Philipp Kessling

Philipp Kessling serves as a Junior Researcher in Computational Social Science at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research │Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) since June 2021, contributing to projects including “Platform Governance in the Super Election Year 2021” and the NOTORIOUS research initiative on disinformation campaigns. Concurrently, he has worked at the Department of Information, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW), within the Competence Center Communication under Prof. Dr. Christian Stöcker since 2017.

His academic background includes a Master of Arts in communication design and time-based media from Hamburg-based studies. This foundation supports his technical and creative approach to media research.

Kessling’s research centers on computational social science methodologies applied to network analysis and social media ecosystems, with specialized focus on immersive media production techniques. His work investigates misinformation patterns, celebrity influence in disinformation spread, and cross-platform data acquisition frameworks, often leveraging the Social Media Observatory (SMO) infrastructure he helped develop.

As part of HBI’s Media Research Methods Lab and HAW’s Competence Center Communication, he develops open-science tools for social media monitoring. Current projects include analyzing “Babies and toddlers as family influencers” on Instagram/TikTok/YouTube and maintaining a public Twitter dataset tracking Ukraine war discourse. His collaborative work extends to partnerships with institutions like the Institute for Strategic Dialogue Germany on climate misinformation research.