Research

Eva Mayerhöffer (Dr.phil., Freie Universität Berlin) is Associate Professor in Political Journalism and Comparative Media Studies at the Department of Communication and Arts at Roskilde University.

Her research centers on the ‘elite question’ in journalism and political communication, roughly divided into three research topics: 1) the attitudes, relations and career patterns of communication and media elites, 2) the formation of counterpublics and alternative news media as a response to a perceived media and political ‘mainstream’ and to a perceived elite dominance in news production, and 3) the changing news infrastructures and boundaries of the journalistic field, as they are shaped through the relationship between elite and non-elite actors. A common denominator in her research is an emphasis on comparative research and the importance of country-specific systemic and cultural contexts.

She currently serves as co-leader of the research group Journalism & Democracy, as the Principal Investigator of the Carlsberg-funded project Alternative Media and Ideological Counterpublics (AlterPublics), as the editor-in-chief of Journalistica – the Nordic Journal for Journalism Research, and on the steering committee of the Center for Digital Citizenship. She is also a member of the Center for News Research and the Roskilde University Digital Media Lab.

She is the author of the book “Elite Cohesion in Mediatized Politics: European Perspectives” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) and has published in and served as a reviewer to academic journals such as “Digital Journalism”, “International Journal of Press/Politics”, “Journalism Studies”, and “Policy & Internet”.

Teaching

At the Department of Communication and Arts, Eva Mayerhöffer teaches and supervises at the BA and MA in Journalism, as well as the social science and humanities base track. In her teaching, she focuses specifically on research design and methods, theories on the media’s democratic role, as well as on the analysis of digital and social media. She currently serves as the Head of the Study Board of Communication Studies and Journalism and as the master thesis coordinator for the MA in Journalism.