New research project acquired

16.11.2022

The Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) will finance the upcoming project "People's sense of security within modern media landscapes" (SECU).

In recent years, the confrontation with immigration and violent crime as well as, most recently, with the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War have shaped Austrian’s sense of security and, in the process, made various concerns, fears, and related social tendencies more salient. Traditional media have always played a central role in people’s sense of security. Having said that, social media and the proliferation of smartphones have fundamentally changed the dissemination, reception, and discussion of security-related information, thus challenging established practices of efficient security communication that is supposed to be effective in both the short and long term. Research has not sufficiently accounted for these changing media landscapes, such that the influence of smartphones and social media has thus far been examined only to a limited extend. The project will obtain detailed data on the reception of safety-related topics in light of individualized media habits, which will be assessed holistically for their temporal relationship with people’s sense of security in Austria. Additionally, we will examine the causal influence of social media and their opinion leaders in order to determine how public security communication within the available social media channels can (and should) look like.

The project SECU receives funding for a period of 18 months as part of the Austrian Security Research Programme "KIRAS", which is administrated by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). Jörg Matthes is the principal investigator of the project, supported by Kevin Koban as Co-PI, Ines Spielvogel as postdoctoral researcher, and a further student assistant completing the research team. The start is scheduled for December 1, 2022, with the funding totaling to around € 105.000.


People's sense of security within modern media landscapes (SECU)

Funding organization: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)
PI: Jörg MatthesKevin Koban (Co-PI)
Duration: 2022-2024
Funding: € 104.736

Images © Christian von Sikorski & Anja Stevic (AdMe Research Group)