Anja Bechmann
Biographic Data
| ID | 288518 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anja Bechmann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anja |
| FAMILY NAME | Bechmann |
| SIGNATURE | BECHMANN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aarhus University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5588-5155 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 190 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Platform Collective Behavior as Democratic Infrastructure: Beyond Causal Effects in the DSA Era
Online platforms have become infrastructural to democratic life, yet their influence is often examined through narrow causal-effect models that overlook systemic socio-technical dynamics. This Forum contribution introduces the concept of platform collective behavior to conceptualize how intertwined human-AI agency generates population-level patterns with systemic risk implications for democracy and citizen well-being. Rather than focusing on isol…
Beyond engagement: Demographic, temporal, and topic variation in misinformation exposure on Facebook across European media systemic regions
Despite evidence that exposure to fake news increases the likelihood of people perceiving it as accurate, knowledge about who is exposed to misinformation is mainly based on studies from the US around specific events. Due to media systemic, and temporal differences, this knowledge does not necessarily translate to an EU context or across different events. Also, most existing studies focus on engagement metrics such as likes, comments, or shares, …
Revisiting Key Concepts in Digital Media Research: Influence, Populism, Partisanship, Polarisation
Recent scholarship on the intersections between digital media and political debate has taken on a decidedly pessimistic, even dystopian tone, and not without reason: from the effective use of social media platforms by populists and demagogues like Donald Trump to the expression of deepening ideological divides in online public debate, and from the emergence of partisan online communities and platforms to the intensification and exploitation of su…
Digital Infrastructures of Covid-19 Misinformation: A New Conceptual and Analytical Perspective on Fact-Checking
Fact-checking databases, as important results of fact checkers’ epistemic work, are increasingly tied together in new overarching infrastructures, but these are understudied and lack transparency despite being an important societal baseline for whether claims are false. This article conceptualizes fact-checking as infrastructure and constructs a mixed-methods approach to examine overlaps and differences and thereby detect biases to increase trans…
Digital false information at scale in the European Union: Current state of research in various disciplines, and future directions
Digital false information is a global problem and the European Union (EU) has taken profound actions to counter it. However, from an academic perspective the United States has attracted particular attention. This article aims at mapping the current state of academic inquiry into false information at scale in the EU across fields. Systematic filtering of academic contributions resulted in the identification of 93 papers. We found that Italy is the…
Different types of Covid-19 misinformation have different emotional valence on Twitter
The spreading of COVID-19 misinformation on social media could have severe consequences on people's behavior. In this paper, we investigated the emotional expression of misinformation related to the COVID-19 crisis on Twitter and whether emotional valence differed depending on the type of misinformation. We collected 17,463,220 English tweets with 76 COVID-19-related hashtags for March 2020. Using Google Fact Check Explorer API we identified 226 …
Partisan Polarization Is the Primary Psychological Motivation behind Political Fake News Sharing on Twitter
The rise of "fake news" is a major concern in contemporary Western democracies. Yet, research on the psychological motivations behind the spread of political fake news on social media is surprisingly limited. Are citizens who share fake newsignorantand lazy? Are they fueled by sinister motives, seeking todisruptthe social status quo? Or do they seek to attack partisan opponents in an increasinglypolarizedpolitical environment? This article is the…
Systemic Gendering in Facebook Group Participation
Communication is increasingly taking place in Facebook Groups around the world. Yet, we have little scientific knowledge of Facebook Groups at scale, especially the extent to which general systemic gendering is a pattern in participation in such groups. This knowledge deficit is problematic for digitalized and data-driven democratic societies. Therefore, this article aims to investigate gender differences in open, closed, and secret Facebook Grou…
Tackling Disinformation and Infodemics Demands Media Policy Changes
Disinformation and infodemics have been central for the media policy agenda in most countries and in particular in Europe. Yet, the European Commission has had a soft law approach centralizing obligations to handling information disorder on a content level. This commentary argues that by focusing primarily on the content level we miss the bigger picture where disinformation and infodemics are only symptoms of something more important on a media i…
‘Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour’ and Other Online Influence Operations in Social Media Spaces
Recently, major social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have announced efforts to counter "coordinated inauthentic behaviour." However, scholarly research continues to provide evidence that coordinated human and automated accounts covertly seek to undermine and manipulate public debates on these platforms. Given the difficulties in obtaining data from these platforms to study these influence operations, and the significant challenge o…
Building truths in AI: Making predictive algorithms doable in healthcare
Increasingly, artificial intelligent (AI) algorithms are being applied to automatically assist or automate decisions. Such statistical models have been criticized in the existing literature especially for producing cultural biases and for challenging our notions of knowledge. However, few studies have contributed to an essential understanding of the way in which algorithms are designed with particular truths to enable systematic decision-making. …
Human Rights in the Age of Platforms
Unsupervised by any other name: Hidden layers of knowledge production in artificial intelligence on social media
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of different machine learning models is applied to Big Data as a way to turn data into valuable knowledge. The rhetoric is that ensuing predictions work well-with a high degree of autonomy and automation. We argue that we need to analyze the process of applying machine learning in depth and highlight at what point human knowledge production takes place in seemingly autonomous work. This article reintroduce…
Studying Facebook and Instagram data: The Digital Footprints software
The aim of this article is to discuss methodological implications and challenges in different kinds of deep and big data studies of Facebook and Instagram through methods involving the use of Application Programming Interface (API) data. This article describes and discusses Digital Footprints (www.digitalfootprints.dk), a data extraction and analytics software that allows researchers to extract user data from Facebook and Instagram data sources; …
The Ubiquitous Internet: User and Industry Perspectives
This book presents state of the art theoretical and empirical research on the ubiquitous internet: its everyday users and its economic stakeholders. The book offers a 360-degree media analysis of the contemporary terrain of the internet by examining both user and industry perspectives and their relation to one another. Contributors consider user practices in terms of internet at your fingertipsthe abundance, free flow, and interconnectivity of da…
Using APIs for Data Collection on Social Media
This article discusses how social media research may benefit from social media companies making data available to researchers through their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).An API is a back--end interface through which third party developers may connect new add--ons to an existing service.The API is also an interface for researchers to collect data off a given social media service for empirical analysis.Presenting a critical methodologic…
Internet profiling: The economy of data intraoperability on Facebook and Google
This article investigates online profiling and data strategies by identifying and comparing data strategies of the two most visited internet companies, Google and Face- book. The aim of the article is to use media economics and management perspectives to enrich the discussion on profiling from a political economy perspective. The article maps differences in the data strategies of the services and the potential data collected through a data point …
Mapping actor roles in social media: Different perspectives on value creation in theories of user participation
While media studies have been locked into a classic producer-text-audience model, most theories of social media suggest some degree of collapse between the producer and audience. In this article, we address social media in terms of processes of value creation. The aim of the article is to demonstrate that social media are either addressed in terms of economic and socio-political value creation, that is, power, exploitation and business revenues, …
Towards Cross-Platform Value Creation: Four patterns of circulation and control
Old media companies are being challenged by new structures of relating content to other ‘value’ creators, both within the controlled channels of the company and outside the companies’ own channels. On the basis of two ethnographic case studies of cross-platform production at a commercial regional newspaper (now media house) and a non-commercial public service broadcaster, the article identifies four main content flow structures that form part of …
Seeds of Cross-Media Production
Partisan Polarization Is the Primary Psychological Motivation behind Political Fake News Sharing on Twitter
The rise of "fake news" is a major concern in contemporary Western democracies. Yet, research on the psychological motivations behind the spread of political fake news on social media is surprisingly limited. Are citizens who share fake newsignorantand lazy? Are they fueled by sinister motives, seeking todisruptthe social status quo? Or do they seek to attack partisan opponents in an increasinglypolarizedpolitical environment? This article is the…
Using APIs for Data Collection on Social Media
This article discusses how social media research may benefit from social media companies making data available to researchers through their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).An API is a back--end interface through which third party developers may connect new add--ons to an existing service.The API is also an interface for researchers to collect data off a given social media service for empirical analysis.Presenting a critical methodologic…
Mapping actor roles in social media: Different perspectives on value creation in theories of user participation
While media studies have been locked into a classic producer-text-audience model, most theories of social media suggest some degree of collapse between the producer and audience. In this article, we address social media in terms of processes of value creation. The aim of the article is to demonstrate that social media are either addressed in terms of economic and socio-political value creation, that is, power, exploitation and business revenues, …
Unsupervised by any other name: Hidden layers of knowledge production in artificial intelligence on social media
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of different machine learning models is applied to Big Data as a way to turn data into valuable knowledge. The rhetoric is that ensuing predictions work well-with a high degree of autonomy and automation. We argue that we need to analyze the process of applying machine learning in depth and highlight at what point human knowledge production takes place in seemingly autonomous work. This article reintroduce…
Internet profiling: The economy of data intraoperability on Facebook and Google
This article investigates online profiling and data strategies by identifying and comparing data strategies of the two most visited internet companies, Google and Face- book. The aim of the article is to use media economics and management perspectives to enrich the discussion on profiling from a political economy perspective. The article maps differences in the data strategies of the services and the potential data collected through a data point …
Towards Cross-Platform Value Creation: Four patterns of circulation and control
Old media companies are being challenged by new structures of relating content to other ‘value’ creators, both within the controlled channels of the company and outside the companies’ own channels. On the basis of two ethnographic case studies of cross-platform production at a commercial regional newspaper (now media house) and a non-commercial public service broadcaster, the article identifies four main content flow structures that form part of …
Beyond engagement: Demographic, temporal, and topic variation in misinformation exposure on Facebook across European media systemic regions
Despite evidence that exposure to fake news increases the likelihood of people perceiving it as accurate, knowledge about who is exposed to misinformation is mainly based on studies from the US around specific events. Due to media systemic, and temporal differences, this knowledge does not necessarily translate to an EU context or across different events. Also, most existing studies focus on engagement metrics such as likes, comments, or shares, …
Digital false information at scale in the European Union: Current state of research in various disciplines, and future directions
Digital false information is a global problem and the European Union (EU) has taken profound actions to counter it. However, from an academic perspective the United States has attracted particular attention. This article aims at mapping the current state of academic inquiry into false information at scale in the EU across fields. Systematic filtering of academic contributions resulted in the identification of 93 papers. We found that Italy is the…
Different types of Covid-19 misinformation have different emotional valence on Twitter
The spreading of COVID-19 misinformation on social media could have severe consequences on people's behavior. In this paper, we investigated the emotional expression of misinformation related to the COVID-19 crisis on Twitter and whether emotional valence differed depending on the type of misinformation. We collected 17,463,220 English tweets with 76 COVID-19-related hashtags for March 2020. Using Google Fact Check Explorer API we identified 226 …
Seeds of Cross-Media Production
Mapping actor roles in social media: Different perspectives on value creation in theories of user participation
While media studies have been locked into a classic producer-text-audience model, most theories of social media suggest some degree of collapse between the producer and audience. In this article, we address social media in terms of processes of value creation. The aim of the article is to demonstrate that social media are either addressed in terms of economic and socio-political value creation, that is, power, exploitation and business revenues, …
Towards Cross-Platform Value Creation: Four patterns of circulation and control
Old media companies are being challenged by new structures of relating content to other ‘value’ creators, both within the controlled channels of the company and outside the companies’ own channels. On the basis of two ethnographic case studies of cross-platform production at a commercial regional newspaper (now media house) and a non-commercial public service broadcaster, the article identifies four main content flow structures that form part of …
Internet profiling: The economy of data intraoperability on Facebook and Google
This article investigates online profiling and data strategies by identifying and comparing data strategies of the two most visited internet companies, Google and Face- book. The aim of the article is to use media economics and management perspectives to enrich the discussion on profiling from a political economy perspective. The article maps differences in the data strategies of the services and the potential data collected through a data point …
The Ubiquitous Internet: User and Industry Perspectives
This book presents state of the art theoretical and empirical research on the ubiquitous internet: its everyday users and its economic stakeholders. The book offers a 360-degree media analysis of the contemporary terrain of the internet by examining both user and industry perspectives and their relation to one another. Contributors consider user practices in terms of internet at your fingertipsthe abundance, free flow, and interconnectivity of da…
Using APIs for Data Collection on Social Media
This article discusses how social media research may benefit from social media companies making data available to researchers through their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).An API is a back--end interface through which third party developers may connect new add--ons to an existing service.The API is also an interface for researchers to collect data off a given social media service for empirical analysis.Presenting a critical methodologic…
Studying Facebook and Instagram data: The Digital Footprints software
The aim of this article is to discuss methodological implications and challenges in different kinds of deep and big data studies of Facebook and Instagram through methods involving the use of Application Programming Interface (API) data. This article describes and discusses Digital Footprints (www.digitalfootprints.dk), a data extraction and analytics software that allows researchers to extract user data from Facebook and Instagram data sources; …
Human Rights in the Age of Platforms
Unsupervised by any other name: Hidden layers of knowledge production in artificial intelligence on social media
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of different machine learning models is applied to Big Data as a way to turn data into valuable knowledge. The rhetoric is that ensuing predictions work well-with a high degree of autonomy and automation. We argue that we need to analyze the process of applying machine learning in depth and highlight at what point human knowledge production takes place in seemingly autonomous work. This article reintroduce…
Tackling Disinformation and Infodemics Demands Media Policy Changes
Disinformation and infodemics have been central for the media policy agenda in most countries and in particular in Europe. Yet, the European Commission has had a soft law approach centralizing obligations to handling information disorder on a content level. This commentary argues that by focusing primarily on the content level we miss the bigger picture where disinformation and infodemics are only symptoms of something more important on a media i…
‘Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour’ and Other Online Influence Operations in Social Media Spaces
Recently, major social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have announced efforts to counter "coordinated inauthentic behaviour." However, scholarly research continues to provide evidence that coordinated human and automated accounts covertly seek to undermine and manipulate public debates on these platforms. Given the difficulties in obtaining data from these platforms to study these influence operations, and the significant challenge o…
Building truths in AI: Making predictive algorithms doable in healthcare
Increasingly, artificial intelligent (AI) algorithms are being applied to automatically assist or automate decisions. Such statistical models have been criticized in the existing literature especially for producing cultural biases and for challenging our notions of knowledge. However, few studies have contributed to an essential understanding of the way in which algorithms are designed with particular truths to enable systematic decision-making. …
Different types of Covid-19 misinformation have different emotional valence on Twitter
The spreading of COVID-19 misinformation on social media could have severe consequences on people's behavior. In this paper, we investigated the emotional expression of misinformation related to the COVID-19 crisis on Twitter and whether emotional valence differed depending on the type of misinformation. We collected 17,463,220 English tweets with 76 COVID-19-related hashtags for March 2020. Using Google Fact Check Explorer API we identified 226 …
Partisan Polarization Is the Primary Psychological Motivation behind Political Fake News Sharing on Twitter
The rise of "fake news" is a major concern in contemporary Western democracies. Yet, research on the psychological motivations behind the spread of political fake news on social media is surprisingly limited. Are citizens who share fake newsignorantand lazy? Are they fueled by sinister motives, seeking todisruptthe social status quo? Or do they seek to attack partisan opponents in an increasinglypolarizedpolitical environment? This article is the…
Systemic Gendering in Facebook Group Participation
Communication is increasingly taking place in Facebook Groups around the world. Yet, we have little scientific knowledge of Facebook Groups at scale, especially the extent to which general systemic gendering is a pattern in participation in such groups. This knowledge deficit is problematic for digitalized and data-driven democratic societies. Therefore, this article aims to investigate gender differences in open, closed, and secret Facebook Grou…
Digital Infrastructures of Covid-19 Misinformation: A New Conceptual and Analytical Perspective on Fact-Checking
Fact-checking databases, as important results of fact checkers’ epistemic work, are increasingly tied together in new overarching infrastructures, but these are understudied and lack transparency despite being an important societal baseline for whether claims are false. This article conceptualizes fact-checking as infrastructure and constructs a mixed-methods approach to examine overlaps and differences and thereby detect biases to increase trans…
Digital false information at scale in the European Union: Current state of research in various disciplines, and future directions
Digital false information is a global problem and the European Union (EU) has taken profound actions to counter it. However, from an academic perspective the United States has attracted particular attention. This article aims at mapping the current state of academic inquiry into false information at scale in the EU across fields. Systematic filtering of academic contributions resulted in the identification of 93 papers. We found that Italy is the…
Revisiting Key Concepts in Digital Media Research: Influence, Populism, Partisanship, Polarisation
Recent scholarship on the intersections between digital media and political debate has taken on a decidedly pessimistic, even dystopian tone, and not without reason: from the effective use of social media platforms by populists and demagogues like Donald Trump to the expression of deepening ideological divides in online public debate, and from the emergence of partisan online communities and platforms to the intensification and exploitation of su…
Beyond engagement: Demographic, temporal, and topic variation in misinformation exposure on Facebook across European media systemic regions
Despite evidence that exposure to fake news increases the likelihood of people perceiving it as accurate, knowledge about who is exposed to misinformation is mainly based on studies from the US around specific events. Due to media systemic, and temporal differences, this knowledge does not necessarily translate to an EU context or across different events. Also, most existing studies focus on engagement metrics such as likes, comments, or shares, …
Platform Collective Behavior as Democratic Infrastructure: Beyond Causal Effects in the DSA Era
Online platforms have become infrastructural to democratic life, yet their influence is often examined through narrow causal-effect models that overlook systemic socio-technical dynamics. This Forum contribution introduces the concept of platform collective behavior to conceptualize how intertwined human-AI agency generates population-level patterns with systemic risk implications for democracy and citizen well-being. Rather than focusing on isol…
Computer Science (16 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Social media (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Social Media and Politics (8 works) · World Wide Web (8 works) · Data science (7 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Business (5 works)