Advertising & Media Psychology Research Group (U of Vienna)

📢 Publication 📢

J Matthes, A Binder, @sofievranken.bsky.social @raffaelheiss.bsky.social, & @jarakankova.bsky.social content-analyzed alcohol in kids' media, revealing that it's comparatively more often verbally mentioned, interacted with, consumed, & linked to villains.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1080/1520...

📢 Publication 📢

Across AUT, DNK, FRA & SRB, Anne Reinhardt et al. (incl Jörg Matthes, @jarakankova.bsky.social, & Selma Hodzic) revealed AI (but not health) literacy, perceived benefits (less so risks), & social norms to be related to trusting AI for health info.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1080/1041...

📢 Publication 📢

@jarakankova.bsky.social & Jörg Matthes found, in a 2-wave intervention experiment, that inoculation was effective only against health misinfo (not overgeneralized info), and even then only in the short term, leaving no effects after two weeks.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1016/j.ch...

📢 Publication 📢

Stephanie Bührer, @kevinkoban.bsky.social, Jörg Matthes scrutinize the common conceptual distinction incivility vs. intolerance, showing perceptual fuzziness (when migrants are targeted), esp among those who recently posted such content themselves.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1177/1461...

📢 Publication 📢

@elaforrai.bsky.social, @kevinkoban.bsky.social, & Jörg Matthes explored youths' engagement with ephemeral social media features, showing it can be predicted by greater bonding (not bridging) capital & may lead to more perceived social pressure over time.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.5817/CP20...

📢 Publication 📢

@jarakankova.bsky.social, @sofievranken.bsky.social, Jörg Matthes report both beneficial and harmful correlates (i.e., mental health literacy vs greater tendency toward self-diagnosis) for US Gen Z people's engagement with mental health influencer content.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.5817/CP20...

🎉 PhD Defense 🎉

Shortly before Christmas (and our holiday break), @atikaaisya.bsky.social successfully defended her dissertation titled "The role of social media influencers on the political engagement of young people in Austria, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Serbia"!

Big congratulations, Atika 🥳

✨ Workshop ✨

Last week, we were very pleased & honored to welcome Joe Walther within our own (subtly colored) walls to discuss together his & several @ipk-univie.bsky.social working groups' current work on online hate, covering various theoretical & methodological perspectives.

🔨 Workshop 🔨

Jörg Matthes & #DIGIHATE invite everyone to gather around for our upcoming workshop feat @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social's
Joe Walther & colleagues from all over the @ipk-univie.bsky.social to discuss "the architecture of online hate".

Come by or reach out for joining online! 🌟

MiRezFo x Media Psych Writing Winter School We are very excited for the first ever joined writing workshop organized by MiRezfo and Media Psych. Program: Day 1 (March 2nd, from 2 PM): Check in & Get together, Input on writing strategies, Mini-...

Boost your writing this winter! ❄️✍️

We’re thrilled to launch our first-ever Winter Writing Workshop, jointly organized by MiRezFo (DGPuK) and Media Psych youth representatives —designed to help junior scholars make progress on their writing projects.

👉 Sign up by Dec.15th: forms.gle/kPBUDZsVfyHh...

📢 Publication 📢

Jörg Matthes & @sofievranken.bsky.social elaborate on how quickly-improving generative AI apps may contribute to experiments throughout the full research cycle, while also reflecting upon three paradoxes that researchers need consider when using them.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1007/s443...

📢 Publication 📢

@atikaaisya.bsky.social, Ariadne Neureiter, Jörg Matthes, Michael Chan, & Ljubisa Bojic show that following political influencers is uniquely linked to greater political efficacy & participation among young people across 🇦🇹,🇭🇰, and 🇮🇩 but not in Serbia.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.3389/fpos...

🎉 PhD Defense 🎉

On Friday, we found a brand new Dr in our midst, as @jarakankova.bsky.social defended her diss titled "With great power comes great responsibility: Misleading health messaging by social media influencers – Characteristics, effects, & countering strategies" like a boss! 🥳

📢 Publication 📢

@jarakankova.bsky.social, Alice Binder, & Jörg Matthes report findings from two preregistered online experiments with Gen Z samples, revealing that health misinfo & overgeneralized health messaging by influencers comes with similar harms across contexts.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1080/1081...

Not to forget those et al.s: Ariadne Neureiter, @kirchtho.bsky.social, Mokhtarrudin Bin Ahmad, Alice Binder, Christina Brandstetter, Ploypin Chuenterawong, & Jeong-woo Jang.

📢Publication📢

Following a global approach (involving samples from the Global North & South), Matthes et al. found that social media use is consistently related positively to ecoanxiety, while notable cross-country variability exists for links to environmental knowledge.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1515/omgc...

📢Publication📢

@sofievranken.bsky.social, @jarakankova.bsky.social, Jörg Matthes reviewed experiments on virtual influencers, noting that extant research focuses primarily on disclosure effects within marketing framings without fully capturing their real persuasive impact.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1016/j.te...

🚨 Job Opening 🚨

We're hiring a new postdoc and look forward to welcoming new personalities to our team!

📅 Contract planned Dec 1, 2025-Nov 30, 2029
🥼 40h/week (100%)
⏰ Application Deadline: Oct 20, 2025

More info, incl application modalities
👉🏼 jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...

📢Publication📢

@sofievranken.bsky.social (w/ @kathbeullens.bsky.social & Femke Geusens) exposed young adults to negative alcohol portrayals on SM, which led to less favorable drinking attitudes but no change in outcome expectations. Conversely, positive pics had no impact.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1080/1041...

As always, big shout-out to those hidden under et al.: @kevinkoban.bsky.social, Stephanie Bührer, @kirchtho.bsky.social, @phweiss.bsky.social, Maryam Khaleghipour, Melanie Saumer, & @rinatmeerson.bsky.social ✨✨✨

📢Publication📢

Serving as the foundation of the @erc.europa.eu-funded #DIGIHATE project, Jörg Matthes et al. conducted a large-scope umbrella review (review of reviews) of the field of "digital hate" research, noting crucial trends & challenges across numerous constructs.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1177/0093...

📢 Publication 📢

@sofievranken.bsky.social, Alice Binder, & Jörg Matthes show that the presence of relative harm claims in persuasive influencer messaging about e-cigarettes leads to lower negative health beliefs. Commonly issued warning labels had no impact.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.2196/70542

The reaearcher, a young woman with hijab, stands in front of the whiteboard, a screen in the background shows the first slide of her talk.

Very insightful talk also by Maryam Khaleghipour from the @erc.europa.eu project digithate (with @kevinkoban.bsky.social and Jörg Matthes ) - showing how sholars in 4 European countries (🇦🇹🇫🇷🇭🇺🇸🇪) experience hate against them and what they would want from the public and other bystanders.

👨🏼‍🔬 Conference Time 👩🏼‍🔬

San Francisco is calling! Team AdMe is ready for this year's #AEJMC2025 to present & discuss our colleagues' and our research on

- gen AI & artificial influencers
- digital hate
- eco-anxiety
- political microtargeting

See you around! 🥳🥳🥳

📢 Publication 📢

@sofievranken.bsky.social et al. content-analyzed #smokefree intervention messages by Belgian adolescents, finding a focus on vaping, reliance on negative outcome expectations and descriptive norms, & use of basic heuristic cues for message appeal.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1016/j.so...

📢 Publication 📢

@kathrinkarsay.bsky.social, Marina F. Thomas, & Jörg Matthes tested if exposure to athletic or hypermuscular fitspiration content can affect women's body satisfaction, related intentions, & norms, finding only very limited effects of fitspiration imagery.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1037/ppm0...

🏆 Awards 🏆

At #ica25, we also celebrated our AdMe alumni!

Former member @rutakaskeleviciute.bsky.social (now @ifkw.bsky.social) received the Kyoon Hur Dissertation Award by the Mass Communication Division.

Congratulations, Ruta! 🥳🥳🥳

📢Publication📢

Anne Reinhardt et al (incl Jörg Matthes) tested in an online experiment across Austria, Denmark, France, & Serbia whether ppl would ask AI for health info (vs. doctors or friends), showing they do so over friends for benign-yet-stigmatized health conditions.

👉🏼 doi.org/10.1016/j.ch...

Well, that was quite a lot of fun!

Much honored to be amongst such great scholars, colleagues, and friends...and, apparently, not only considered award-worthy but also (genuinely?) applauded for an awful opening pun 🌟🎉😅

Thanks to everyone (including my very kind photographers)!

It's been an intense few days at #ica25 ... in many regards!

Thanks a lot to the organizers and to all speakers, colleagues, old and new friends who, together, made it so special (again)!

Safe travels to everyone! See y'all next year in Cape Town!