Michael Scharkow
Biographic Data
| ID | 218991 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Scharkow |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Scharkow |
| SIGNATURE | SCHARKOW M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2293-7171 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 229 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Revisiting the digital jukebox in daily life
A large body of experimental evidence has contributed to our understanding of Mood Management Theory (MMT) in the context of music. Extant research, however, lacks insights into everyday mood regulation through music listening, especially on music streaming services, where users’ choices are shaped by both self-selection and algorithmically personalized recommendations. Hence, we tested MMT using a novel in situ approach and investigated whether …
Distinguishing Person-Specific from Situation-Specific Variation in Media Use
Media use varies between persons (person-specific variation) and within persons (situation-specific variation, that is, the same individual uses media differently across situations). Understanding the relative importance of these two levels of variation in media use is fundamental to theory building as it helps determine whether theories of media use should focus on person- or situation-specific factors. To examine the relative importance of pers…
Authors’ gender and productivity as predictors of reciprocal dynamics in publications and citations in communication
Gender bias in academic publishing and citation practices in communication has been discussed extensively, yet the link between the two remains poorly understood. Does an author who publishes more articles automatically get cited more frequently—and what are the underlying author-level individual (e.g., gender, productivity) and article-level systemic (e.g., journal prestige) factors? We analyzed 57,283 articles and 507,706 citations from 85 comm…
Gender diversity at academic conferences—the case of the International Communication Association
Gender diversity and the lack of women in leadership in academia have been issues of academic interest for decades. However, little is known about gender diversity at academic conferences as an essential aspect of academia. We investigated 86,719 contributions to International Communication Association (ICA) conferences over the past 18 years with regard to female and male authorship and how it changed following the introduction of childcare, dur…
Adapting to Affordances and Audiences? A Cross-Platform, Multi-Modal Analysis of the Platformization of News on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter
To capture audiences’ attention on social media, news outlets may disseminate journalistic content in line with platform instead of mass media logics, indicating a platformization of news. Taking a cross-platform, multi-modal approach, we analyze how German outlets select and adapt existing stories for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. We combine a computational and a manual content analysis of articles and social media posts (N = 4,412),…
Routines and the Predictability of Day-to-Day Web Use
Given the high importance of Web use in day-to-day life, understanding and predicting Web browsing behavior are important endeavors for academic as well as commercial research. We propose that routines – behaviors that are performed regularly (activation) and in similar ways (execution) – can be used to describe underlying structures in Web use and, thereby, improve the predictability of subsequent Web use behavior. Based on two large-scale Web-t…
National diversity at conferences of the International Communication Association
Replication material for "National Diversity at Conferences of the International Communication Association" published in the Annals of the International Communication Association http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2023.2261018
Metrics of News Audience Polarization
Although media and communication scholars have suggested various analytical methods for measuring and comparing news audience polarization across countries, we lack a systematic assessment of the metrics produced by these techniques. Using survey data from the 2016 Reuters Institute Digital News Report on news use in 26 countries, we address this gap through a resampling simulation experiment. Our simulation revealed a strong impact of analytical…
Post Post-Broadcast Democracy? News Exposure in the Age of Online Intermediaries
Online intermediaries such as social network sites or search engines are playing an increasingly central role in democracy by acting as mediators between information producers and citizens. Academic and public commentators have raised persistent concerns that algorithmic recommender systems would negatively affect the provision of political information by tailoring content to the predispositions and entertainment preferences of users. At the same…
Opening a Conversation on Open Communication Research
Many disciplines have been debating and enacting a range of policies, procedures, and practices that fall under the umbrella term “open research” or “open science.” Following the publication of “An Agenda for Open Science in Communication”, we invited communication scholars to continue the conversation on what open research practices broadly might mean for our diverse field. Specifically, we sought work that: looked empirically at the need for an…
The overstated generational gap in online news use? A consolidated infrastructural perspective
Recent research by Taneja et al. suggested that digital infrastructures diminish the generational gap in news use by counteracting preference structures. We expand on this seminal work by arguing that an infrastructural perspective requires overcoming limitations of highly aggregated web tracking data used in prior research. We analyze the individual browsing histories of two representative samples of German Internet users collected in 2012 ( N =…
How social network sites and other online intermediaries increase exposure to news
Data, code and supplementary material for "How social network sites and other online intermediaries increase exposure to news"
Evaluating universities' strategic online communication
Purpose This study is dedicated to universities' strategic social media communication and focuses on the fan engagement triggered by Facebook postings. The study contributes to a growing body of knowledge that addresses the strategic communication of universities that have thus far hardly dealt with questions of resonance and evaluation of their social media messages. Design/methodology/approach Using the Facebook Graph API, the authors collected…
The privacy calculus contextualized
Empfehlungen zum Umgang mit Forschungsdaten in der Kommunikationswissenschaft – AG Forschungsdaten im Auftrag des Vorstands der DGPuK
Forschungsdaten sind das primäre Produkt empirischer Studien und die zentrale Grundlage wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. Ihre langfristige Sicherung und Bereitstellung zur intersubjektiven Nachvollziehbarkeit und damit zur Qualitätssicherung sollte daher in allen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen unterstützt werden. Entsprechend hat die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 2016 die sozialwissenschaftlichen Fachgesellschaften in Deutschland aufgefordert, si…
How Do Filtering Choices Impact the Structures of Audience Networks? A Simulation Study Using Data from 26 Countries
Although communication scholars have increasingly studied audience fragmentation by analyzing audience networks, recent cross-national research has spurred a methodological debate about how to construct these audience networks from media use data. One point of contention lies in the choice of filtering procedures that only keep meaningful ties, where the traditional deviation-from-random-duplication filter has been replaced by alternatives such a…
The Reliability and Temporal Stability of Self-reported Media Exposure
The measurement of media exposure is essential to not only traditional audience research, but also media effects research which relies on accurate estimates of media exposure. Even in the age of digital trace data and passive audience measurement, the workhorse of basically all communication research is self-report data. This article presents a meta-analysis of the reliability and temporal stability of media exposure self-reports in 33 panel stud…
Correcting Measurement Error in Content Analysis
Conducting and reporting reliability tests has become a standard practice in content analytical research. However, the consequences of measurement error in coding data are rarely discussed or taken into consideration in subsequent analyses. In this article, we demonstrate how misclassification in content analysis leads to biased estimates and introduce matrix back-calculation as a simple remedy. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we investigate how di…
Nachrichtennutzung in Deutschland. Eine nutzerzentrierte Repertoireanalyse
Trotz erster vielversprechender Befunde war bisher nicht hinreichend zu klären, nach welchen Strukturprinzipien Rezipienten verschiedene Nachrichtenangebote zu individuellen Repertoires integrieren. Der Beitrag nimmt die inhaltliche Komposition der Nachrichtenrepertoires in Deutschland in den Blick. Er diskutiert methodische Anknüpfungspunkte, um Nachrichtenrepertoires einer detaillierteren medienübergreifenden Analyse unterziehen zu können. Dies…
How Measurement Error in Content Analysis and Self-Reported Media Use Leads to Minimal Media Effect Findings in Linkage Analyses
In the debate on minimal media effects and their causes, methodological concerns about measurement are rarely discussed. We argue that even in state-of-the-art media-effects studies that combine measures of media messages and media use (i.e., linkage analyses), measurement error in both the media content analysis and the media use self-reports will typically lead to severely downward-biased effect estimates. We demonstrate this phenomenon using a…
The Accuracy of Self-Reported Internet Use—A Validation Study Using Client Log Data
The vast majority of empirical research on online communication, or media use in general, relies on self-report measures instead of behavioral data. Previous research has shown that the accuracy of these self-report measures can be quite low, and both over- and underreporting of media use are commonplace. This study compares self-reports of Internet use with client log files from a large household sample. Results show that the accuracy of self-re…
Disclosure Management on Social Network Sites
The social web and specifically social network sites (SNS) have offered new opportunities for interaction and communication, but have also increased the risk of privacy violations. In this study, we investigated how far users imply different disclosure management strategies in status updates and chat conversations. We hypothesized that users perceive specific information as differently private depending on their personal privacy preference, but g…
The Individual or the Group
Journal Article The Individual or the Group: A Multilevel Analysis of Cyberbullying in School Classes Get access Ruth Festl, Ruth Festl 1Department of Communication, University of Hohenheim, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany, 1Corresponding author: Ruth Festl; Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Michael Scharkow, Michael Scharkow 2Department of Communication, University of Hohenheim, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany, Search …
The Value of Big Data in Digital Media Research
This article discusses methodological aspects of Big Data analyses with regard to their applicability and usefulness in digital media research. Based on a review of a diverse selection of literature on online methodology, consequences of using Big Data at different stages of the research process are examined. We argue that researchers need to consider whether the analysis of huge quantities of data is theoretically justified, given that it may be…
Problematic computer game use among adolescents, younger and older adults
The Accuracy of Self-Reported Internet Use—A Validation Study Using Client Log Data
The vast majority of empirical research on online communication, or media use in general, relies on self-report measures instead of behavioral data. Previous research has shown that the accuracy of these self-report measures can be quite low, and both over- and underreporting of media use are commonplace. This study compares self-reports of Internet use with client log files from a large household sample. Results show that the accuracy of self-re…
How Measurement Error in Content Analysis and Self-Reported Media Use Leads to Minimal Media Effect Findings in Linkage Analyses
In the debate on minimal media effects and their causes, methodological concerns about measurement are rarely discussed. We argue that even in state-of-the-art media-effects studies that combine measures of media messages and media use (i.e., linkage analyses), measurement error in both the media content analysis and the media use self-reports will typically lead to severely downward-biased effect estimates. We demonstrate this phenomenon using a…
Measuring the Public Agenda using Search Engine Queries
Post Post-Broadcast Democracy? News Exposure in the Age of Online Intermediaries
Online intermediaries such as social network sites or search engines are playing an increasingly central role in democracy by acting as mediators between information producers and citizens. Academic and public commentators have raised persistent concerns that algorithmic recommender systems would negatively affect the provision of political information by tailoring content to the predispositions and entertainment preferences of users. At the same…
The Reliability and Temporal Stability of Self-reported Media Exposure
The measurement of media exposure is essential to not only traditional audience research, but also media effects research which relies on accurate estimates of media exposure. Even in the age of digital trace data and passive audience measurement, the workhorse of basically all communication research is self-report data. This article presents a meta-analysis of the reliability and temporal stability of media exposure self-reports in 33 panel stud…
The more you play, the more aggressive you become
The Individual or the Group
Journal Article The Individual or the Group: A Multilevel Analysis of Cyberbullying in School Classes Get access Ruth Festl, Ruth Festl 1Department of Communication, University of Hohenheim, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany, 1Corresponding author: Ruth Festl; Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Michael Scharkow, Michael Scharkow 2Department of Communication, University of Hohenheim, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany, Search …
Correcting Measurement Error in Content Analysis
Conducting and reporting reliability tests has become a standard practice in content analytical research. However, the consequences of measurement error in coding data are rarely discussed or taken into consideration in subsequent analyses. In this article, we demonstrate how misclassification in content analysis leads to biased estimates and introduce matrix back-calculation as a simple remedy. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we investigate how di…
Disclosure Management on Social Network Sites
The social web and specifically social network sites (SNS) have offered new opportunities for interaction and communication, but have also increased the risk of privacy violations. In this study, we investigated how far users imply different disclosure management strategies in status updates and chat conversations. We hypothesized that users perceive specific information as differently private depending on their personal privacy preference, but g…
The overstated generational gap in online news use? A consolidated infrastructural perspective
Recent research by Taneja et al. suggested that digital infrastructures diminish the generational gap in news use by counteracting preference structures. We expand on this seminal work by arguing that an infrastructural perspective requires overcoming limitations of highly aggregated web tracking data used in prior research. We analyze the individual browsing histories of two representative samples of German Internet users collected in 2012 ( N =…
Sore losers? A reexamination of the frustration–aggression hypothesis for colocated video game play
The impact of video game play on player aggression continues to be debated within the \nacademic literature. Most of the studies in this area have focused on game content as the \nindependent variable, whereas the social context of gaming is largely neglected. This article \npresents an experimental study (N 76) on the effects of game outcome and trash-talking \nin a competitive colocated multiplayer sports video game on aggressive behavior. The …
Nachrichtennutzung in Deutschland. Eine nutzerzentrierte Repertoireanalyse
Trotz erster vielversprechender Befunde war bisher nicht hinreichend zu klären, nach welchen Strukturprinzipien Rezipienten verschiedene Nachrichtenangebote zu individuellen Repertoires integrieren. Der Beitrag nimmt die inhaltliche Komposition der Nachrichtenrepertoires in Deutschland in den Blick. Er diskutiert methodische Anknüpfungspunkte, um Nachrichtenrepertoires einer detaillierteren medienübergreifenden Analyse unterziehen zu können. Dies…
Militaristic Attitudes and the Use of Digital Games
From their beginnings until today, digital games have been a substantial part of what has been labeled the "military-entertainment complex" deeply imbued with militaristic messages and imagery. Within cultivation research, this enhanced exposure to war and militarism is supposed to be associated with the adoption of military norms and thinking. Concepts on narrative persuasion specify this relationship between certain narratives and the adoption …
Zur Verknüpfung manueller und automatischer Inhaltsanalyse durch maschinelles Lernen
Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft provides a forum for discussion of media and communications related issues as well as for analyses of current media developments from various perspectives that are directed to all kinds of media. The journal reflects the latest trends in research and public discussion of media. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft primarily addresses scholars, journalists, media organisations, the press, radio and tv broadcaster…
Measuring the Public Agenda using Search Engine Queries
The more you play, the more aggressive you become
The Value of Big Data in Digital Media Research
This article discusses methodological aspects of Big Data analyses with regard to their applicability and usefulness in digital media research. Based on a review of a diverse selection of literature on online methodology, consequences of using Big Data at different stages of the research process are examined. We argue that researchers need to consider whether the analysis of huge quantities of data is theoretically justified, given that it may be…
Problematic computer game use among adolescents, younger and older adults
Peer Influence, Internet use and Cyberbullying
The influence of social reference groups such as family members, classmates and friends on adolescents' attitudes and behavior has been acknowledged in research for many decades. With the increasing use of online media, cyberbullying has become a major issue in adolescence research. In this paper, we compare various forms of peer influence on cyberbullying behavior among high school students in Germany. Specifically, the impact of close friends a…
The Relative Trustworthiness of Inferential Tests of the Indirect Effect in Statistical Mediation Analysis
A content analysis of 2 years of Psychological Science articles reveals inconsistencies in how researchers make inferences about indirect effects when conducting a statistical mediation analysis. In this study, we examined the frequency with which popularly used tests disagree, whether the method an investigator uses makes a difference in the conclusion he or she will reach, and whether there is a most trustworthy test that can be recommended to …
Sore losers? A reexamination of the frustration–aggression hypothesis for colocated video game play
The impact of video game play on player aggression continues to be debated within the \nacademic literature. Most of the studies in this area have focused on game content as the \nindependent variable, whereas the social context of gaming is largely neglected. This article \npresents an experimental study (N 76) on the effects of game outcome and trash-talking \nin a competitive colocated multiplayer sports video game on aggressive behavior. The …
Militaristic Attitudes and the Use of Digital Games
From their beginnings until today, digital games have been a substantial part of what has been labeled the "military-entertainment complex" deeply imbued with militaristic messages and imagery. Within cultivation research, this enhanced exposure to war and militarism is supposed to be associated with the adoption of military norms and thinking. Concepts on narrative persuasion specify this relationship between certain narratives and the adoption …
The Individual or the Group
Journal Article The Individual or the Group: A Multilevel Analysis of Cyberbullying in School Classes Get access Ruth Festl, Ruth Festl 1Department of Communication, University of Hohenheim, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany, 1Corresponding author: Ruth Festl; Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Michael Scharkow, Michael Scharkow 2Department of Communication, University of Hohenheim, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany, Search …
The Accuracy of Self-Reported Internet Use—A Validation Study Using Client Log Data
The vast majority of empirical research on online communication, or media use in general, relies on self-report measures instead of behavioral data. Previous research has shown that the accuracy of these self-report measures can be quite low, and both over- and underreporting of media use are commonplace. This study compares self-reports of Internet use with client log files from a large household sample. Results show that the accuracy of self-re…
Disclosure Management on Social Network Sites
The social web and specifically social network sites (SNS) have offered new opportunities for interaction and communication, but have also increased the risk of privacy violations. In this study, we investigated how far users imply different disclosure management strategies in status updates and chat conversations. We hypothesized that users perceive specific information as differently private depending on their personal privacy preference, but g…
Correcting Measurement Error in Content Analysis
Conducting and reporting reliability tests has become a standard practice in content analytical research. However, the consequences of measurement error in coding data are rarely discussed or taken into consideration in subsequent analyses. In this article, we demonstrate how misclassification in content analysis leads to biased estimates and introduce matrix back-calculation as a simple remedy. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we investigate how di…
Nachrichtennutzung in Deutschland. Eine nutzerzentrierte Repertoireanalyse
Trotz erster vielversprechender Befunde war bisher nicht hinreichend zu klären, nach welchen Strukturprinzipien Rezipienten verschiedene Nachrichtenangebote zu individuellen Repertoires integrieren. Der Beitrag nimmt die inhaltliche Komposition der Nachrichtenrepertoires in Deutschland in den Blick. Er diskutiert methodische Anknüpfungspunkte, um Nachrichtenrepertoires einer detaillierteren medienübergreifenden Analyse unterziehen zu können. Dies…
How Measurement Error in Content Analysis and Self-Reported Media Use Leads to Minimal Media Effect Findings in Linkage Analyses
In the debate on minimal media effects and their causes, methodological concerns about measurement are rarely discussed. We argue that even in state-of-the-art media-effects studies that combine measures of media messages and media use (i.e., linkage analyses), measurement error in both the media content analysis and the media use self-reports will typically lead to severely downward-biased effect estimates. We demonstrate this phenomenon using a…
The Reliability and Temporal Stability of Self-reported Media Exposure
The measurement of media exposure is essential to not only traditional audience research, but also media effects research which relies on accurate estimates of media exposure. Even in the age of digital trace data and passive audience measurement, the workhorse of basically all communication research is self-report data. This article presents a meta-analysis of the reliability and temporal stability of media exposure self-reports in 33 panel stud…
How social network sites and other online intermediaries increase exposure to news
Data, code and supplementary material for "How social network sites and other online intermediaries increase exposure to news"
Evaluating universities' strategic online communication
Purpose This study is dedicated to universities' strategic social media communication and focuses on the fan engagement triggered by Facebook postings. The study contributes to a growing body of knowledge that addresses the strategic communication of universities that have thus far hardly dealt with questions of resonance and evaluation of their social media messages. Design/methodology/approach Using the Facebook Graph API, the authors collected…
The privacy calculus contextualized
Empfehlungen zum Umgang mit Forschungsdaten in der Kommunikationswissenschaft – AG Forschungsdaten im Auftrag des Vorstands der DGPuK
Forschungsdaten sind das primäre Produkt empirischer Studien und die zentrale Grundlage wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. Ihre langfristige Sicherung und Bereitstellung zur intersubjektiven Nachvollziehbarkeit und damit zur Qualitätssicherung sollte daher in allen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen unterstützt werden. Entsprechend hat die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 2016 die sozialwissenschaftlichen Fachgesellschaften in Deutschland aufgefordert, si…
How Do Filtering Choices Impact the Structures of Audience Networks? A Simulation Study Using Data from 26 Countries
Although communication scholars have increasingly studied audience fragmentation by analyzing audience networks, recent cross-national research has spurred a methodological debate about how to construct these audience networks from media use data. One point of contention lies in the choice of filtering procedures that only keep meaningful ties, where the traditional deviation-from-random-duplication filter has been replaced by alternatives such a…
Opening a Conversation on Open Communication Research
Many disciplines have been debating and enacting a range of policies, procedures, and practices that fall under the umbrella term “open research” or “open science.” Following the publication of “An Agenda for Open Science in Communication”, we invited communication scholars to continue the conversation on what open research practices broadly might mean for our diverse field. Specifically, we sought work that: looked empirically at the need for an…
The overstated generational gap in online news use? A consolidated infrastructural perspective
Recent research by Taneja et al. suggested that digital infrastructures diminish the generational gap in news use by counteracting preference structures. We expand on this seminal work by arguing that an infrastructural perspective requires overcoming limitations of highly aggregated web tracking data used in prior research. We analyze the individual browsing histories of two representative samples of German Internet users collected in 2012 ( N =…
Metrics of News Audience Polarization
Although media and communication scholars have suggested various analytical methods for measuring and comparing news audience polarization across countries, we lack a systematic assessment of the metrics produced by these techniques. Using survey data from the 2016 Reuters Institute Digital News Report on news use in 26 countries, we address this gap through a resampling simulation experiment. Our simulation revealed a strong impact of analytical…
Post Post-Broadcast Democracy? News Exposure in the Age of Online Intermediaries
Online intermediaries such as social network sites or search engines are playing an increasingly central role in democracy by acting as mediators between information producers and citizens. Academic and public commentators have raised persistent concerns that algorithmic recommender systems would negatively affect the provision of political information by tailoring content to the predispositions and entertainment preferences of users. At the same…
Computer Science (20 works) · Social Media and Politics (15 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Political science (13 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · World Wide Web (10 works) · Statistics (8 works) · Mathematics (7 works) · Social media (7 works) · Sociology (7 works)