Dr. Wiebke Drews

Welcome! 

I am a Research Associate at Rudolfovo - Science and Technology Centre Novo Mesto (Slovenia) and a Research Affiliate at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich (Germany) in the research project SPARTA.

My research lies at the intersection of technology and politics, focusing on how new information and communication technologies (ICTs) shape public spheres. The guiding theme that runs through all my work is the digital - in two senses:

First, digital publics: How political communication emerges, circulates, and matters, mainly on social media.

Second, digital methods: How we can use computational tools - from Natural Language Processing (NLP) to network analysis - to make political communication visible, measurable, and comparable.

My work has been published in German Politics, Frontiers, Political Research Exchange, and PLoS ONE. 

I earned my PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in November 2020, with a dissertation on digital politics that examined both its demand side (contextual preconditions of expressing political views online) and its supply side (how political parties engage in data-driven campaigning). 

In addition, I serve as a member of the Steering Committee of the ECPR Standing Group on Internet & Politics. I have also served as co-director of euandi2021, a Voting Advice Apllication (VAA) for the 2021 German federal election, and as a member of the advisory board at the Schader Foundation.

I am always happy to connect and welcome messages about potential collaborations, exchange of expertise, or any shared interests.