German Neubaum
Biographic Data
| ID | 132486 |
|---|---|
| NAME | German Neubaum |
| GIVEN NAMES | German |
| FAMILY NAME | Neubaum |
| SIGNATURE | NEUBAUM G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Duisburg-Essen |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7006-7089 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 123 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The Effects of Technological Affordances on Political Opinion Expression in Social Media: A Field Experiment
Digital communication platforms are rapidly changing the nature of political discourses. At the same time, the functionality of democratic societies largely depends on deliberative exchanges between citizens. However, ecologically valid research on the effects of digital communication environments on deliberation is scarce. To fill this gap, the present work investigates the effects of two dimensions of online communication platforms: message per…
Social media as sources of sexual health knowledge: A compensatory or complementary form of education
Recent research has shown that information about sexuality is increasingly prevalent on social media. At the same time, it is well-documented that sexual health content shared or created by laypeople can be misleading or inaccurate. This study investigates who consumes sexual health knowledge on these platforms and tests whether social media technologies have a compensatory (i.e., making up for a lack of sexual education elsewhere) or complementa…
When the political becomes private: Longitudinal dynamics between privacy concerns, cost–benefit calculations, and political expression in social media
For democratic societies, forums of political discussions are needed to exchange opinions which nowadays can be found in social media. Still, in line with theoretical assumptions of the privacy calculus, benefits of political expression in social media also come with risks of privacy invasions, both affecting people’s expression behavior. To better understand the longitudinal between- and within-person dynamics of anticipating costs and benefits …
Navigating Social Media News Use: Exploring the Impact of Intentional and Incidental News Consumption on Objective and Subjective Political Knowledge
Research consistently shows that while social media use does not enhance objective political knowledge, it increases users’ sense of being knowledgeable (subjective knowledge). However, it is unclear which specific modes of social media use lead users to an enhanced feeling of being knowledgeable. This work focuses on two factors that are believed to shape users’ subjective knowledge when using social technologies: (a) the intentionality of socia…
To express or not express: A motivational approach to studying political expression on social media
The Effects of Climate Change Meta-Knowledge on Selective Exposure, Selective Elaboration, and Behavioral Intentions
This experiment investigates how individuals’ meta-knowledge (the self-perception of one’s knowledge) influences selective exposure to and elaboration of information about climate change with climate change self-schema as possible mediator. Participants’ ( N = 510) meta-knowledge was manipulated by receiving fake feedback after a climate change knowledge test. There were no group differences in selective exposure and selective elaboration. Correl…
Too scared to share? Fear of social sanctions for political expression on social media
While social media provide opportunities for political expression, many people may be reluctant to share their opinions if they fear personal or professional repercussions for posting political views. Fear of social sanctions (FOSSs) therefore represents a promising approach to investigate why people often avoid expressing political opinions online. Using panel survey data collected during the 2020 U.S. election, this study examines the predictor…
Attitudinal and behavioral correlates of algorithmic awareness among German and U.S. social media users
With the increase in algorithms on social media, scholarship is increasingly focused on “algorithmic literacy,” or users’ understanding of algorithms. Algorithmic literacy is multi-faceted (knowledge, attitudes, and behavior), and researchers are still uncovering how these facets are connected. This article presents a preregistered survey of social media users from two western countries: the United States (n = 990) and Germany (n = 1117). Results…
What do we know about algorithmic literacy? The status quo and a research agenda for a growing field
The increasing role of algorithms shaping our use of communication technology—particularly on social media—comes with a growth of empirical research attempting to assess how literate users are regarding these algorithms. This rapidly emerging field is marked by great diversity in terms of how it theorizes and measures our understanding of algorithms, due, in part, to the opaque “black box” nature of the algorithms themselves. In this review artic…
How Subjective Norms Relate to Personal Privacy Regulation in Social Media: A Cross-National Approach
“It’s Going to be Out There For a Long Time”: The Influence of Message Persistence on Users’ Political Opinion Expression in Social Media
In light of the growing politicization of social media, the spiral of silence theory and its predictions on the conditions under which individuals express political opinions have gained increasing scholarly attention. This study contributes to this line of research by identifying the influence of a central characteristic of social media: message persistence. It was expected that high technical durability of political messages reduces users’ prope…
Computer-mediated political expression: A conceptual framework of technological affordances and individual tradeoffs
Digital media provide individuals platforms to express political views. Despite the significant scholarly attention to how and why political expression occurs through technologies and to what effect, research remains fragmented in its theoretical frameworks. The present work synthesizes research on computer-mediated communication and political communication to offer a framework that describes theoretically (a) which technological affordances lead…
Is it better to strike a balance? How exposure to congruent and incongruent opinion climates on social networking sites impacts users’ processing and selection of information
The growing significance of social networking sites (SNSs) as venues for political exchanges between citizens raises questions on the consequences of their use. This pre-registered experiment ( N = 704) aexamined to what extent a gradual variation of congruence between users’ opinions and the opinion climate they encounter on SNSs affect their strength of opinion and selective exposure. No effects were found from the level of congruence on select…
Two sides of the same leader: An Agent-Based Model to Analyze the Effect of Ambivalent Opinion Leaders in Social Networks
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42001-022-00161-z
The Networked Context of Covid-19 Misinformation: Informational Homogeneity on YouTube at the Beginning of the Pandemic
Opinionleaders: A comparison of self-reported and observable influence of Twitter users
Social media have become forums of discussions on political and societal debates in which individual users may forward information or influence others. While prior studies either employed network analyses or surveys to identify opinion leaders and their characteristics, the present investigation combines these two approaches to address the relationship between observable and self-perceived influence. For this purpose, a retweet network of Twitter…
Psychological effects of repeated exposure to elevating entertainment: An experiment over the period of 6 weeks
Digital destigmatization: How exposure to networking profiles can reduce social stereotypes
Are We Deliberately Captivated in Homogeneous Cocoons? An Investigation on Political Tie Building on Facebook
The idea that users of social networking sites (SNS) isolate themselves within like-minded, homogeneous communication environments has been receiving growing scholarly attention. Different from studies on the structure of users’ online networks, this work offers initial evidence on the specific behavior of political tie building, i.e., the preferential connection to like-minded SNS users. A pre-registered survey (N = 469) including German Faceboo…
Gratifying Ambiguity: Psychological Processes Leading to Enjoyment and Appreciation of TV Series with Morally Ambiguous Characters
Morality plays an integral role in perceiving and judging fictional characters since liking morally good characters leads to a general enjoyment of the narrative if the outcomes of actions are favorable for the liked character. However, some fictional characters frequently violate moral standards but are still popular at the same time. To explain this paradox, the present study offers a two-process model on the appeal of morally ambiguous charact…
The Effect of Bilingual Congruence on the Persuasive Influence of Videos and Comments on YouTube
Social media offer a global village in which user-generated comments from different groups and many languages appear. Extending the notion of prototypes in social identification theory, research examined the persuasive influence of comments supporting or deriding a public service announcement video on YouTube, where comments’ language either matched or differed from the videos’. Bilingual participants watched videos in English or Mandarin Chinese…
Opinion Climates in Social Media: Blending Mass and Interpersonal Communication
Social media's capacity for users to generate, comment on, and forward content (including mass media messages) to other users has created new forms of mass interpersonal communication. These systems render observable processes underlying the formation of opinion climates. Five attributes of contemporary electronic opinion environments can alter the way users gauge, form, and express opinions on topics of public interest: the juxtaposition of mass…
Broadcasting one world: How watching online videos can elicit elevation and reduce stereotypes
Research on non-hedonic entertainment suggests the experience of elevation as an important construct leading to beneficial outcomes such as prosocial motivation. This study builds on first findings in this realm by distinguishing between different meaningful media contents. In a 3 × 4 between-subjects online experiment, we varied type of video (beauty of the earth, unity of humankind, portrayals of human kindness, and funny control videos) and co…
United in the name of justice: How conformity processes in social media may influence online vigilantism
Monitoring the Opinion of the Crowd: Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Public Opinion Perceptions on Social Media
Social media technologies offer several features that allow users to monitor other people’s opinions on public issues. Initial research showed that user-generated content can shape recipients’ perceptions of the majority opinion on societal problems. Still, it remains largely unexplored under which circumstances people gauge other users’ opinions through social media and whether perceived opinion climates affect people’s opinions and communicatio…
Opinion Climates in Social Media: Blending Mass and Interpersonal Communication
Social media's capacity for users to generate, comment on, and forward content (including mass media messages) to other users has created new forms of mass interpersonal communication. These systems render observable processes underlying the formation of opinion climates. Five attributes of contemporary electronic opinion environments can alter the way users gauge, form, and express opinions on topics of public interest: the juxtaposition of mass…
Monitoring the Opinion of the Crowd: Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Public Opinion Perceptions on Social Media
Social media technologies offer several features that allow users to monitor other people’s opinions on public issues. Initial research showed that user-generated content can shape recipients’ perceptions of the majority opinion on societal problems. Still, it remains largely unexplored under which circumstances people gauge other users’ opinions through social media and whether perceived opinion climates affect people’s opinions and communicatio…
What do we know about algorithmic literacy? The status quo and a research agenda for a growing field
The increasing role of algorithms shaping our use of communication technology—particularly on social media—comes with a growth of empirical research attempting to assess how literate users are regarding these algorithms. This rapidly emerging field is marked by great diversity in terms of how it theorizes and measures our understanding of algorithms, due, in part, to the opaque “black box” nature of the algorithms themselves. In this review artic…
Broadcasting one world: How watching online videos can elicit elevation and reduce stereotypes
Research on non-hedonic entertainment suggests the experience of elevation as an important construct leading to beneficial outcomes such as prosocial motivation. This study builds on first findings in this realm by distinguishing between different meaningful media contents. In a 3 × 4 between-subjects online experiment, we varied type of video (beauty of the earth, unity of humankind, portrayals of human kindness, and funny control videos) and co…
Examining Characteristics of Opinion Leaders in Social Media: A Motivational Approach
Social networking sites offer various opportunities to express opinions on politics and public affairs and to disseminate information to a large circle of acquaintances. The present research aims to identify the characteristics of people who consider themselves as opinion leaders on these new channels, the features they use in order to influence others, and the psychological motives they pursue. A survey ( N = 527) among Facebook users identified…
Let the Weakest Link Go! Empirical Explorations on the Relative Importance of Weak and Strong Ties on Social Networking Sites
Theoretical approaches as well as empirical results in the area of social capital accumulation on social networking sites suggest that weak ties/bridging versus strong ties/bonding social capital should be distinguished and that while bonding social capital is connected to emotional support, bridging social capital entails the provision of information. Additionally, recent studies imply the notion that weak ties/bridging social capital are gainin…
Attitudinal and behavioral correlates of algorithmic awareness among German and U.S. social media users
With the increase in algorithms on social media, scholarship is increasingly focused on “algorithmic literacy,” or users’ understanding of algorithms. Algorithmic literacy is multi-faceted (knowledge, attitudes, and behavior), and researchers are still uncovering how these facets are connected. This article presents a preregistered survey of social media users from two western countries: the United States (n = 990) and Germany (n = 1117). Results…
Are We Deliberately Captivated in Homogeneous Cocoons? An Investigation on Political Tie Building on Facebook
The idea that users of social networking sites (SNS) isolate themselves within like-minded, homogeneous communication environments has been receiving growing scholarly attention. Different from studies on the structure of users’ online networks, this work offers initial evidence on the specific behavior of political tie building, i.e., the preferential connection to like-minded SNS users. A pre-registered survey (N = 469) including German Faceboo…
Computer-mediated political expression: A conceptual framework of technological affordances and individual tradeoffs
Digital media provide individuals platforms to express political views. Despite the significant scholarly attention to how and why political expression occurs through technologies and to what effect, research remains fragmented in its theoretical frameworks. The present work synthesizes research on computer-mediated communication and political communication to offer a framework that describes theoretically (a) which technological affordances lead…
Too scared to share? Fear of social sanctions for political expression on social media
While social media provide opportunities for political expression, many people may be reluctant to share their opinions if they fear personal or professional repercussions for posting political views. Fear of social sanctions (FOSSs) therefore represents a promising approach to investigate why people often avoid expressing political opinions online. Using panel survey data collected during the 2020 U.S. election, this study examines the predictor…
Don't Keep It (Too) Simple: How Textual Representations of Scientific Uncertainty Affect Laypersons’ Attitudes
This research investigated the question of how laypersons are influenced by textual representations of scientific uncertainty. In an online experiment ( N = 78), a blog article about effects of computer games on children was presented in four different versions. Each version contained three arguments on negative effects that were either phrased neutrally, contained assertive statements, or included hedges. The fourth version contained an addition…
The Effect of Bilingual Congruence on the Persuasive Influence of Videos and Comments on YouTube
Social media offer a global village in which user-generated comments from different groups and many languages appear. Extending the notion of prototypes in social identification theory, research examined the persuasive influence of comments supporting or deriding a public service announcement video on YouTube, where comments’ language either matched or differed from the videos’. Bilingual participants watched videos in English or Mandarin Chinese…
United in the name of justice: How conformity processes in social media may influence online vigilantism
How Subjective Norms Relate to Personal Privacy Regulation in Social Media: A Cross-National Approach
Gratifying Ambiguity: Psychological Processes Leading to Enjoyment and Appreciation of TV Series with Morally Ambiguous Characters
Morality plays an integral role in perceiving and judging fictional characters since liking morally good characters leads to a general enjoyment of the narrative if the outcomes of actions are favorable for the liked character. However, some fictional characters frequently violate moral standards but are still popular at the same time. To explain this paradox, the present study offers a two-process model on the appeal of morally ambiguous charact…
Let the Weakest Link Go! Empirical Explorations on the Relative Importance of Weak and Strong Ties on Social Networking Sites
Theoretical approaches as well as empirical results in the area of social capital accumulation on social networking sites suggest that weak ties/bridging versus strong ties/bonding social capital should be distinguished and that while bonding social capital is connected to emotional support, bridging social capital entails the provision of information. Additionally, recent studies imply the notion that weak ties/bridging social capital are gainin…
Don't Keep It (Too) Simple: How Textual Representations of Scientific Uncertainty Affect Laypersons’ Attitudes
This research investigated the question of how laypersons are influenced by textual representations of scientific uncertainty. In an online experiment ( N = 78), a blog article about effects of computer games on children was presented in four different versions. Each version contained three arguments on negative effects that were either phrased neutrally, contained assertive statements, or included hedges. The fourth version contained an addition…
Broadcasting one world: How watching online videos can elicit elevation and reduce stereotypes
Research on non-hedonic entertainment suggests the experience of elevation as an important construct leading to beneficial outcomes such as prosocial motivation. This study builds on first findings in this realm by distinguishing between different meaningful media contents. In a 3 × 4 between-subjects online experiment, we varied type of video (beauty of the earth, unity of humankind, portrayals of human kindness, and funny control videos) and co…
United in the name of justice: How conformity processes in social media may influence online vigilantism
Monitoring the Opinion of the Crowd: Psychological Mechanisms Underlying Public Opinion Perceptions on Social Media
Social media technologies offer several features that allow users to monitor other people’s opinions on public issues. Initial research showed that user-generated content can shape recipients’ perceptions of the majority opinion on societal problems. Still, it remains largely unexplored under which circumstances people gauge other users’ opinions through social media and whether perceived opinion climates affect people’s opinions and communicatio…
Examining Characteristics of Opinion Leaders in Social Media: A Motivational Approach
Social networking sites offer various opportunities to express opinions on politics and public affairs and to disseminate information to a large circle of acquaintances. The present research aims to identify the characteristics of people who consider themselves as opinion leaders on these new channels, the features they use in order to influence others, and the psychological motives they pursue. A survey ( N = 527) among Facebook users identified…
The Effect of Bilingual Congruence on the Persuasive Influence of Videos and Comments on YouTube
Social media offer a global village in which user-generated comments from different groups and many languages appear. Extending the notion of prototypes in social identification theory, research examined the persuasive influence of comments supporting or deriding a public service announcement video on YouTube, where comments’ language either matched or differed from the videos’. Bilingual participants watched videos in English or Mandarin Chinese…
Opinion Climates in Social Media: Blending Mass and Interpersonal Communication
Social media's capacity for users to generate, comment on, and forward content (including mass media messages) to other users has created new forms of mass interpersonal communication. These systems render observable processes underlying the formation of opinion climates. Five attributes of contemporary electronic opinion environments can alter the way users gauge, form, and express opinions on topics of public interest: the juxtaposition of mass…
Gratifying Ambiguity: Psychological Processes Leading to Enjoyment and Appreciation of TV Series with Morally Ambiguous Characters
Morality plays an integral role in perceiving and judging fictional characters since liking morally good characters leads to a general enjoyment of the narrative if the outcomes of actions are favorable for the liked character. However, some fictional characters frequently violate moral standards but are still popular at the same time. To explain this paradox, the present study offers a two-process model on the appeal of morally ambiguous charact…
Psychological effects of repeated exposure to elevating entertainment: An experiment over the period of 6 weeks
Digital destigmatization: How exposure to networking profiles can reduce social stereotypes
Are We Deliberately Captivated in Homogeneous Cocoons? An Investigation on Political Tie Building on Facebook
The idea that users of social networking sites (SNS) isolate themselves within like-minded, homogeneous communication environments has been receiving growing scholarly attention. Different from studies on the structure of users’ online networks, this work offers initial evidence on the specific behavior of political tie building, i.e., the preferential connection to like-minded SNS users. A pre-registered survey (N = 469) including German Faceboo…
The Networked Context of Covid-19 Misinformation: Informational Homogeneity on YouTube at the Beginning of the Pandemic
Opinionleaders: A comparison of self-reported and observable influence of Twitter users
Social media have become forums of discussions on political and societal debates in which individual users may forward information or influence others. While prior studies either employed network analyses or surveys to identify opinion leaders and their characteristics, the present investigation combines these two approaches to address the relationship between observable and self-perceived influence. For this purpose, a retweet network of Twitter…
“It’s Going to be Out There For a Long Time”: The Influence of Message Persistence on Users’ Political Opinion Expression in Social Media
In light of the growing politicization of social media, the spiral of silence theory and its predictions on the conditions under which individuals express political opinions have gained increasing scholarly attention. This study contributes to this line of research by identifying the influence of a central characteristic of social media: message persistence. It was expected that high technical durability of political messages reduces users’ prope…
Computer-mediated political expression: A conceptual framework of technological affordances and individual tradeoffs
Digital media provide individuals platforms to express political views. Despite the significant scholarly attention to how and why political expression occurs through technologies and to what effect, research remains fragmented in its theoretical frameworks. The present work synthesizes research on computer-mediated communication and political communication to offer a framework that describes theoretically (a) which technological affordances lead…
Is it better to strike a balance? How exposure to congruent and incongruent opinion climates on social networking sites impacts users’ processing and selection of information
The growing significance of social networking sites (SNSs) as venues for political exchanges between citizens raises questions on the consequences of their use. This pre-registered experiment ( N = 704) aexamined to what extent a gradual variation of congruence between users’ opinions and the opinion climate they encounter on SNSs affect their strength of opinion and selective exposure. No effects were found from the level of congruence on select…
Two sides of the same leader: An Agent-Based Model to Analyze the Effect of Ambivalent Opinion Leaders in Social Networks
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42001-022-00161-z
Too scared to share? Fear of social sanctions for political expression on social media
While social media provide opportunities for political expression, many people may be reluctant to share their opinions if they fear personal or professional repercussions for posting political views. Fear of social sanctions (FOSSs) therefore represents a promising approach to investigate why people often avoid expressing political opinions online. Using panel survey data collected during the 2020 U.S. election, this study examines the predictor…
Attitudinal and behavioral correlates of algorithmic awareness among German and U.S. social media users
With the increase in algorithms on social media, scholarship is increasingly focused on “algorithmic literacy,” or users’ understanding of algorithms. Algorithmic literacy is multi-faceted (knowledge, attitudes, and behavior), and researchers are still uncovering how these facets are connected. This article presents a preregistered survey of social media users from two western countries: the United States (n = 990) and Germany (n = 1117). Results…
What do we know about algorithmic literacy? The status quo and a research agenda for a growing field
The increasing role of algorithms shaping our use of communication technology—particularly on social media—comes with a growth of empirical research attempting to assess how literate users are regarding these algorithms. This rapidly emerging field is marked by great diversity in terms of how it theorizes and measures our understanding of algorithms, due, in part, to the opaque “black box” nature of the algorithms themselves. In this review artic…
How Subjective Norms Relate to Personal Privacy Regulation in Social Media: A Cross-National Approach
The Effects of Climate Change Meta-Knowledge on Selective Exposure, Selective Elaboration, and Behavioral Intentions
This experiment investigates how individuals’ meta-knowledge (the self-perception of one’s knowledge) influences selective exposure to and elaboration of information about climate change with climate change self-schema as possible mediator. Participants’ ( N = 510) meta-knowledge was manipulated by receiving fake feedback after a climate change knowledge test. There were no group differences in selective exposure and selective elaboration. Correl…
Navigating Social Media News Use: Exploring the Impact of Intentional and Incidental News Consumption on Objective and Subjective Political Knowledge
Research consistently shows that while social media use does not enhance objective political knowledge, it increases users’ sense of being knowledgeable (subjective knowledge). However, it is unclear which specific modes of social media use lead users to an enhanced feeling of being knowledgeable. This work focuses on two factors that are believed to shape users’ subjective knowledge when using social technologies: (a) the intentionality of socia…
To express or not express: A motivational approach to studying political expression on social media
Psychology (24 works) · Social Media and Politics (20 works) · Social Psychology (20 works) · Political science (18 works) · Social media (18 works) · Computer Science (16 works) · Politics (14 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence (11 works) · Sociology (10 works)