Since September 2018: Professor of Media Psychology, RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau (until 12/2022: University of Koblenz-Landau)

October 2022 – January 2023: Visiting Scholar at UC Chile, Santiago de Chile

February 2017 - August 2018: Assistant Professor (tenured since February 2018 ), Persuasive Communication, Group: Marketing Communication (Chair: Peter Neijens), Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam

December 2015 - January 2017: Principal Investigator of the research project “The social side of news: Attitude formation and expression in social networking sites under conditions of impression motivation” (funded by the German Research Foundation), University of Duisburg-Essen

April 2012 - November 2015: Postdoctoral researcher, Social Psychology: Media and Communication (Chair: Nicole C. Krämer), University of Duisburg-Essen, Lecturer and research associate / Projects: “Reception of online science information – Factors of selection and attitude formation,” “Effects of social audience reactions on the perception of online news in participatory websites,” and “Automated allocation of volunteers in major disasters”

September - December 2014: Visiting scholar, Center for Information Technology and Society (Prof. Miriam J. Metzger), University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

July 2009 - March 2012: Research assistant and doctoral student, Social Psychology: Media and Communication (Chair: Nicole C. Krämer), University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

January 2010 - September 2011: Journalist for Deutschlandradio (German public broadcasting: “Germany Radio”), DRadio Wissen (station for science and knowledge)

September - October 2010: Visiting researcher, Department of Communication (Prof. Joseph B. Walther), Michigan State University, USA

October 2007 - June 2009: Editorial traineeship, Westdeutsche Zeitung (German daily newspaper), Düsseldorf

During Bachelor and Master studies: internships at several German newspapers and TV and radio stations (e.g., Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ZDF, Sat.1) and freelance journalist; Student assistant in course on psychological research methods

Key Publications

Winter, S., Remmelswaal, P., & Vos. A. (2022). When posting is believing: Adaptation and  internalization of expressed opinions in social network sites. Journal of Media Psychology, 34(3), 177-187. doi:10.1027/1864-1105/a000308

Winter, S., Maslowska, E., & Vos, A. L. (2021). The effects of trait-based personalization in social media advertising. Computers in Human Behavior, 114. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2020.106525

Winter, S., Neubaum, G., Stieglitz, S., & Ross, B. (2021). #Opinionleaders: a comparison of self-reported and observable influence of Twitter users. Information, Communication, & Society, 24, 1533-1550. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2019.1705374

Winter, S. (2020). Do anticipated Facebook discussions diminish the importance of argument quality? An experimental investigation of attitude formation in social media. Media Psychology, 23, 79-106. doi:10.1080/15213269.2019.1572521

Winter, S. (2019). Impression-motivated news consumption – Are user comments in social media more influential than on news sites? (Pre-registered study) Journal of Media Psychology, 31, 203–213. doi:10.1027/1864-1105/a000245

Winter, S., Metzger, M. J., & Flanagin, A. J. (2016). Selective use of news cues: A multiple-motive perspective on information selection in social media environments. Journal of Communication, 66, 669-693. doi: 10.1111/jcom.12241

A list of publications of Stephan Winter can be found here...

Stephan Winter on ResearchGate and Google Scholar 

• Opinion formation and expression in digital media
• Credibility and information selection in fragmented media environments
• Science communication and attitudes towards scientific debates
• Sharing and processing online misinformation
• Online self-presentation and interpersonal relationships
• Microtargeting and the effect of personalized advertising
• Social TV and media entertainment