This project examines the role of epistemic authorities in the digital age. Epistemic authorities are persons, institutions, or technologies to whom people attribute advanced competence and reliability as knowledge sources.

In addition to traditional epistemic authorities such as science, journalism, and professional experts, new epistemic authorities have emerged in the digital public sphere, such as influencers, peer production networks, mobile apps and AI.

But how do the claims to epistemic authority of such new knowledge agents relate to objective knowledge criteria and to the subjective perception of audiences? And how can functional forms of epistemic authority be promoted in the digital age? The project examines these questions using case studies from various knowledge domains and forms of knowledge transfer.

Related publications:

Bartsch, A., Neuberger, C., Stark, S., Karnowski, V., Maurer, M., Pentzold, P., Quandt, T., Quiring, O., & Schemer, C. (under review). Epistemic Authority in the Digital Public Sphere. An Integrative Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda.

Hill, B. Mako; Pentzold, Christian & Shaw, Aaron (under contract): Peer Production. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 

Honkomp-Wilkens, Verena; Jung, Patrick; Altmaier, Nina; Wolf, Karsten D., & Pentzold, Christian (2024): Learning Together with YouTube? Adolescents’ Collective Use of Explanatory Audiovisual Content. In: Computers in the Schools. Online first: https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2024.2322166 

Bartsch, A., Mares, M.-L., Schindler, J., Kühn, J., & Krack, I. (2024). Trust but verify? A social epistemology framework of knowledge acquisition and verification practices for fictional entertainment. Human Communication Research, 50(2), 194-207. https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqad036

Knorr, Charlotte; Wolter, Margitta; & Pentzold, Christian (2023): Whistleblower Memoirs: Deconstructing Data Consultants’ Insider Stories. In: Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231224730

Pentzold, Christian; Zuber, Conrad; Osterloh, Florian & Fechner, Denise J. (2023): Redrawing the Lines of Veracity in the Sharpiegate Affair: “Pre-truth” Claims in a Post-truth Order. In: The Communication Review, 26(2), 99-124.

Neuberger, C., Bartsch, A., Fröhlich, R., Hanitzsch, T., Reinemann, C., & Schindler, J. (2023). The digital transformation of knowledge order: A model for the analysis of the epistemic crisis. Annals of the International Communication Association, 47(2), 180-201. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2023.2169950

Pentzold, Christian & Rothe, Ingmar (2022): Drawn into the future. The Epistemic Work of Visual Scenarios in the Configuration of Human-Robot Encounters. In: Visual Communication. Online first. https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221112676

O’Neil, Mathieu; Pentzold, Christian & Toupin, Sophie Hrsg. (2021): The Handbook of Peer Production. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. 

Pentzold, Christian; Fechner, Denise J. & Zuber, Conrad (2021): “Flatten the Curve”: Data-driven Projections and the Journalistic Brokering of Knowledge During the COVID-19 Crisis. In: Digital Journalism, 9(9), 1370-1393. 

Pentzold, Christian (2021): Mundane Work for Utopian Ends: Freeing Digital Materials in Peer Production. In: New Media & Society, 23(4), 861-833. 

Pentzold, Christian & Fechner, Denise J. (2021): Probabilistic Storytelling and Temporal Exigencies in Predictive Data Journalism. In: Digital Journalism, 6(9), 715-736.

Pentzold, Christian & Fölsche, Lena (2020): Data-Driven Campaigns in Public Sensemaking: Discursive Positions, Contextualization, and Maneuvers in American, British, and German Debates Around Computational Politics. In: Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 45(1), 535-559.

Neuberger, C., Bartsch, A., Reinemann, C., Fröhlich, R., Hanitzsch, T., & Schindler, J. (2019). Der digitale Wandel der Wissensordnung. Theorierahmen für die Analyse von Wahrheit, Wissen und Rationalität in der öffentlichen Kommunikation. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, 67(2), 167–186. https://doi.org/10.5771/1615-634X-2019-2-167