Project description: The European Union is responding to the challenges of digital change with various legal acts, for example to regulate digital platforms or artificial intelligence. The aim of our research network is to accompany this process both legally and empirically and, in particular, to apply for a DFG research group on this topic in 2025.
We are investigating from a legal perspective when, for example, X must take action against hate speech and whether deep fakes must be labelled as such. At the same time, we are empirically analysing how opinions are influenced online and looking at the "competition of systems": How are companies implementing the new rules and how is China reacting to these developments in the EU?
Funding: Research Initiative Rheinland-Pfalz
Project management: Prof. Dr. Achim Rettinger | rettingeruni-trierde
Further information: DigitS EU

Project description: LODinG is dedicated to the use of Linked Open Data (LOD) in the humanities, with a focus on linguistics, literature, cultural studies and media studies. The basic intention is to collect, model, link and make freely available information in a machine-readable, standardised form. Entities such as people, places, organisations and topics are assigned unique identifiers using standard data in order to record rich, contextualised information in machine-readable statements and to be able to expand them collaboratively.
Funding: Research Initiative Rheinland-Pfalz
Project management: Prof. Dr. Achim Rettinger | rettingeruni-trierde
Further information: LODinG

Project description: The energy crisis in the second half of 2022 provoked by the Ukraine war lead to a phase of insecurities and potential impact on political changes. There was an anticipation of social unrest due to the upcoming challenges. It was pondered whether people who are unhappy with the way how these challenges are handled could show tendencies of aversion to the political system. The threat of polarising effects and a rising number of mis- and disinformation are topic of this project. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is conducts a survey that collects data of various aspects of opinions in the society. The University Trier collects Twitter data to research how observed tendencies are represented in Social Media.
Funding: Alfred Landecker Foundation
Project management: Prof. Dr. Achim Rettinger | rettingeruni-trierde
Further information: SOSEC

Project description: It is a widely shared concern by experts that Online Social Networks (OSNs) have transformed public debate in harmful ways. Personalization algorithms can create filter bubbles and echo chambers which reinforces and polarizes the users' opinions. Thus, OSNs have been blamed for spreading false information. To this point, tech-companies argue that there is no unequivocal empirical evidence and that they should not interfere with user behavior. The TWON project aims to provide scientific evidence on both counterarguments, whether social networks have undesirable effects on democratic debates and how they inferfere with user behavior. This will be done by creating digital twins of online social networks to estimate the effects of a change in the system.
Funding: Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Actions
Duration: April 2023 - March 2026
Project management: Prof. Dr. Achim Rettinger | rettingeruni-trierde
Further information: TWON

Project description: The project proposes a content representation paradigm that represents multimedia documents using a sequence of shifts of attention across different modalities. It aims to provide insights into similarities and differences between human perception and patterns learned by representation learning techniques. This project deals with Crossmodal Perception Trace Embedding which attempts to capture meaning encoded in a multimedia document beyond the sum of its single-modal parts.
Funding: DFG
Project management: Prof. Dr. Achim Rettinger | rettingeruni-trierde
Further information: xPrEs

Project description: The aim of the "Mining and Modelling Text" project is to consistently further develop the field of quantitative methods for extracting, modelling and analysing information relevant to the humanities from extensive text collections and to research it from an interdisciplinary (humanities, computer science and law) perspective. The core objective is to address the conceptual, analytical, legal and infrastructural challenges for the development of a knowledge network fed from various sources. The primary application domain is literary history. In particular, information extraction methods and linked open data / semantic web are used.
Funding: Research Initiative Rheinland-Pfalz
Project management: Prof. Dr. Achim Rettinger | rettingeruni-trierde
Further information: MiMoText

Project description: The Trier Center for Language and Communication (TCLC) brings together a broad range of high-profile, interdisciplinary research in linguistics and in related disciplines at our university. We are dedicated to supporting networking and fostering synergies between research projects at Trier University for both established and early-career researchers. Our collaborative project Patterns. Linguistic Creativity and Variation in Synchrony and Diachrony was awarded the status of a High-Potential Research Area by the Research Initiative Rhineland-Palatinate 2019–2023.
Funding: Research Initiative Rheinland-Pfalz
Project management: Prof. Dr. Achim Rettinger | rettingeruni-trierde
Further information: Patterns