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Dr. Marco Wähner

Post-Doc/Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

Marco Wähner

Marco Wähner is a Research Associate in the Research Data & Methods department and has been leading the team on an interim basis since May 2024. He supports researchers in various phases of the research process, especially in data collection and analysis. He is also involved in organising workshops and developing formats for research data management. Marco Wähner successfully defended his PhD in Sociology at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf in June 2024. Previously, he was a research assistant at the Department of Sociology and a doctoral candidate at the NRW Research School ‘Online Participation’ (both at HHU).

His research interests include methods of empirical social research, computational methods and issues of political sociology. In his doctoral thesis, he examined the motives for political participation on the Internet..

Curriculum vitae

  • Since May 2024: Provisional Head of the Research Data & Methods Team
  • Since March 2022: Research Associate at CAIS in the Research Data & Methods Team
  • Since January 2019: Research Associate at the Institute for Social Sciences / Chair of Sociology 2 at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf and PhD Candidate at the NRW Research Centre ‘Online Participation
  • 2019: Master (M.A.) in Social Sciences at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf
  • 2015 – 2018 Student/Research Assistant at the Department of Computer Science and the Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy (DIID)

  • Wähner, M. (2025), Dark Web. In Nai, A., Grömping, M., & Wirz, D. (Eds). Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication. Edward Elgar Publishing. Accepted version.

  • Wähner, M., Deubel, A., Breuer, J., & Weller, K. (2024). “Don’t research us”—How Mastodon instance rules connect to research ethics. Publizistik, 69(3), 357–380. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11616-024-00855-6

  • Masch, L., Kieslich, K., Huseljić, K., Wähner, M., & Neef, J.-S. (2021). R – Ein Einführungsskript. Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. DOI: 10.24337/00001

  • Niederelz, C., Nguyen, P. , Wähner, M., Frieß, D., Becker, M., Braun, A. & Stodden, R. (2022). Die Corona-Pandemie als Katalysator der Verwaltungsdigitalisierung? Ergebnisse einer Befragungsstudie in Kommunalverwaltungen in NRW. Verwaltung & Management, 28(4), 186-192, https://doi.org/10.5771/0947-9856-2022-4-186

  • Wähner, M. (2023, September). “Don’t Research Us“– What Mastodon Instance Rules Say About Scientific Practices. Jahrestagung der Fachgruppe Methoden der DGPuK: Das Zusammenspiel von Methodik und Forschungsethik in der Kommunikations- und Medienforschung in Potsdam.

  • Wähner, M. & Breuer, J. (2024, Juli). Beyond Twitter: Data Ethics in the Decentralized Social Media Landscape. The Case of Mastodon Instance Rules. Vortrag auf der Social Media & Society Konferenz in London (Panel: Digital Methods).

  • Wähner, M.; Deubel, A.; Breuer, J. & Weller, K. (2024, März). Collecting and Archiving Mastodon Data – Ethical Enquiries on Decentralized Networks. Vortrag auf der DNB Tagung Nachhaltige Archivierung sozialer Medien – Twitter und danach in Frankfurt am Main.

  • Deubel, A. & Wähner, M. (2022, November). Spuren im Netz – Was Social Media-Daten anderen über uns verraten. Bundesweite Aktionstage „Netzpolitik & Demokratie“. Sächsische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung (online). 

  • Huseljić, K. & Wähner, M. (2021, März). Implementing a “Strong Democracy” on a local level. The Role of Incentives and Local Participation for Legitimacy Beliefs. Local Politics. Political Studies Association (PSA), Belfast (online).

  • Wähner, M. (2020, November). Political Online Participation at the Local Level. Revisiting the challenges of democratic inclusion in theory & practice, Zürich (online).

  • Wähner, M. & Huseljić, K. (2020, Juli). All politics is local. Resources, incentives and the likelihood for political online participation in top down procedures. Participatory Governance: How Participatory Systems Interact with Representative Institutions. Political Studies Association (PSA), Edinburgh (online).

Dr. Marco Wähner

Post-Doc/Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

E-Mail: marco.waehner@cais-research.de

Bereich: Research Data and Methods
CAIS Team