First generation of Summer Fellows

In spring we called for researchers from all over the world to join us as Summer Fellows over the course of three months. We were delighted to see how well this opportunity was received among the community of Internet scholars. Aimed at promoting excellent scientists and ideas, we were looking for candidates from all fields pursuing an independent transdisciplinary project located in the vicinity of the research areas at the Alexander Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society.

At the beginning of summer we could already welcome half of the fellow crew, which will grow to an intimate four throughout this month. So we would like to convey a very warm welcome to our first fellow generation: Julian Ausserhofer, Dr. Ulrike Klinger, Han-Teng Liao, and Giovanni Navarria. During their time at the HIIG we will encourage them to actively shape their stay according to their research interests, set off new initiatives and make contributions to our research programme. We foster exchanges regarding shared research aspirations and experiences in collaboration with our growing international team and partners. Of course, we will keep you updated on the activities and the well being of our fellows.

It is a great pleasure to spend an inspiring summer together – we are excited to mutually explore new perspectives and to open a new chapter of international exchange with these outstanding young scholars:

Summer fellows 2013

Julian Ausserhofer works as a research assistant at FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences’ Institute of Journalism and Public Relations in Graz, Austria and is a PhD candidate at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna. His research interests include political use of social media, open (government) data, online publishing practices and data driven journalism. Ausserhofer is a member of the board of the Open Knowledge Foundation Austria and the Interdisciplinary Internet Research Group at the University of Vienna. He blogs at ausserhofer.net. During his stay at HIIG he will do a research project in the field of data journalism

Dr. Ulrike Klinger is Senior Research and Teaching Associate at the Institute for Mass Communication and Media Research (IPMZ) at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She has written a book on Media Governance and Pluralism in Defective Democracies, which has been honoured with the 2012 Annual Dissertation Award by the German Political Science Association. She received her doctorate from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2011, after completing studies and field research in Italy and Mexico. Ulrike Klinger has published on media pluralism, media regulation and on political online communication. Recent research projects in this field focus on social media in election campaigns, the quality of online deliberation processes and the emergence of a new media logic.

A student of various disciplines, Han-Teng Liao examines how geographic and linguistic factors (humanities and social science) and hyperlinked web data (webometrics and information science) shape the sense of “fellow users” in digital networked environments. With more than twelve years of combined information science, media/communication and open source/open data working experience, his focus has been on user-generated content and data, Web analytics (webometrics), Chinese Internet Research and integrated research designs (both qualitative and quantitative), He enjoys networking with professionals on the geographic and linguistic growth/dynamics/exchanges of the Internet. He holds an MSc in Computer Science and Information Engineering, an MA in Journalism, a BSc in Electrical Engineering and a BA in Foreign Languages and Literatures. At the Oxford Internet Institute, his PhD project compares two Chinese user-contributed encyclopedias, Chinese Wikipedia and Baidu Baike.

Giovanni Navarria is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow based at the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights at the University of Sydney. He is currently working on a research project focussing on the effects communication media have on prevailing power-dynamics between state and citizens in the authoritarian regimes of the Asia-Pacific region. He is also completing a book on the changing meanings of power and civic engagement in technologically advanced societies. Dr. Navarria holds a PhD in Politics and Media from the University of Westminster and a Degree in Philosophy from the University of Catania. His personal website is http://www.giovanninavarria.com/