Research

David Mathieu is Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at Roskilde University. His research is situated within audience and reception studies, with a particular focus on how media users engage with, interpret, and make sense of media in increasingly datafied and algorithmically mediated environments.

Over the past years, Mathieu has explored how audiences coexist with data‑driven media technologies, examining issues of user agency, trust, risk, and reflexivity. His research focuses on audience and reception research, methodological innovation, and the evolving conditions that technology creates for media users. Recently, he has begun to be interested in the use of generative AI, notably by university students.

Throughout his work, Mathieu foregrounds audiences as active and meaning‑making subjects and contributes to ongoing debates about the role of users, publics, and democratic values in contemporary media environments. His work approaches media use as a situated and experiential practice, combining phenomenological perspectives with close empirical analysis to understand how users navigate, appropriate, and sometimes challenge datafied media systems, including recommender technologies, platforms, and generative AI interfaces.

A central strand of Mathieu’s research concerns methodological and epistemological questions in audience research. He has contributed to the development of methodological frameworks, such as data donation or the data loop, that expand and rethink qualitative approaches to studying media use, particularly in response to the challenges posed by datafication.

Teaching

Mathieu teaches on all educational levels and is currently head of studies for the Master programme in Media and Communication. His pedagogical approach relies on research‑based teaching, methodological training and student engagement in media and communication studies.

Management and Cooperation

He has previously been co-founder and leader of the Audience & Mediated Life research group, chair of the Audience & Reception Studies Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and currently serves as co‑chair of the Audience Studies Division of NordMedia and as section editor for the Danish Medie- og Kommunikationsleksikon.