Project duration: 2025–2026. Research project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
The aim of the Com-DS project is to anchor the community data trust AVERA more firmly in the research community and make it more visible. AVAERA is the “Akteur*innenverzeichnis zur Erforschung der Verbreitung digitaler rechtsextremer und -radikaler Aktivitäten, Radikalisierungsprozesse, Narrative und Diskurse” and records actors with links to far-right political online communication and their social media accounts, primarily in Germany.
Three teams that are particularly prominent in research on the online activities of right-wing extremist actors and networks are involved in the project as data partners. The project led by Prof. Dr. Heft and Dr. Jost contributes compiled data on Telegram usage by politicians, political parties, and institutions from 31 countries and thus supports the development of AVERA's data basis.
The project is a cooperation between the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences Mannheim, the Social Media Observatory at the Hans Bredow Institute Hamburg, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, the Amadeu Antonio Foundation - Institute for Democracy and Civil Society Jena, the University of Tübingen and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
The joint sub-project of the University of Tübingen and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz is led cooperatively by the Principal Investigators Dr. Pablo Jost and Prof. Dr. Annett Heft.
