Hello! I am a Walter Benjamin research associate (postdoctoral fellow) in the Department of Media and Communication (IfKW) at LMU Munich, Germany.

My long-standing research focus centers on the (de)politicization, platformization, datafication, and algorithmization of global humanitarian crisis mediation through a comparative media systems perspective. I am currently leading a project, funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), which applies computational methods to investigate journalistic practices during global refugee crises.

My work has been published or accepted in peer-reviewed journals, including the International Journal of Communication, International Communication Gazette, Media, Culture & Society, Journalism, and the European Journal of Communication. I have also undertaken computational methodology training at the Data and Simulation Science Center of the University of Cologne and the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute. Furthermore, I serve as a reviewer for various academic journals, international conferences, and the Czech Science Foundation (GACR).

Prior to joining LMU Munich, I completed my Ph.D. at the University of Cologne (my dissertation is available via open access here), a master’s degree in media studies in the UK, and dual bachelor’s degrees in media technology engineering in China.

Feel free to reach me via email: zhe.xu@ifkw.lmu.de 

Interests

• Crisis Communication

• Media Systems

• Computational Methods