EMMA HOES

Welcome and thank you for your visit! I'm a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Zurich's Department of Political Science, and am affiliated to the Digital Democracy Lab and the Digital Society Initiative. I hold a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence.

My research examines how digital technologies influence information quality, trust, and what people believe. I investigate both problems and solutions: when do interventions designed to improve our information ecosystem backfire? How do media narratives shape responses to emerging technologies? What solutions actually work without creating new harms? This work spans misinformation interventions, platform dynamics, AI narratives, and news consumption, always asking what unintended consequences we might be missing

I'm also committed to methodological innovation. I co-developed Virena, a simulation platform that recreates realistic social media environments where researchers, educators and civic organisations can study human-machine interactions in controlled settings.