The “Research Data & Methods” team at CAIS – consisting of Prof. Dr. Johannes Breuer, Dr. Marco Wähner, Ahrabhi Kathirgamalingam, and the two student assistants Melanie Helmig, and Hanna Vogel – supports researchers throughout all phases of the research process. The team guides and helps researchers through all steps of the research process: from methodological planning to data collection and analysis, all the way to the publication of articles, data, and other outputs. It also develops concepts and materials for data management and the use of research methods and tools, thereby actively contributing to excellent and innovative research at CAIS. In addition, the team members conduct research on methodological as well as substantive topics related to the study of digitalization.
As of September 1, Prof. Johannes Breuer has taken over the leadership of the team. Together with Dr. Marco Wähner, who most recently served as acting head, we spoke with him about developments, challenges, and next steps.
Johannes, with your appointment, you are returning to CAIS in a way. What has changed in the area of digital data & methods over the past few years?
Johannes: The development of data and methods in our field is almost as dynamic as the media landscape itself. Platforms evolve, emerge, or disappear. Examples include Facebook, Twitter/X, Snapchat, and TikTok. Alongside the platforms, the data they generate and access to that data have also changed. While there are huge amounts of so-called digital trace data that are very interesting for digitalization research, accessing them is often not easy. Furthermore, important questions arise regarding the quality and handling of such data. Once we have the data, the next question is how to analyze it meaningfully. Here too, new methods and tools constantly appear. Keeping up and maintaining an overview can be a real challenge for researchers. With the emergence of generative AI and large language models (LLMs), this development in methods and tools has accelerated even further in recent years.
Johannes and Marco, what are the biggest challenges you are currently facing? How do you plan to tackle them?
Johannes: On the one hand, these are the questions around data access mentioned earlier. The Digital Services Act (DSA), and in particular its Article 40, promises significant improvements for researchers, but many questions remain open – for example, regarding the concrete implementation of access or the quality of the data. In our field of work, the rapid pace of change poses a central challenge. This is especially true for technological developments and the transformations taking place at large platforms, particularly in the area of social media. The processes and time horizons in major tech companies are fundamentally different from those in politics and academia. In that sense, we face a speed disadvantage – but one that is necessary, since scientific research requires time, accuracy, and care. The especially rapid developments in the field of AI intensify this challenge. New models and tools are being released literally every day, while older ones quickly become obsolete. These developments also raise important questions around research ethics. With the resources available to us, we try as a team to “keep up” with these issues and to share our knowledge with researchers at CAIS and beyond. At the same time, we also deal with current methodological and research-ethical questions in our own research.
Marco: The demands on researchers are steadily increasing, particularly when it comes to collecting and analyzing data. At an interdisciplinary research institute like CAIS, scholars work with a wide range of data types – from interview data and ethnographic notes to large datasets, for example from social media. This requires a sustainable approach to handling data and places new demands on researchers. We therefore continually ask ourselves: how can data or developed tools be securely preserved and made available for reuse in the long term? In this regard, we support researchers throughout the entire research process. Developing shared standards and routines in an interdisciplinary context is certainly a challenge, but also an opportunity to strengthen certain principles at the institute – such as open science. This relates not only to quality assurance; transparency and openness can also foster trust in research. And strengthening trust in science is certainly a pressing challenge today.
Johannes & Marco, what are you most looking forward to in working with the team?
Marco: It feels a bit like “Back to the Future,” because we already did great work on CAIS with the previous team and were able to establish ourselves in the research landscape of digital data and methods. We have always discussed things openly and from different perspectives, and that’s something I’m now looking forward to as well: having the space to reflect on which data and which methods will shape the future of digitalization research.
Johannes: I fully agree. I am very happy to be back at CAIS and that the institute provides space to research digital data and methods and to develop innovative, needs-based services for researchers. I am especially looking forward to collaborating with people in existing and upcoming research programs and other departments at CAIS.