Credit: Falco Seliger

Dominique Heinbach-Niederelz, M.A.

Academic Staff

University of Mannheim
Institute for Media and Communication Studies
B 6, 30–32 – Room 450
68159 Mannheim

E-mail: dominique.heinbach-niederelzuni-mannheim.de

Consultation hour(s):
by appointment via e-mail

Dominique Heinbach-Niederelz is an academic staff member at the chair of Prof Dr Teresa Naab. She will also be a member of the academic staff of Prof Dr Christian Schemer at the Department of Journalism Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz until August 2025. Previously, she was a research assistant with Prof Dr Marc Ziegele at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in the junior research group ‘Deliberative Diskussionen im Social Web’.
Her research focuses on online discussions, online participation and deliberation, as well as media impact research on the social web. She is particularly interested in moderation and community management as well as the effects of online discussions.

In her PhD project, she is researching the effects of moderation on the quality and civility of online discussions as well as on the perception and behaviour of users. In the DFG-funded project ‘Self- and feedback effects in social media’, she is researching the effects of political statements on the users who express themselves. In the ‘ENVIKO’ project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, she is investigating the effects of energy transition visualisations and communication on citizens.
In order to strengthen the transfer of science and practice, she cooperates with media partners in research projects, regularly leads workshops on community management and is involved in dialogue with actors from journalism and civil society.

Friess, D., Ziegele, M. and Heinbach, D. (2021). Collective civic moderation for deliberation? Exploring the links between citizens’ organized engagement in comment sections and the deliberative quality of online discussions. Political Communication, 38, 624–646.
Naab, T. K., Heinbach, D., Ziegele, M. and Grasberger, M.-T. (2020). Comments and credibility: How critical user comments decrease perceived news article credibility. Journalism Studies, 21, 783–801.
Heinbach, D., Ziegele, M. and Quiring, O. (2018). Sleeper effect from below: Long-term effects of source credibility and user comments on the persuasiveness of news articles. New Media & Society, 20, 4765-4786.
Ziegele, M., Jost, P., Bormann, M. and Heinbach, D. (2018). Journalistic counter-voices in comment sections: Patterns, determinants, and potential consequences of interactive moderation of uncivil user comments. Studies in Communication and Media : SCM, 7, 525–554.
Magin, M., Steiner, M., Heinbach, D., Bosold, S., Pieper, A., Felka, E.-M. and Stark, B. (2015). Suchmaschinen auf dem Prüfstand – eine vergleichende Inhaltsanalyse der Qualität von Trefferlisten. Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft : M & K, 63, 495–516.

Behrendt, M., Wagner, S. S., Ziegele, M., Wilms, L. K., Stoll, A., Heinbach, D. and Harmeling, S. (2024). AQuA – Combining experts' and non-experts' views to assess deliberation quality in online discussions using LLMs. In , LREC-COLING 2024 : the first workshop on language-driven deliberation technology (DELITE2024) : workshop proceedings (S. 1–12). , ACL: .
Bormann, M., Heinbach, D. and Ziegele, M. (2021). “Can we please stop yelling at each other just because it's the internet?” Comparing incivility perceptions of community managers, users, and activists in online comment sections. In , Democracy in Flux : order, dynamics and voices in digital public spheres : Proceedings of the Weizenbaum Conference, July 2021 (S. 84–88). , Weizenbaum-Institut: Berlin.

Heinbach, D., Klein, T. and Mack, M. (2024). Interaktionen und Reach sind nicht genug! – Lasst uns endlich anfangen, die Qualität von Online-Debatten richtig zu messen. b° future festival 2024, Bonn.
Heinbach, D., Bormann, M. and Kluck, J. P. (2023). Wahrnehmung von und Reaktionen auf verschiedene Formen von Inzivilität in Online-Diskussionen: Ergebnisse eines Online-Experiments. DGPuK 2023, 68. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Bremen, Germany.
Heinbach, D., Ziegele, M. and Wilms, L. K. (2023). Empowering the community: How supportive moderation increases the quality and affects users’ perceptions of public online discussions. ICA 2023, 73rd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, Toronto, Canada.
Stoll, A., Heinbach, D. and Ziegele, M. (2023). Empirisch generierte Trainingsdaten für die KI-gestützte Moderation von Online-Diskussionen: Potenziale des Datentyps “Field-labeled Data”. DGPuK 2023, 68. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Bremen, Germany.
Heinbach, D., Wilms, L. K., Niederelz, C. and Eilders, C. (2022). Two steps of moderation in online participation: Evidence from discussions on an online participation platform. ECREA 2022, 9th European Communication Conference, Aarhus, Denmark.
Heinbach, D., Wilms, L. K. and Ziegele, M. (2022). Effects of empowerment moderation in online discussions: A field experiment with four news outlets. ICA 2022, 72nd Annual ICA Conference: One Wolrd, One Network?, Paris, France.
Heinbach, D., Wilms, L. K. and Ziegele, M. (2022). Wirkungen von Empowerment-Moderation in Online-Diskussionen: Ein Feldexperiment mit vier Redaktionen. Rezfo 2022, Jahrestagung der DGPuK-Fachgruppe Rezeptions- und Wirkungsforschung, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Heinbach, D., Ziegele, M., Stoll, A. and Wilms, L. K. (2022). Effects of empowerment moderation in online discussions: A field experiment with four news outlets.. Quo Vadis Digital Democracy? Strengthening and Preserving Democracy in the Digital Age, Bonn, Germany.
Stoll, A., Heinbach, D. and Ziegele, M. (2022). The more the merrier? Training strategies for AI in algorithmic content moderation systems. ICA 2022. 72nd Annual ICA Conference (International Communication Association): One world, one network!?, Paris, France.
Cargnino, M., Neubaum, G., Röchert, D., Heinbach, D. and Ziegele, M. (2021). The impact of social media opinion climates on users’ perceptions of political opinion distribution and deliberative outcomes: A linkage study. 2nd Meeting of the German Political Psychology Network: 24 hours of Political Psychology, Jena, Germany, Online.
Heinbach, D. (2021). Konstruktiv in der Community: Mit der Empowerment-Methode in Sozialen Netzwerken moderieren. Öffentliche Fachtagung im Rahmen der Jahrestagung des Journalistinnenbundes 2021: Aufklären statt Anheizen – konfliktsensitiv berichten, Essen, Germany.
Heinbach, D., Bormann, M. and Ziegele, M. (2021). Role perceptions and social control of different actors in online discussions. ICA 2021 – 71st Annual International Communication Association Conference : Engaging the Essential Work of Care: Communication, Connectedness, and Social Justice, Online.
Heinbach, D., Bormann, M. and Ziegele, M. (2021). „Wir wollen eine angenehme Gesprächsatmosphäre und eine vernünftige Diskussionskultur schaffen“: Rollenverständnis und soziale Kontrolle von Akteur*innen in Online-Diskussionen. DACH 21 – Dreiländertagung für Kommunikationswissenschaft, Zürich, Switzerland, Online.
Ziegele, M. and Heinbach, D. (2021). Hallo liebe Community! Konstruktive Online-Debatten fördern durch bestärkende Moderation. Digitale Studienvorstellung der Landesanstalt für Medien NRW: Hallo liebe Community! Konstruktive Online-Debatten fördern durch bestärkende Moderation, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Heinbach, D., Ziegele, M., Chen, G. M., Riedl, M. J., Naab, T. K. and Jost, P. (2020). Der Ton macht die Musik. DGPuK 2020, 65. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, München, Germany.
Heinbach, D., Naab, T. K., Ziegele, M. and Grasberger, M.-T. (2019). Comments and credibility: How skeptical user comments can decrease the perceived credibility of a news article and how such influence can be countered. 69th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Washington, DC.

Heinbach, D. (2023). Qualität und Inzivilität von Online-Diskussionen. In Handbuch Digitalisierung und politische Beteiligung (S. 1–24). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Heinbach, D. and Wilms, L. K. (2022). Der Einsatz von Moderation bei #meinfernsehen2021. In #meinfernsehen2021: Bürgerbeteiligung: Wahrnehmungen, Erwartungen und Vorschläge zur Zukunft öffentlich rechtlicher Medienangebote (S. 217–235). Baden-Baden: Nomos.

Ziegele, M. and Heinbach, D. (2021). Hallo liebe Community! Konstruktive Online-Debatten fördern durch bestärkende Moderation : Whitepaper.

Heinbach, D. and Bormann, M. (2025). Online community management. In , Elgar encyclopedia of political communication (S. ). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Heinbach, D. (2022). Explicit civility (online discussions/discussion quality). In , Database of variables for content analysis : DOCA. Subject and research areas 5, Categories in research on user-generated media content (S. 1–5). Zürich: University of Zurich.
Heinbach, D. (2022). Inclusivity (online discussions/discussion quality). In , Database of variables for content analysis : DOCA. Subject and research areas 5, Categories in research on user-generated media content (S. 1–4). Zürich: University of Zurich.
Heinbach, D. (2022). Interactivity/reciprocity (online discussions/discussion quality). In , Database of variables for content analysis : DOCA. Subject and research areas 5, Categories in research on user-generated media content (S. 1–6). Zürich: University of Zurich.
Heinbach, D. (2022). Rationality (online discussions/discussion quality). In , Database of variables for content analysis : DOCA. Subject and research areas 5, Categories in research on user-generated media content (S. ). Zürich: University of Zurich.
Heinbach, D. (2022). Storytelling (online discussions/discussion quality). In , Database of variables for content analysis : DOCA. Subject and research areas 5, Categories in research on user-generated media content (S. ). Zürich: University of Zurich.