Aleksandra UrmanView profile
Researcher
Aleksandra Urman serves as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Social Computing Group within the Department of Informatics, Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics at the University of Zurich. Her position bridges computational methodologies with social science inquiry to investigate digital political landscapes. Her academic credentials include a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Bern (2020), a Master's in Political Science from Central European University (Budapest), and a BA in Asian Studies from the Higher School of Economics (Moscow). This interdisciplinary background informs her approach to analyzing online political behavior. Urman's research specializes in computational political communication with emphases on polarization mechanisms, authoritarian regime tactics, far-right group dynamics, and algorithmic bias in search systems. She employs large-scale data analysis to examine how digital platforms shape political discourse, including studies of Telegram far-right communities, cross-national Twitter polarization, and Russian social media dynamics. Her methodology combines web tracking, content analysis, and cross-platform comparison to audit information ecosystems. Recent publications reveal a concentrated focus on algorithm auditing across search engines and social media, particularly examining generative AI's impact on news consumption, visual representation of historical events, and misinformation patterns during elections. Key trends include cross-lingual comparisons of AI guardrails, longitudinal analysis of search result consistency, and cross-national studies of user trust in algorithmic systems. As an active contributor to the University of Zurich's Digital Society Initiative, Urman participates in multiple research communities including DSI Communication, DSI Democracy, and DSI Cybersecurity. Her work involves collaborations across disciplines to address societal challenges in digital governance and platform accountability.




