Peter Maurer

My research areas are situated in political communication and journalism, and I have worked with computer scientists and linguists on transdisciplinary research projects. Mores specifically, my research covers the perception of media influence among politicians and its consequences, populism in political communication, role perception and role performance among journalists, and the measurement of frames in digital communication using computational approaches.  

My current research project Beyond fact-checking: Detecting frame and disinformation in news and social media content with computational methods is concerned with detecting and classifying political communication frames about different topics with the help of LLMs and other computational tools. I’m also an active member of the COST Action OPINION and the NODE research group at KaU.

Grants:

2025-2029: Ander foundation (~7.500.000kr): Beyond Fact-Checking: Detecting Frames and Disinformation in News and Social Media Content with Computational Methods

Courses I currently convene in the Digital Media and Analysis (DMA) program:

• Media Audiences in the Digital Age (MKGA91)
• Digital Methods (MKGB91)
• Data, Power, Ethics (MKGB92)

Other courses: Strategic Communication, Data Visualization (with R), Social Media and Social Theory, Technological Foundations of Digital Media, and in the Computer Science program at KAU.

• Co-Principal Investigator (Germany) for second wave of the Journalistic Role Performance project (2021-2024). 
• COST: OPINION network

I'm an Associate Professor (docent) in Media and Communication at the Department of Geography, Media and Communication (GMK). Before, I was a postdoc researcher and lecturer at Trier University, postdoc at NTNU Trondheim and at the University of Vienna. I hold a doctorate in Communications from Freie Universität Berlin (2011) and a master’s degree in political science, communications and French literature and linguistics from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität (JGU) Mainz.

Currently, I'm the Swedish representative in the COST Action OPINION (Measuring Opinionated Communication).

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TuzELewAAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao

Maurer, P. & Nuernbergk, C. (2024). Topics and frames in political journalists’ tweets about the coronavirus pandemic. Journalism, 26(10), 2105–2124. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241266722

Hallin, D. C., Mellado, C., Cohen, A., Hubé, N., Nolan, D., Szabó, G., … Maurer, P., ... Ybáñez, N. (2023). Journalistic Role Performance in Times of COVID. Journalism Studies, 24(16), 1977–1998. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2274584

Amiel, P., Baisnée, O., Berthaut, J., Gousset, C., Hubé, N., Maurer, P. Mothes, C., & Nollet, J. (2023). Permanences and Mutations in the French and German Media Systems during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Canadian Journal of Communication 48(3), 529-551. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjc-2022-0057

Maurer, P. (2023). Perceptions of media influence and performance among politicians in European democracies. International Communication Gazette, 85(5), 347-364. https://doi.org/10.1177/17480485221146088

Schumacher, N. F., Maurer, P., & Nuernbergk, C. (2023). Towards New Standards? Interaction Patterns of German Political Journalists in the Twittersphere. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 28(1), 257–277. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612211025502

Maurer, P., & Nuernbergk, C. (2022). Editorial: Journalism, Activism, and Social Media: Exploring the Shifts in Journalistic Roles, Performance, and Interconnectedness. Media and Communication, 10(3), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v10i3.5984

Maurer, P. (2022). Populism and social media. In Ceron, A. (ed)., Elgar Encyclopedia of Technology and Politics (pp. 37-41). Elgar Publishing. 

Maurer, P. & Sharma, R. (2022). L’usage de narratifs populistes dans les tweets des candidats « contestataires » aux élections présidentielles en France (2017) et aux États-Unis (2016). Revue internationale de politique comparée, 29, 83-106.  https://doi.org/10.3917/ripc.292.0083 

Maurer, P., Béllanger, S. (2021). France: Parties’ Communication Strategies After the 2017 Earthquake. In: Haßler, J., Magin, M., Russmann, U., Fenoll, V. (eds) Campaigning on Facebook in the 2019 European Parliament Election. Political Campaigning and Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73851-8_6

Maurer, P., & Diehl, T. (2020). What kind of populism? Tone and targets in the Twitter discourse of French and American presidential candidates. European Journal of Communication, 35(5), 453–468. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323120909288

Jörg Matthes, Peter Maurer & Florian Arendt (2019) Consequences of Politicians’ Perceptions of the News Media, Journalism Studies, 20:3, 345-363, DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2017.1377102