Emil Bakkensen Johansen

Congratulations!!

Postdoc position(s) at The Digital Democracy Centre Application deadline: February 15th, 2026, 23:59 CET/CEST.

4 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (𝐏𝐡𝐝, 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐝𝐨𝐜, 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐫) 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐃𝐂!!! 😯🤩
The DDC is expanding its team with *4* new opportunities for researchers passionate about the intersection of AI, media, democracy, & society.

Deadline: 📅 Feb 15 for 3 of these roles!
The Professorship deadline follows in March.🧵👇

Come join us here in Odense! 🇩🇰

New year, new (job) opportunities: Full professorship in Digital Society and Democracy.

What: excellent conditions, start-up and transition packages, interdisciplinary and supportive environment, wonderful colleagues.

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fa-eosd-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

FULL PROFESSOR OF DIGITAL SOCIETY AND DEMOCRACY
...at the DDC and DIAS, here at the University of Southern Denmark 🇩🇰

...open to various disciplines, including law, economics, political science, communication, journalism, or AI.

More info:
fa-eosd-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

How can platform researchers make use of the #DSA40 (EU Digital Services Act)?
The @ddc-sdu.bsky.social is on the road today, visiting the with the University of Copenhagen to learn more from @dscheykopp.bsky.social, here from Berlin's @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social.

Research Projects Research Projects

Excited to share a wave of new projects either launching or joined by the Digital Democracy Centre here at SDU!

They span AI, platforms, public service media, & civic participation.

Visit our website & see thread below for more info:
www.sdu.dk/en/forskning...

9/ The non-typeset version of the article is available here (no paywall): emilbakke.github.io/files/moment...

8/ We hope our quali-quant based framework, using computational methods combined with actor-network theory, can inspire future research on how momentary symbol construction processes occur in digital collectives.

7/ There is a remarkable visual orientation in momentary symbols to grab attention in the digital realm 🎇

For example, the mask ban imposed in Hong Kong turned masks into a visual symbol that protesters and audiences shared with the international audience on Twitter to gain sympathy.

6/ Momentary symbols are volatile and can both spur and vanish in a matter of days as new events unfold💥

For example, lasers were practical tools to counter surveillance from authorities, until they became categorized as "weapons" after which they were used to visualize collective presence.

5/ Symbol construction is temporally contingent on concurrent evens (e.g., bans and arrests) ⏳

The figure shows spikes in mentions of the three selected objects over the span of the protest period - which often coincide with on-the-ground events in Hong Kong.

4/ We find that the Anti-ELAB 2019 protests highlight the empirical relevance of momentary symbols: objects with practical relevance experienced sudden spikes in symbolic-visual translations, but quickly returned to become practical tools once new symbols surfaced. Thus, we find that:

3/ Using a quali-quant inspired design, we construct actor-network inspired “translation snapshots” based on 1.6M tweets and object detection in ~670k images from the 2019 Anti-ELAB protests in Hong Kong to trace how umbrellas, lasers, and masks oscillate between symbolic and practical roles.

2/ We introduce the notion of "momentary symbols" to capture how objects briefly become dominant symbols for a collective, but just as quickly fade again. This stands in contrast to how the literature usually perceives symbols in collectives: as enduring visual elements over time.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Out now in @actasociologica.bsky.social: “Momentary symbols: Tracing the visual expressions of collectives”

with @nicolemilmandoerr.bsky.social & @mathiaswullum.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A🧵 on our approach and findings:

Thank you! I am also very much looking forward to the journey we have ahead of us after tomorrow ✌️

I’m defending my PhD on Sept 9 at @sdu.dk 🎓

The defense is open to the public (in Odense from 10-12, followed by a reception).
If you want to join, please sign up here:
www.tilmeld.dk/phddefencere...

Excited to share the last 3.5 years of work - hope yo see you there!

@ddc-sdu.bsky.social

What a blast. Our @ddc-sdu.bsky.social team completed the DHL Relay 🏃🏼 with hundreds of SDU colleagues.

Awesome team with Anne, @emilbakke.bsky.social, @nielsmede.bsky.social, and led by team captain Lars.

Thanks to all organizers and volunteers.

We are thrilled to announce that Josephine (“Jo”) Lukito will join the DDC as Professor in Digital Communication and DIAS Chair!
@jolukito.bsky.social is a leading expert in the fields of political communication & computational methods, & will join us starting Feb 1, 2026.
Velkommen til DCC Jo! 🤗🎉

Data access under the DSA is such a crucial step to solve the chicken-egg situation (trying to show harms/risks for holding platforms accountable/demand transparency). Let’s work together on this, to finally get the transparency that is appropriate for the role those platforms play in our societies!

Thanks Fabian!

Thanks Frithjof!

Thanks Curd!

PhD Thesis submitted!
"Complex Dynamics in Digital News Ecosystems: Collaboration and Imitation in the Age of AI"

Grateful. Relieved. Maybe even a little bit proud.

#complexity #AI #news #platforms
@ddc-sdu.bsky.social

Building and directing a Digital Democracy Centre @ddc-sdu.bsky.social has never felt more important.

Democracy is under pressure, digital technologies changing.

In all of this, working with kind, talented young scholars on this mission is a privilege.

Spending 24 hrs in each other’s company ☀️ ❤️

It's research retreat time at the DDC!
We've travelled to Nyborg by the sea to talk about research programs and spend time with our fellows and invited guests.
Follow this thread for more impressions.

Left to right: Patricia Bianca Lyk Lynge Asbjørn Møller André Rodarte Hannah Decker Emil Bakkensen Johansen Sofie Filstrup Rasmus W. Schmøkel Hannes Cools

𝟴 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗗𝗖!
At just over 3 years young, the Digital Democracy Centre is a newly established research hub.
What gives it its current shape are the people who work here.
We are therefore delighted to have been able to hire 5 new Postdoctoral Researchers coming in this Summer.
...

Autonomous AI imitators increase diversity in homogeneous information ecosystems Recent breakthroughs in large language models (LLMs) have facilitated autonomous AI agents capable of imitating human-generated content. This technological advancement raises fundamental questions abo...

For more analysis and nuance, read our preprint here: arxiv.org/abs/2503.16021

Any comments and feedback are most welcome! Please reach out💬

We also find the AI-generated articles are distinct from the human-written ones – yet are rather similar to each other.

We therefore envision LLMs as “gravity wells" that can, dependening on the initial structure of information, both compress and disperse articles in similarity space.