Melanie Saumer, BA BA MSc
Predoctoral Researcher
Project: Social Media Use and Adolescents' Well-Being
Währinger Straße 29 (R. 7.43), 1090 Vienna
✆ +43-1-4277-49397
✉ melanie.saumer@univie.ac.at
Consultation: Based upon prior agreement
Melanie Saumer is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna since September 2021. Before that, she worked at the department as a teaching assistant within the AdMe research group for four years.
She studied Communication Science at the University of Vienna (MSc, 2021), and holds a BA in Political Science (University of Vienna, 2020) and a BA in Journalism and Communication Science (University of Vienna, 2019).
Her research interests include media psychology, (political) paticipation through Citizen Science, and how anti-LGBTQIA+ digital hate speech affects bystanders and targets.
Awards & Acknowledgements
- 2024, September/October
Short-Term Grant Abroad (KWA) of the University of Vienna for a research stay at the University of Maryland, Department of Psychology (Host: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ethan Mereish)
- 2024, August
Third Place Top Paper Award for the paper The dark side of the rainbow: A mobile experience study on community members' exposure frequency and processing of LGBTQIA+-directed digital hostility, Communication Theory and Methodology Division, Open Call Competition, AEJMC annual convention, Philadelphia, PA, USA (co-authors of Kevin Koban & Jörg Matthes)
- 2023, August
Second Place Top Paper Award for the paper The state of evidence in digital hate research: An umbrella review, Communication Theory and Methodology Division, Open Paper Competition, AEJMC annual convention, Washington, D.C., USA (as a co-author of Jörg Matthes, Kevin Koban, Stephanie Bührer, Thomas Kirchmair, Phelia Weiß, Maryam Khaleghipour, & Rinat Meerson).
- 2022, November
Research Award (1st place, together with Kevin Koban), Department of Communication, University of Vienna, for the project Online hostility to go: An eye-tracking study on the impact of the reception situation on bystanders' processing of anti-LGBTQIA+ social media comments.
- Top Faculty Award for the paper Do journalists differentiate between Muslims and Islamist terrorists? A content analysis of terrorism news coverage, Journalism Studies Division, ICA annual convention, Washington, D.C., USA (co-authors: Christian von Sikorski, Desirée Schmuck, Jörg Matthes, Claudia Klobasa, Helena Knupfer).