Sina Julia Blassnig
Professor
Department of Communication and Media Research
Bd de Pérolles 90
1700 Fribourg
Biography
Sina Blassnig is full professor of digital communication and datafication at the Department of Communication and Media Research (DCM) at the University of Fribourg. She is also Director of the Institute for Digital Communication and Media Innovation (IDCMI) in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons (FHGR). In teaching, she is mainly responsible for the Joint Master's degree program "Digital Communication and Creative Media Production", which is offered in cooperation with the FHGR.
Sina Blassnig studied communication science and political science at the University of Zurich, where she also completed her doctorate on the topic of populist online communication. She was then a senior research and teaching associate at the Department for Communication Science and Media Research (IKMZ) at the University of Zurich. She was also a visiting scholar at the Department of Communication and Journalims, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2019) and at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) and the AI, Media and Democracy Lab at the University of Amsterdam (2023).
Her research interests lie in the areas of digital communication, digital journalism and media innovation, political communication, media use, and media systems in a comparative perspective. In her current research, Sina Blassnig focuses in particular on the use of new technologies and artificial intelligence in the production and distribution of media content and how this affects the role of the audience and the usage behavior of citizens. She also researches how political actors use digital platforms. Her research places particular emphasis on an international comparative perspective and the integration of supply and demand perspectives in communication science.
Research and publications
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Publications
18 publications
A Balancing Act: How Media Professionals Perceive the Implementation of News Recommender Systems
Sina Blassnig, Edina Strikovic, Eliza Mitova, Aleksandra Urman, Anikó Hannák, Claes de Vreese, Frank Esser, Digital Journalism (2024) | Journal articleExploring users’ desire for transparency and control in news recommender systems: A five-nation study
Aleksandra Urman, Eliza Mitova, Sina Blassnig, Edina Strikovic, Claes de Vreese, Frank Esser, Journalism (2023) | Journal articleWhen Worlds Collide: Journalistic, Market, and Tech Logics in the Adoption of News Recommender Systems
Eliza Mitova, Sina Blassnig, Edina Strikovic, Aleksandra Urman, Claes de Vreese, Frank Esser, Journalism Studies (2023) | Journal articleGoogling Referendum Campaigns: Analyzing Online Search Patterns Regarding Swiss Direct-Democratic Votes
Sina Blassnig, Eliza Mitova, Nico Pfiffner, Michael V. Reiss, Media and Communication (2023) | Journal articleNews recommender systems: a programmatic research review
Eliza Mitova, Sina Blassnig, Edina Strikovic, Aleksandra Urman, Aniko Hannak, Claes H. de Vreese, Frank Esser, Annals of the International Communication Association (2023) | Journal articlePopulism and Social Media
Sina Blassnig (2022) | Book chapterMedia Systems in the Digital Age: An Empirical Comparison of 30 Countries
Edda Humprecht, Laia Castro Herrero, Sina Blassnig, Michael Brüggemann, Sven Engesser, Journal of Communication (2022) | Journal articleThe “Audience Logic” in Digital Journalism: An Exploration of Shifting News Logics Across Media Types and Time
Sina Blassnig, Frank Esser, Journalism Studies (2022) | Journal articlePopulist online communication: Interactions among politicians, journalists, and citizens (Dissertation summary)
Sina Blassnig, Studies in Communication Sciences (2021) | Journal articlePopulist Online Communication – Interactions among Politicians, Journalists, and Citizens
Blassnig, Sina (University of Zurich2020) | Thesis