Prof. Dr. Annett Heft

Since October 2024, Dr. Annett Heft has held the professorship for far right extremism research with a focus on media and public spheres at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Tübingen and heads the Media and Public Spheres division. In addition, she chairs the thematic cluster “Far right extremist discourse, media and strategies in public spheres” and is part of the collaborative institute leadership.

In her research, Annett Heft is interested in the comparative study of political communication and mobilization in Europe with a particular focus on the digital communication of right-wing populist and far right media, movements, and parties, as well as on processes of political mobilization in anti-democratic movements. Her research is characterized by comparative designs and the combination of established procedures of empirical social research with research methods of computational social science.

Annett Heft, Dr. Phil., is a communication scientist and received her doctorate from Freie Universität Berlin in 2014. After holding various positions at Freie Universität Berlin, she was head of the research group “Digitalization and the Transnational Public Sphere” at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society in Berlin from 2017 to 2022. Since 2022, she has been the research group lead of the research group “Dynamics of Digital Mobilization” at the Weizenbaum Institute.

From 2022 to 2024, Annett Heft has been Principal Investigator in the research consortium "NEOVEX - Patterns and Dynamics of Conspiracy Theories and Right-Wing Ideologies in Times of Crisis" at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies at the Free University of Berlin. Here, she led the sub-project “Diffusion dynamics of conspiracy theories and adaptation strategies in hybrid information ecologies (DIFFCONT)”.

Current information on ongoing and completed research projects can be found on the website of the Research Unit Media and Public Spheres.

• Digital communication of right-wing populist and right-wing extremist media, movements and parties
• Processes of political mobilization by anti-democratic movements
• Political communication and mobilization in Europe with a focus on digital public spheres
• Disinformation and conspiracy theories in dissonant networked public spheres
• Quantitative research methods and computational social science

Schindler, J., Jha, S., Zhang, X., Buehling, K., Heft, A., & Barahona, M. (2025). LGDE: Local Graph-based Dictionary Expansion. Computational Linguistics, 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1162/coli_a_00562

Buehling, K., Zhang, X., & Heft, A. (2025). Veiled conspiracism: Particularities and convergence in the styles and functions of conspiracy-related communication across digital platforms. New Media & Society, 14614448251315756. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251315756

Hall, N., Heft, A., & Vaughan, M. (2024). Copycats? Do Right-Wing Groups Emulate Left-Wing Digital Advocacy Organizations? Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2024.2414888

Schindler, D. J., Jha, S., Zhang, X., Buehling, K., Heft, A., & Barahona, M. (2024). LGDE: Local Graph-based Dictionary Expansion. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2405.07764

Pfetsch, B., Benert, V., & Heft, A. (2024). Same, same but different? Explaining issue agendas of right-wing parties’ Facebook campaigns to the 2019 EP election. Party Politics, 30(5), 838–848. https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688231184624

Heft, A., Bühling, K., Zhang, X., Schindler, D., & Milzner, M. (2024). Challenges of and approaches to data collection across platforms and time: Conspiracy-related digital traces as examples of political contention. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 21(3), 323–339. https://doi.org/10.1080/19331681.2023.2250779

Jost, P., Heft, A., Buehling, K., Zehring, M., Schulze, H., Bitzmann, H., & Domahidi, E. (2023). Mapping a dark space: Challenges in sampling and classifying non-institutionalized actors in Telegram. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 71(3–4), 212–229. https://doi.org/10.5771/1615-634X-2023-3–4-212

Heft, A., Ramsland, T., & Mayerhöffer, E. (2023). Right topic, right source? Source diversity and balance in right-wing alternative news content across topics. Journalism Studies, 237–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2294362

Knüpfer, C., Schwemmer, C., & Heft, A. (2023). Politicization and Right-wing Normalization on YouTube: A Topic-based Analysis of the ‘Alternative Influence Network’. International Journal of Communication, 17, 6718–6740. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/20369

Buehling, K., & Heft, A. (2023). Pandemic protesters on Telegram: How platform affordances and information ecosystems shape digital counterpublics. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231199430

Reinhardt, S., Heft, A. & Pavan, E. (2023). Varieties of antigenderism: the politicization of gender issues across three European populist radical right parties. Information, Communication & Society, 1273–1294. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2023.2246536

Heft, A., Jünger, J., Niemann-Lenz, J., & Possler, D. (2023). Die Nationale Forschungs-dateninfrastruktur – eine Lösung infrastruktureller Bedarfe für die Inhaltsanalyse? Publizistik, online first. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11616-023-00789-5

Trenz, H.-J., Heft, A., Vaughan, M., & Pfetsch, B. (2023). Resiliencia de las esferas públicas en la crisis sanitaria mundial. Revista de la Asociación Española de Investigación de la Comunicación, 10(19), 2–21. https://doi.org/10.24137/raeic.10.19.1

Heft, A., Pfetsch, B., Voskresenskii, V., & Benert, V. (2023). Transnational issue agendas of the radical right? Parties’ Facebook campaign communication in six countries during the 2019 European Parliament election. European Journal of Communication, 38(1), 22–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231221100146

Strippel, C., Laugwitz, L., Paasch-Colberg, S., Esau, K., & Heft, A. (2022). BRAT Rapid Annotation Tool. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 70(4), 446–461.

Heft, A., Reinhardt, S., & Pfetsch, B. (2022). Mobilization and support structures in radical right party networks. Digital political communication ecologies in the 2019 European parliament elections. Information, Communication & Society, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2129269

Heft, A., & Buehling, K. (2022). Measuring the diffusion of conspiracy theories in digital information ecologies. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 28(4), 940–961. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221091809

Mayerhöffer, E., & Heft, A. (2022). Between Journalistic and Movement Logic: Disentangling Referencing Practices of Right-Wing Alternative Online News Media. Digital Journalism, 10(8), 1409–1430. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1974915

Vaughan, M., & Heft, A. (2022). Anti‐elitism in the European Radical Right in Comparative Perspective. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, Online First. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13347

Heft, A., Pfetsch, B., Voskresenskii, V., & Benert, V. (2022). Transnational issue agendas of the radical right? Parties’ Facebook campaign communication in six countries during the 2019 European Parliament election. European Journal of Communication, online first. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231221100146

Heft, A., & Baack, S. (2022). Cross-bordering journalism: How intermediaries of change drive the adoption of new practices. Journalism, 23(11), 2328–2346. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884921999540

Trenz, H.-J., Heft, A., Vaughan, M., & Pfetsch, B. (2021). Resilience of Public Spheres in a Global Health Crisis. Javnost – The Public, 28(2), 111–128. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2021.1919385

McSwiney, J., Vaughan, M., Heft, A., & Hoffmann, M. (2021). Sharing the hate? Memes and transnationality in the far right’s digital visual culture. Information, Communication & Society, 24(16), 2502–2521. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1961006

Heft, A. (2021). Transnational Journalism Networks “From Below”. Cross-Border Journalistic Collaboration in Individualized Newswork. Journalism Studies, 22(4), 454–474. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2021.1882876

Heft, A., Knüpfer, C., Reinhardt, S., & Mayerhöffer, E. (2021). Toward a Transnational Information Ecology on the Right? Hyperlink Networking among Right-Wing Digital News Sites in Europe and the United States. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 26(2), 484–504. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161220963670

Heft, A., Mayerhöffer, E., Reinhardt, S., & Knüpfer, C. (2020). Beyond Breitbart: Comparing Right‐Wing Digital News Infrastructures in Six Western Democracies. Policy & Internet, 12(1), 20–45. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.219