Study
People
Alessandro Nai
University of Amsterdam
Principal Investigator
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Associate Professor of Political Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on the dark side of political communication, voting behaviour, political psychology, and campaign effects.
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Gabriele Bossi
University of Amsterdam
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Research Master's student in Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam. His research interests are populism, the far right, political communication, and political psychology.
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Personal website
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Max Grömping
Griffith University
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Senior Lecturer at the School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University. He studies lobbying in democracies and autocracies, disinformation, political trust, and electoral integrity.
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Julia Reiter
University of Vienna
Post Doc researcher at the Social and Economic Psychology group; University of Vienna. Her research focuses on political psychology, political development in adolescence and emerging adulthood, spanning from activism and collective action to radicalization, intergroup conflict and experiences of marginalization.
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Chiara Vargiu
University of Amsterdam
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Chiara Vargiu is a postdoctoral researcher with the Research Priority Area (RPA) “Conflict & Society” at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR). From April 2026, she is Assistant Professor of Political Communication at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. Her research focuses on how people process and react to hostile political communication, why they sometimes find it acceptable, and with what consequences for democratic functioning.
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William L Allen
University of Oxford
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British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, and Nuffield College, Oxford. HIs research focuses on how people engage with information about political and economic issues, particularly through digital and visual media.
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Mark Boukes
University of Amsterdam
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Associate Professor at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on media effects, journalism, and infotainment (e.g., narratives, soft news, political satire, talk shows), and the coverage and effects of economic news.
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Alice Hamilton
Wageningen University & Research
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PhD Candidate at the Strategic Communication Group at Wageningen University & Research. Her research focuses on the consequences of discontent frames such as the (accusations of) disinformation, populist communication styles and incivility in political communication.
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Email​​
Stuart J. Turnbull-Dugarte
University of Southampton
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Associate Professor of Quantitative Political Science at the University of Southampton. His research applies experimental and quasi-experimental research designs to understand LGBTQ+ politics, political behaviour and far-right parties.
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Fabio Votta
University of Amsterdam
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Postdoc researcher at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam who studies (online) political microtargeting and its usage around the world. Very passionate about data visualization and communicating insights from data to a broader audience.
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Isabelle Borucki
Philipps-University Marburg
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Professor of political science methods and democracy in digital transformation, a member of the Marburg Center for Digital Culture and Infrastructure (MCDCI). Isabelle researches political organisations, esp. political parties, comparative politics, and information technology, focusing on methodological integration and dialogue.
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Elena Escalante-Block
Australian National University
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Elena Escalante-Block is currently HDR Convenor and Braithwaite Research Fellow at RegNet, the Australian National University. Her current research examines the relationship between communication, regulatory governance, and public trust.
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Helena Hartmann
University Hospital Essen
Psychologist, neuroscientist and science communicator at the University Hospital Essen in Germany. She conducts research on how our positive and negative expectations affect the success of medical treatments, the role of our own pain processing for empathy and prosociality, and what happens in the brain during these processes.
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Simon van Baal
University of Leeds
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Assistant Professor at the Analytics, Technology, and Operations Department, Leeds University Business School. He uses mixed methods and natural language-based approaches for descriptive decision-making research.
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