundo (Spain) and was featured on The New York Time’s The Weekly (Episode: The Rabbit Hole). At Suffolk, my research focuses on generative AI and its impact on mis/disinformation. Selected Publications

Peer-reviewed journal articles

Kaiser, J., Fähnrich, B., & Heintz, L. (2023). Ups and downs on “r/science”—Exploring the dynamics of science communication on Reddit. Journal of Science Communication.

Neff, T., Kaiser, J., Pasquetto, I. ... (2021). Vaccine misinformation in online spaces: A systematic review of the research literature, 2000-2021. Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review.

Kaiser, J., Rauchfleisch, A., & Cordova, Y. (forthcoming). Fighting Zika with Honey: An Analysis of YouTube’s Video Recommendations on Brazilian YouTube. International Journal of Communication.

Rauchfleisch, A. & Kaiser, J. (2020). The False Positive Problem of Automatic Bot Detection. PLOS ONE.

Kaiser, J. & Rauchfleisch, A. (2020). Birds of a feather get recommended together: Filter bubbles on YouTube in the United States and Germany. Social Media + Society.

Rauchfleisch, A. & Kaiser, J. (forthcoming). The German far-right on YouTube: An analysis of user overlap and user comments. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media.

Kaiser, J., Rauchfleisch, A. & Bourassa, N. (2019). Connecting the (far-)right dots: A topic modeling and hyperlink analysis of (far-)right media coverage during the U.S. elections 2016. Digital Journalism.

Kaiser, J. & Rauchfleisch, A. (2019). Integrating Concepts Of Counterpublics Into Generalised Public Sphere Frameworks: Contemporary Transformations In Radical Forms. Javnost – the Public. Online first. 1-17.

Rhomberg, M., Kaiser, J., Lichtenstein, D., & Fähnrich, B. (2017). Rise and Fall of a Global Symbol: Frames of the 2‑degree limit in German News Media 2009–2014. Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Online first, 1-12.

Kaiser, J., & Puschmann, C. (2017). Alliance of antagonism: Counterpublics and polarization in online climate change communication. Communication and the Public, Online first, 1–17.

Kaiser, J. (2017). Public Spheres of Skepticism: Climate Skeptics’ Online Comments in the German Networked Public Sphere. International Journal of Communication, 11(April), 1661–1682.

Kaiser, J., Rhomberg, M., Maireder, A., & Schlögl, S. (2016). Energiewende’s lone warriors. A hyperlink network analysis of the German Energiewende discourse. Media and Communication, 4(4), 18-29.

Kaiser, J., & Rhomberg, M. (2016). Questioning the Doubt: Climate Skepticism in German Newspaper Reporting on COP17. Environmental Communication, 10(5), 556-574.

Book Chapters

Kaiser, J. (2021). Localized hatred: The importance of physical spaces within the German far-right online counterpublic on Facebook. In S. Udupa, I. Gagliardone & P. Hervik (Eds.), Digital hate. The global conjuncture of online extreme speech. Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Kaiser, J. (2019). In the heartland of climate skepticism: The connection between German climate skeptics and the US right-wing. In B. Forchtner (Ed.), The far-right and the environment. New York, NY: Routledge.

Lichtenstein, D. & Kaiser, J. (2018). Polen klaut den Ball – aber am Ende gewinnen immer die Deutschen. In H. Schramm, C. Schallhorn, H. Ihle & J. Nieland (Eds.), Großer Sport, große Show, große Wirkung?

Kaiser, J., Fähnrich, B., Rhomberg, M., & Filzmaier, P. (2017). What Happened to the Public Sphere? The Networked Public Sphere and Public Opinion Formation. In E. G. Carayannis, D. F. J. Campbell, & M. P. Efthymiopoulos (Eds.), Handbook of Cyber-Development, Cyber-Democracy, and Cyber-Defense (pp. 1-28). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Honors & Awards

Best paper award at ICA 2017 in the Environmental Communication division