For the interdisciplinary workshop “Digitalization and Democracy: Shared Perspectives in Empirical Research,” organized by the Bertelsmann Foundation together with Jasmin Riedl (University of the Bundeswehr Munich), Philipp Lorenz-Spreen (Technical University of Dresden), and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, leading German experts in social media research came together on November 7, 2025. Among the invited participants were Prof. Dr. Johannes Breuer, head of the Research Data & Methods team at CAIS, as well as Prof. Dr. Isabelle Borucki (University of Marburg), Prof. Dr. Curd Knüpfer (University of Southern Denmark), Prof. Dr. Judith Möller (Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institute), and Prof. Dr. Alexander Wuttke (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich).
The workshop focused on questions such as: What influence do social media have on democratic processes? Which connections are empirically established, and which remain hypothetical? The goal of the one-day meeting was to consolidate the current state of research, identify gaps, and explore ways to strengthen networking within the research field. The next step will be to consolidate the results together with the research community and prepare them for policymakers.