Anna Kerkhof

Dr. Anna Kerkhof is a researcher at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich specializing in the economics of social media, with primary focus on hate speech dynamics, political polarization, and misinformation spread.

Her research employs dual-method approaches: large-scale observational analysis of 7 million German online forum comments to identify hate speech contagion patterns and topic vulnerabilities, coupled with field experiments on Twitter and Reddit testing interventions like automated counter-speech and cross-ideological encounters. She investigates how political events (notably the AfD party's emergence) reshape political discourse while developing media literacy training and fact-checking efficacy studies to combat misinformation.