The research project “Supporting Political Decisions with Artificial Intelligence” (UPEKI) explores the question of how AI can support political decision-making processes. The project focuses on online political discussions.
In two funding phases, both individual political opinion formation (phase 1, completed) and group political decision-making (phase 2, ongoing) are being investigated. Representative surveys as well as multi-wave experiments will be used to investigate the effects of different AI tools on the content, processes, and acceptance of political decision-making as well as its outcomes. Guiding questions for the ongoing second project phase are:
1. can the use of AI tools reduce problems of online discussions?
2. does the satisfaction of citizens with the process and outcome of the discussions increase?
3. can the quality of the process and outcome of the discussions be demonstrably improved?
The interdisciplinary team consists of DIID researchers from computer science, communication science and political science. The project is located as a “use case policy” of the Manchot research group “Decision Making Using Artificial Intelligence Methods”, in which researchers from the fields of medicine, politics, philosophy, law and economics cooperate.
Contact
Private: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Vowe
Communication Studies
Prof. Dr. Gerhard Vowe has held the Chair I for Communication and Media Studies at the HHU-Düsseldorf since 2004. He has been spokesman for the DFG research group “Political Communication in the Online World” since 2011. His research interests include online political communication, media policy, and security in the media.
Within the DIID, he is particularly interested in deviant forms of political communication in online contexts.
Research Interests
Projects
Contact
Prof. Dr. Marc Ziegele (Speaker)
Board, Communication Studies, DIID-Team
Marc Ziegele has been Professor of Communication and Media Studies at HHU-Düsseldorf since February 2024. He previously held the Junior Professorship for Communication and Media Studies with a focus on “Political Online Communication”. At the same time, he is head of the junior research group “Deliberative Discussions on the Social Web” funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Previously, he was a research assistant at the Institute for Journalism at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and studied media economics at the same institute. His research focuses on participation and discussions of citizens on the Internet. In the junior research group based at DIID, he is investigating measures to improve the quality and impact of users’ public discussions about political media topics – so-called online public-political connection communication.
It also researches the causes and consequences of media trust as well as various aspects of citizens’ social web use at the interface of communication science and psychology.
Marc Ziegele was elected speaker of the Institute by the DIID General Assembly in December 2023.