Dr. Lara Kobilke

Lara Kobilke is a researcher in political communication at the Department of Media and Communication, LMU Munich. She holds a double Bachelor's degree in Communication Sciences, German Literature, and Law and a Master's degree in Communication Science from LMU Munich. Her Master's research, which examined the spread of the term "Lying press" from the PEGIDA movement to mainstream media discourse, earned her the Best Thesis Award from the department.

In 2022, Lara earned her PhD from the University of Zurich (UZH), where her work focused on cross-cutting exposure and political participation, investigating how individuals react when confronted with opposing political
viewpoints. Her research focused on reactance theory, particularly how people resist persuasive communication in polarized environments, aiming to contribute to a better understanding of how communication succeeds or fails in contemporary public spheres.

At LMU Munich, Lara coordinates the R-Curriculum and Statistics Help Desk, helping to advance research methodologies within communication studies. Together with Julian Unkel and Mario Haim, she co-developed and maintains the tidycomm R package, which makes computational communication research more standardized and accessible. Lara also plays a crucial role in teaching R programming to students and researchers, both at LMU and through open-access tutorials, including her "teach-the-teachers" initiative (https://lkobilke.github.io/introduction_to_R/), which supports educators in effectively applying R for data analysis.

Her research currently covers two main areas. The first focuses on cross-cutting exposure and psychological reactance, particularly how people respond to opposing viewpoints and perceived threats to their freedom of
belief or action in digital contexts like social media. Lara's bidt-funded project, "Rethinking and Measuring Psychological Reactance in Times of Wicked Problems" (https://reaktanz.ifkw.lmu.de/), seeks to explore these resistance dynamics in complex societal challenges called wicked problems. The second area of her research examines social media challenges, particularly among youth on platforms like TikTok, highlighting both the potential risks and the positive social and political outcomes of online challenges, such as community-building and political expression.

In addition to her academic roles, Lara actively supports the political communication community in Germany as a speaker for the Nachwuchsnetzwerk Politische Kommunikation (NapoKo), where she fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange among emerging scholars and practitioners.

To learn more about Lara's scientific publications, ongoing research projects and resources, please visit her website at www.lara-kobilke.de .