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I am an Assistant Professor [Permanent] of Digital Humanities and Media at Groningen University, at the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies. My research examines the role of political visuals in the informational landscape of the digital world, employing methodological creativity and an interdisciplinary mindset. Situated at the intersection of digital culture, political science, visual communication, and digital humanities, my work focuses on information wayfinding, evaluation, learning, and manipulation, with an emphasis on data visualizations and the role of identity in learning from visuals. My work addresses a broad audience and discsiplines, and was published in esteemed venues such as New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, Digital Journalism, Convergence, Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, and the International Journal of Cultural Policy.
I completed my PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of Prof. Limor Shifman. I then held research positions on several externally funded projects: I joined the ERC-funded PROFECI project as a postdoctoral fellow, studying the social dynamics of public projections in the context of COVID-19. In 2021 I was named the inaugural Digital Communication and Society Fellow at Leipzig University (hosted by Prof. Christian Pentzold), and in late 2022 I joined Groningen's Centre for Media and Journalism Studies as a Postdoctoral Researcher, to execute "Learning or Aligning", a project on the reception dynamics of digital political visualizations. The first portion of this work was supported by the Israeli Science Foundation's Postdoctoral Fellowship for Social Scientists. In September 2024, I began working as a [tenured] Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities and Media at Groningen University.
My ongoing works tackle the reception of political visualizations, the role of identity in political learning from visuals, trust-related patterns of reaction to visualizations, the weaponization of (visual) disinformation as gendered violence, self-visualization of political stances and their algorithmic mediation through voting aids, and the informational way-finding strategies of elderly digital users. As you can see, I keep things busy and varied. If you think I’d be interested in collaboration, please drop me a line!
In my non-academic life, I am a musician, a design enthusiast, a swifty, and a mom. That last one is recent.
[I am on parental leave with limited availability until August 2026]
Recent Publications
co-creation of covid 19 Projections
Digital Journalism, 2024 >>> As postdoctoral research fellow at PROFECI, I lead a project studying the co-production of projections across media and actors, tracing how and when experts’ informational offerings turn into pandemic projections. Presented at APSA 2021, ICA 2022, and AoIR 2022. Coauthored with the PROFECI team.
Qualitative Analysis | Future-Projections | PROFECI
Infographics: A polcomm definition
Encyclopedia of Political Communication, 2024 >>> This entry introduces the main conceptual, theoretical, and empirical avenues of research on infographics in political domains, with particular emphasis on issues arising from their use in digital contexts. First, we locate infographics within the larger field of visual political communication, and then distinguish them from the related mode of data visualization. Then, we identify major lines of research into the forms, production, consumption, political impacts, circulation patterns, and veracity of infographics. Finally, we highlight how questions of power run through political examinations of infographics, and illustrate this with reference to the domains of categorization, elections and campaigning, policymaking, and social movements. Written with Dr. William L. Allen (Oxford University), for the Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication (Edward Elgar Publishing), edited by Allesandron Nai, Max Grömping, and Dominique Wirz.
A Holistic analytical framework for predictive visualizations
Convergence, 2024 >>> Together with Prof. Christian Pentzold (Leipzig University), we combine existing analytical frameworks into a new, combined model that encapsulates the journalistic, visual, and predictive viewpoints (developed as part of the Digital Communication and Society Fellowship, at the University of Leipzig, June-July 2022). Presented at AoIR 2022. Coauthored with Prof. Christian Pentzold, and Nik Maurice Krämer.
VISUAL FUTURE DISCOURSE IN israeli ELECTIONS
First Monday, 2023 >>> Alongside co-author Tali Aharoni, striving to analyze the manner in which visuals allow candidates to discuss possible futures in elections. We employ qualitative content analysis to define and contrast different future-visuals are used by candidates throughout two successive elections in Israel, 2019. Presented at AoIR2020 (held virtually), October 2020. Award: “most engaging visuals video”. Presented at ICA21 (virtual), and AoIR 2021.
RHETORICAL AFFORDANCES OF VISUALIZED INFORMATION
International Journal of Communication, 2022 >>> This project strives to map and define the types of data and information that gets visualized for political use, and the ways in which it is processed in order to produce political visualizations. Presented at AoIR2020 (held virtually), October 2020. Presented at ICA21 (virtual), May 2021.
VISUALIZATION STRATEGIES AND POLITICAL POWER
Convergence, 2021 >>> In this project I explore the different startegies peripheral and primary political actors employ in visualizing the facts of the economy during the election of 2015 in Israel. Special issue “Data visualisation & policy” edited by Dr. William Allen, Dr. Kathryn Nash, and Dr. Verity Trott.
user engagement in infographics
Information, Communication and Society, 2022 >>> This study which addresses the unexplored question: which characteristics are associated with higher levels of user engagement with infographics in social media? A sample of infographics posted by leading candidates in the 2016 US Presidential campaign was quantitatively analyzed to reveal the mechanisms of infographic user engagement enhancers. Co-authored with Prof. Limor Shifman.
rhetorical typology: Political infographics
New Media & Society, 2018 >>> A first overview and typology of the emergent genre of digital political infographics. Through grounded analysis of 200 politically oriented infographics on Twitter we uncover the “data politics” of the genre and present a two-dimensional typology relating to the narrative strategies and the interfaces underpinning users’ engagement with data in this discursive format. Co-authored with Prof. Limor Shifman.
published Coauthored works
Marília Gehrke & Eedan Amit-Danhi (2025). Gendered disinformation as violence: A new analytical agenda. Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 6(3).
Smith Mehta & Eedan Amit-Danhi (2025). The road to censorship: The case of digital audiovisual industries in India. International Journal of Cultural Policy. https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2024.2402257
Tali Aharoni, Eedan Amit-Danhi, Maximilian Overbeck, Christian Baden & Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt (2023) “You’d be Right to Indulge Some Skepticism”: Trust-building Strategies in Future-oriented News Discourse, Journalism Studies, 24:13, 1651-1671, DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2023.2241086
Maximilian Overbeck, Christian Baden, Tali Aharoni, Eedan Amit-Danhi & Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt (07 Dec 2023): Beyond sentiment: an algorithmic strategy for identifying evaluations within large text corpora, Communication Methods and Measures, DOI: 10.1080/19312458.2023.2285783