Katrin Herms | Associate Postgraduate

The State, Political Norms and Political Conflicts
Centre Marc Bloch, Friedrichstraße 191, D-10117 Berlin
Email: katrin.herms  ( at )  cmb.hu-berlin.de Tel: +49(0) 30 / 20 93 70700

Home Institution : Faculté des sciences sociales et politiques, Université de Lausanne | Position : PhD Candidate | Disciplines : Sociology |

Biography

Katrin Herms is preparing her PhD in sociology at the University of Lausanne under the supervision of Laurence Kaufmann and Francesca Musiani. From 2020 to 2023, she worked for the ERC project "Socsemics" on several case studies investigating the possible existence of digital echo chambers. This research activity was funded by CNRS and hosted at the Center Marc Bloch. Since December 2023 she is associate postgraduate and active member of the research focus "The State, Political Norms and Political Conflicts".

Katrin holds a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from TU Dortmund University and a trinational Master's degree in Cross-Border Communication and Cooperation Studies from the Universities of Saarbrücken, Metz and Luxembourg. Before starting her doctoral thesis, Katrin worked as a freelance journalist (e.g. for Deutsche Welle, WDR and SR2 Kulturradio) and organized and designed the International Youth Volunteer Service with francophone partners at the German Red Cross for several years. Her dissertation project deals with polarization tendencies and solidarity in the Corona debate in Germany and France.

Katrin is former Research Fellow in the group on "Digital News Dynamics" at Weizenbaum Institute Berlin. In winter term 2023/24 she was a lecturer for Social Theory in the department of General Sociology and Cultural Sociology headed by Prof. Dr. Andreas Reckwitz at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In the opening semester 2024/25 she teaches Digital Cultures at Sciences Po Médialab, Campus Reims. Katrin is also a member of the "Collectif d'Étude des Discours sur l'Écologismeen France" of the LabEx SMS, Université Toulouse.

Title of thesis
Polarization and solidarity in the context of crisis: an interdisciplinary study of online and offline mobilization during the Corona pandemic.
Summary of thesis

Motivated by the widely discussed question of whether the Covid-19 pandemic has increased social polarization, this thesis comprises three case studies, including (1) participant observation and field interviews with street activists in Germany and France, (2) a qualitative and quantitative digital discourse analysis of news reception in French-language citation chains on Twitter, the methodology of which was developed as part of the ERC project "Socsemics" at the Centre Marc Bloch, and (3) an approach to study the self-presentation of the most influential user profiles with intermediary positions in digital news chains.

Institution of thesis
Fakulté des sciences sociales et politiques, Université de Lausanne
Supervisor
Laurence Kaufmann, Francesca Musiani
Organisation of Events

20.2.2024

“Let the data talk to you!” – Interakctive Workshop on collective data analysis based on "grounded theory", Centre Marc Bloch Berlin (CMB), (in cooperation with Sanja Beronja)

- Introduction into "grounded theory"

- Presentation of two PhD Projects und their empirical material (interviews and tweets)

- Collective Analysis of material excerpts followed by a discussion with the discourse linguist Johannes Dahm

10.5.2023

Computational Social Science Seminar with Felix Gaisbauer, CMB. Program: https://cmb.hu-berlin.de/kalender/termin/css-seminar-felix-gaisbauer-voice-and-silence-in-public-debate-on-twitter-and-a-glimpse-beyond

12.-14.10.2022

International Conference: Social imaginaries in times of crisis, CMB (in cooperation with Jérémie Therond and Frederic Guillaume Gass Quintero). Program: https://cmb.hu-berlin.de/kalender/termin/jungesforum-2022-das-imaginaere-in-kisenzeiten. Call for Papers: https://cmb.hu-berlin.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Call_JungesForum_Oktober-dt.pdfhttps://cmb.hu-berlin.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Call_JungesForum_Oktober-dt.pdf

16.5.2022

Workshop on audio-visual methods in the social sciences, CMB (in cooperation with Sarah Kiani)

-Discussion of two PhD projects, film projection of two documentaries and discussion with the film directors. Program: https://cmb.hu-berlin.de/fr/agenda/evenement/laurent-van-lancker-kales-mariana-diaz-thibaud-sauvegean-voyage-autour-des-sciences

08/2020 – 07/2021

Organisation of the doctoral seminar at CMB (in cooperation with Paula Seidel). Animation and organisation of the bi-weekly ciecle in 3 areas:

- Presentation training for doctoral candidates

- Workshops and further training in the field of scientific work

- post-doctoral perspectives

07/2020 – 06/2021

Organisation of the computational social science team meetings, CMB

2020-2021

Organisation of a monthly Python Tutorial at CMB : self-organized learning and training of the programming software with collegues

Polarization and solidarity in the context of crisis: an interdisciplinary study of online and offline mobilization during the Corona pandemic.

Motivated by the widely discussed question of whether the Covid-19 pandemic has increased social polarization, this thesis comprises three case studies, including (1) participant observation and field interviews with street activists in Germany and France, (2) a qualitative and quantitative digital discourse analysis of news reception in French-language citation chains on Twitter, the methodology of which was developed as part of the ERC project "Socsemics" at the Centre Marc Bloch, and (3) an approach to study the self-presentation of the most influential user profiles with intermediary positions in digital news chains.

Rethinking Governance in Times of Multiple Crises

July 10, 2024

Ulrike Zeigermann , Friedemann Melcher , Gabriel Bartl , Katrin Herms , Judith Nora Hardt , Sebastian Suttner, Mara Linden, Raffaele Alberto Ventura, Anselm Vogler, Alex Stanley, Theresa Zimmermann, Sofia Kabbej

Edition: HAL SHS

https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04643847v1

The publication stems from a workshop that sought to critically rethink governance in times of multiple crises by assessing the crisis responses of political decision- makers, scientific experts and society at large in the context of climate change and pandemics. The workshop was funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and the Franco-German Research Center for Social Sciences and Humanities Centre Marc Bloch (CMB) and it was organized in cooperation with Sciences Po, Paris. It brought together scholars from different academic traditions in an interdisciplinary and interactive work environment to exchange theoretical, conceptual and methodological approaches to researching multiple crises.


Publications

Herms, K. & Lehmann, J. (in press). Seeing Like a Field? In: Hoggenmüller, Sebastian W. (Ed). (2024). Big Visual Data as a New Form of Knowledge (Special Issue der Schweizerischen Zeitschrift für Soziologie). Zürich: Seismo Verlag.

Bartl, G., Hardt, J., Suttner, S., Linden, M., Ventura, R., Vogler, A., Stanley, A., Zeigermann, U., Herms, K., Zimmermann, T., Kabbej, S., Melcher, F. (2024). Rethinking Governance in Times of Multiple Crises. Vigoni Paper 5/2023. C. Liermann Traniello, M. Scotto, F. Zilio (Ed.). Loveno di Menaggio: Villa Vigoni Editore. https://www.villavigoni.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Vigoni-Papers-2023_5.pdf

Roth, C., St-Onge, J., & Herms, K. (2022). Quoting is not Citing: Disentangling Affiliation and Interaction on Twitter. In R. M. Benito, C. Cherifi, H. Cherifi, E. Moro, L. M. Rocha, & M. Sales-Pardo (Eds.), Complex Networks & Their Applications X (pp. 705–717). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93409-5_58

Herms, K. (2018). Digitale Kollaboration. Rechtspopulismus und Social-Media-Kommunikation in Deutschland und Frankreich: Eine Analyse am Beispiel der Pegida-Bewegung und des Front National. In J. Montemayor Gracia, V. Neusius, & C. Polzin-Haumann (Eds.), Digitalkulturen/Cultures numériques. Herausforderungen und interdisziplinäre Forschungsperspektiven/Enjeux et perspectives interdisciplinaires. (pp. 157–182). transcript-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839442159-009.