Touchpoints: Let's connect!

• ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6194-4724
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WJLj-1sAAAAJ
• Personal Website: https://lara-kobilke.de/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lara-kobilke-4b7951273/

Vita

Lara Kobilke is a resistance researcher and health communication scholar. Her work examines what happens when people perceive their freedom to be restricted and why this often leads to resistance. Because people generally do not like being told what to do, think, or believe, her research focuses on the tensions that arise around influence, autonomy, and control: What triggers the need to resist, and how does this resistance manifest itself, for example through confrontation, internal rejection, or withdrawal?

At the center of her research is psychological reactance, a state that emerges when people experience communication as manipulative, pressuring, or patronizing and feel motivated to restore their freedom. Dr. Kobilke studies these processes especially in health communication and in social or global crisis contexts, where questions of freedom, responsibility, and control become particularly salient. Her work addresses health-endangering social media challenges, prevention strategies, AI in health communication, and the development of new infrastructures and methods for studying health communication in a changing media landscape. By bringing together psychological, communicative, and sociological perspectives, she seeks to understand how resistance develops and how communication can either intensify or reduce it.

Education

• PhD (2022): University of Zurich (UZH), Supervisor: Prof. Thomas Zerback. Dissertation: “Contradiction as a political force? Consequences of contact with opposing opinions for offline and online political participation.”
• Master's degree (M.A., 2017): Communication Studies, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU)
• Two Bachelor's degrees (B.A., 2015): Communication Studies, German Studies, and Law, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU)

Academic positions

• Since 04/2026: Lecturer Research, Digital Health Communication, University of Zurich
• 10/2025-04/2026: Visting Professor, Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media 
• 04/2024-10/2025: Postdoctoral Researcher, Computational Communication Research (Prof. Mario Haim), LMU Munich
• 12/2023-10/2025: Postdoctoral Researcher, Political Communication Research (Prof. Carsten Reinemann), LMU Munich
• 01/2023-12/2023: Postdoc, Media Effects Research (Prof. Hans-Bernd Brosius), LMU Munich
• 01/2021-01/2023: Research Assistant (PhD), International & Comparative Media Research (Prof. Frank Esser), University of Zurich
• 02/2018-01/2021: DFG-funded Research Assistant (PhD), Political Communication Research (Prof. Thomas Zerback), University of Zurich

Major teaching and research interests

• Health communication and youth engagement: Focus on phenomena such as social media challenges (especially on TikTok) and their significance for identity formation and risk behavior among young people.
• Psychological reactance and resistance communication: Examination of resistance and refusal reactions to communication, particularly in health-related and digital contexts. A central focus lies on the further development of reactance theory and the creation of precise measurement instruments for capturing these psychological processes.
• AI in health communication: Investigation of how artificial intelligence shapes health-related communication, everyday conversations, and public opinion, including the development of LLM-supported interventions for health communication and civic exchange.
• Political communication and deliberation: Analysis of opinion formation, political participation, and mobilization in polarized publics, with a focus on the consequences of exposure to opposing opinions.
• Computational communication research: Application and development of innovative methods for analyzing large and complex data sets, especially with R, as well as advancing transparency, reproducibility, and open science in communication and health-related research.

Activities

Research Projects

• DemocraGPT – Developing an AI-Supported Conversation Training to Foster Democratic Dialogue (2026-2029): Funded by the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt), DemocraGPT develops an AI-based conversation training tool to help citizens engage in constructive democratic dialogue, even on controversial issues. The system simulates challenging conversation partners and trains users to respond empathically, manage defensiveness, and tolerate ambiguity. Tested through field experiments, it aims to bring people back into meaningful democratic exchange online and offline.  Antragstellende: Prof. Dr. Carsten Reinemann, Dr. Lara Kobilke, Katharina V. Hajek, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pfeffer, Daniel Matter, Prof. Dr. Alexander Wuttke.
• LMU Soil Health Index: Building an Expert Panel to Assess Soil Health, Develop a Soil Health Index, and Analyze Communication Strategies for Soil Health Sustainability (2026): Funded by the LMU Munich Sustainability Fund, this project investigates how soil-related ecosystem services are evaluated, how expert survey biases can be minimized, and how results can be communicated in ways that are accessible, locally grounded, and low in reactance.  Antragstellende: Dr. Anna-Carolina Haensch, Dr. Lara Kobilke, Rebekka Schade
• Measurement and Analysis of Reactance (2023-2025): Funded by the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt), this project is dedicated to developing new methods for measuring psychological resistance to communication about complex issues such as climate change.  Antragstellende: Dr. Lara Kobilke.
• Shaping Communication on Climate Change, Kommunikationsklimawandel gestalten (2024-2026): Funded by the LMU Munich Sustainability Fund, this project investigates how communication strategies can be optimized to promote pro-environmental behavior. Antragstellende: Katharina V. Hajek, Dr. Lara Kobilke.
• Data and Usage Analysis of TikTok Content (2023): A project commissioned by the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia that analyzed the spread and perception of social media challenges among children and adolescents that could potentially impair their development. Antragstellende: Dr. Lara Kobilke, Dr. Antonia Markiewitz.

Community Engagement

• Spokesperson for the Young Researchers Network for Political Communication (NapoKo, 2022-2025): From 2022 to December 2025, Lara actively shaped the networking and promotion of young researchers in the German Society for Mass Communication (DGPuK) as its spokesperson.
• Peer review activities: Lara is a regular reviewer for leading international journals such as New Media & Society, Communication Theory, and the International Journal of Public Opinion Research.

Selected Publications

Journal Articles (Peer-Reviewed)

Krug, M., Hajek, K. V., & Kobilke, L. (2025). Collaborative Negotiation of Reactance in Climate Activism. Freedom Restoration Strategies in Face-to-Face Interactions. Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift(5), 133–158.  https://doi.org/10.28937/9783787351336_6 

Mede, N., Kobilke, L., Fawzi, N. & Zerback, T. (2025). The climate change generation: Vocal but overconfident? How young adults who overestimate their climate knowledge use social media and engage with others. Social Media and Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251341792

Kobilke, L. & Markiewitz, A. (2024). Understanding youth participation in social media challenges: A scoping review of definitions, typologies, and theoretical perspectives. Computers in Human Behavior, 5, Article 108265. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2024.108265

Kobilke, L., Kulichkina, L., Baghumyan, A. & Pipal, C. (2023). Blaming it on NATO? Framing the role of NATO in the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on Twitter. Frontiers in Political Science, 5, Article 1122439. doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2023.1122439

Zerback, T. & Kobilke, L. (2022). The role of affective and cognitive attitude extremity in perceived viewpoint diversity exposure. New Media & Society, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221117484

Kobilke, L. & Markiewitz, A. (2021). The Momo Challenge: Measuring the extent to which YouTube portrays harmful and helpful depictions of a suicide game. SN Social Sciences, 1(4), 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-021-00065-1

Leiner, D. J., Kobilke, L., Rueß, C. & Brosius, H.-B. (2018). Functional domains of social media platforms: Structuring the uses of Facebook to better understand its gratifications. Computers in Human Behavior, 83, 194-203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.01.042

Monographs

Kobilke, L. (2023). Widerspruch als politische Kraft? Folgen des Kontakts mit gegenteiligen Meinungen für die politische Offline- und Online-Partizipation [Contradiction as a political force? Consequences of exposure to opposing opinions for offline and online political participation]. Zurich Open Respository, doi.org/10.5167/uzh-252651

Book Chapters

Kobilke, L. (2025). Cross-cutting exposure. In A. Nai, M. Grömping, & D. Wirz (Eds.), Elgar encyclopedia of political communication (Vol. 1, pp. 332–335). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035301447.vol1.00085 

Kobilke, L. (2025). Viewpoint diversity exposure. In A. Nai, M. Grömping, & D. Wirz (Eds.), Elgar encyclopedia of political communication (Vol. 3, 664–667). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035301447.vol3.00160

Kobilke, L. (2022). All those glamazons we subscribe to. Mapping a network of key influencers spreading the art of drag on YouTube. In N. Brennan & D. Gudelunas (Eds.), Drag in the global digital public sphere. Queer visibility, online discourse (pp. 65-88). Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781003263555-8

Presentations

2026

Rieger, D., Kobilke, L., Haim, M., & Reinemann, C. (2026, June). AI and Democratic Processes Online. Paper to be presented at the 76th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Cape Town, South Africa.

Hajek, K. V., & Kobilke, L. (2026, March). Archetypen schriftlicher Reaktanz in digitalen Öffentlichkeiten – Ein Analysesystem für Widerstand in Worten. Paper presented at DGPuK Annual Conference 2026 „Wissenschaft, Kommunikation, Demokratie“, Dortmund, Germany.

2025

Hajek, K. V. & Kobilke, L. (2025, July). Rethinking reactance for political psychology: The new psychological reactance process model. Paper presented at the 48th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP), Prague, Czech Republic.

Hajek, K. V., Kobilke, L. & Krug, M. (2025, June). From facts to feelings: A typology of written reactance to climate communication in social media comments. Paper presented at the 75th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Denver, USA. [Top Paper Environmental Communication Division]

Kobilke, L. & Markiewitz, A. (2025, June). The good, the bad, and the neutral. Classifying TikTok challenges to enhance safe engagement for children and adolescents. Paper presented at the 75th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Denver, USA.

Krug, M., Kobilke, L. & Hajek, K. V. (2025, June). Collaborative negotiation of reactance in climate activism: How affective evaluation practices of freedom-threatening demands influence freedom restoration strategies in face-to-face interactions. Paper presented at the 75th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Denver, USA.

Hajek, K. V. & Kobilke, L. (2025, March). Beyond boomerang – Proposing a new model of psychological reactance for communication sciences. Paper presented at the DGPuK Annual Conference 2025 “Öffentlichkeit(en) und ihre Werte”, Berlin, Germany.

Kobilke, L. & Hajek, K. V. (2025, March). Crisis, conflict, and codebooks: Measuring freedom restrictions and psychological reactance in written discourse. Paper presented at the DGPuK Annual Conference 2025 “Öffentlichkeit(en) und ihre Werte”, Berlin, Germany.

Kobilke, L. & Hajek, K. V. (2025, March). Beyond boomerang. Rethinking reactance in the era of global crises in multimodal public spheres. Panel chaired at the DGPuK Annual Conference 2025 “Öffentlichkeit(en) und ihre Werte”, Berlin, Germany.

Krug, M., Kobilke, L. & Hajek, K. V. (2025, March). Collaborative negotiation of psychological reactance in interpersonal communication on climate change. Paper presented at the DGPuK Annual Conference 2025 „Öffentlichkeit(en) und ihre Werte“, Berlin, Germany.

Kobilke, L. & Hajek, K. V. (2025, February). Von Widerstand zu Teilhabe: Ein Neudenken von Reaktanz in politischen Kampagnen [From pushback to participation: Rethinking reactance in political campaigns]. Paper presented at the Joint Annual Conference of the German Society of Mass Communication’s [DGPuK] Expert Group „Communication and Politics“, the German Political Science Association’s (DVPW) Working Group „Politics and Communication“ and the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research’s (SGKM) Expert Group „Political Communication“, Innsbruck, Austria.

2024

Kobilke, L. & Markiewitz, A. (2024, September). Sing-alongs, dance battles, and self-harm: Exploring the spectrum of social media challenges on TikTok through manual content analysis. Paper presented at the 10th European Communication Conference (ECC), Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Hajek, K. V., Kobilke, L. & Krug, M. (2024, September). A multidimensional measure for psychological state reactance. Paper presented at the 53rd DGPs Congress, Vienna, Austria.

Kobilke, L., Rinn, R., Mühlberger, C., Niesta Kayser, D., Du, H., Sankaran, S. & Jonas, E. (2024, September). Reactance to and compliance with measures during the Covid-19 pandemic as a function of cultural group-membership: An intercultural study. Paper presented at the 53rd DGPs Congress, Vienna, Austria.

Hajek, K. V., Kobilke, L. & Krug, M. (2024, June). Constructing a climate of compliance – Understanding reactance to pro-environmental messages. Paper presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Gold Coast, Australia.

Kobilke, L., Hajek, K. V. & Krug, M. (2024, June). “Take back control!“ Measuring psychological reactance as a mobilizing force for collective action. Paper presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Gold Coast, Australia.

Kobilke, L., & Markiewitz, A. (2024, June). Understanding youth participation in social media challenges: A systematic review of definitions, typologies, and theoretical perspectives. Paper presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Gold Coast, Australia.

Hajek, K. V., Kobilke, L. & Krug, M. (2024, March). Constructing a climate of compliance – Understanding reactance to pro-environmental messages. Paper presented at the 69th Annual Conference of the German Society of Mass Communication (DGPuK), Erfurt, Germany.

Kobilke, L. (2024, February). Exploring identity expression and political mobilization on TikTok through the “Put a Finger Down” challenge. Paper presented at the Joint Annual Conference of the German Society of Mass Communication’s (DGPuK) Expert Group „Communication and Politics“, the German Political Science Association’s (DVPW) Working Group „Politics and Communication“ and the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research’s (SGKM) Expert Group „Political Communication“, Berne, Switzerland.

2023

Kobilke, L., Markiewitz, A. & Rossmann, C. (2023, November 16). I dare you! Use and consequences of viral TikTok challenges for children and adolescents. Paper presented at the European Conference on Health Communication (ECHC), Klagenfurt, Austria.

Kobilke, L., Hajek, K. V. & Krug, M. (2023, September). Development of a multidimensional state reactance scale for communication research. Paper presented at the 24th Conference of the German Society of Mass Communication’s (DGPuK) Expert Group “Methods”, Potsdam, Germany.

Kobilke, L., Kulichkina, A., Baghumyan, A. & Pipal, C. (2023, June). Blaming it on NATO? Framing the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Twitter. Paper presented at the EPSA’s 13th Annual Conference, Glasgow, Great Britain.

Fawzi, N., Zerback, T., Kobilke, L. & Mede, N. (2023, May). Fuel to the flames. False balance and hostile media perceptions as amplifiers of perceived polarization in the climate change debate. Paper presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Toronto, Canada.

Kobilke, L., Fawzi, N., Mede, N. & Zerback, T. (2023, May). Eco-informational media use, media-induced eco-emotions, and climate change activism: What drives the political engagement of the climate change generation? Paper presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Toronto, Canada.

Reiss, M., Kobilke, L. & Stoll, A. (2023, May). Reporting supervised machine learning projects in communication science – A framework for transparent documentation on the example of text classification. Paper presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Toronto, Canada.

2022

Noack, V., Kobilke, L. & Mpadanes, M. (2022, October). Terror or no terror, that is the question. Comparing manual and automated frame analysis of right-wing extremist and Islamist terror attacks in German news media. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the German Society of Mass Communication’s (DGPuK) Expert Group “Methods”, Munich, Germany.

Reiss, M., Kobilke, L. & Stoll, A. (2022, October). Reporting supervised text analysis for communication science. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the German Society of Mass Communication’s (DGPuK) Expert Group “Methods”, Munich, Germany.

Kobilke, L. & Zerback, T. (2022, September 30). The relationship between alternative media use and expressive, protest-based, and traditional political participation: A latent growth modeling approach. Paper presented at the Joint Annual Conference of the German Society of Mass Communication’s (DGPuK) Expert Groups „Journalism/Journalism Research“ and “Communication and Politics”, the German Political Science Association’s (DVPW) Working Group „Politics and Communication“ and the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research’s (SGKM) Expert Group „Political Communication“, Trier, Germany.

Kobilke, L. & Zerback, T. (2022, May). Cross-cutting exposure online, offline, and in traditional media. Exploring the consequences for political participation. Paper presented at the 72nd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Paris, France.

Zerback, T. & Kobilke, L. (2022, May). The role of affective and cognitive attitude extremity in viewpoint diversity exposure. Paper presented at the 72nd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Paris, France.

2020

Kobilke, L. (2020, November). Acting upon disagreement? The effects of cross-cutting exposure on political participation in offline, online, and traditional media communication environments. Paper presented at the Digital Society Initiative, Digital Democracy Workshop, Zurich, Switzerland.

Kobilke, L. (2020, May). Inclusive, but exclusive? Assessing the dominance of RuPaul’s Drag Race for drag representation in social media. Paper presented at the 72nd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Sunshine Coast, Australia. [Top Student Paper Award of the ICA LGBTQ+ Interest Group]

Kobilke, L. & Zerback, T. (2020, March 10). Populist participation? A closer look at the relationship between populist attitudes and political participation in Germany. Paper presented at the 65th Annual Conference of the German Society of Mass Communication, Munich, Germany.

Kobilke, L. & Markiewitz, A. (2020, February). Momo is a 'NoNo' – How media depictions of the suicide game 'Momo Challenge' affect their viewers on YouTube. Paper presented at the European Conference on Health Communication (ECHC), Zurich, Switzerland.

Kobilke, L. & Zerback, T. (2020, February). In der Echokammer? Politische Einstellungen, interpersonale Kommunikation und Mediennutzung als Prädiktoren erlebter Meinungsvielfalt [Living inside echo chambers? Political attitudes, interpersonal communication and media use as predictors of perceived opinion diversity]. Paper presented at the Joint Annual Conference of the German Society of Mass Communication’s (DGPuK) Expert Group “Communication and Politics”, the German Political Science Association’s (DVPW) Working Group „Politics and Communication“ and the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research’s (SGKM) Expert Group „Political Communication“, Mainz, Germany.

2019

Markiewitz, A. & Kobilke, L. (2019, July). The Momo Challenge: A mixed-method approach on how suicidal games on YouTube may cause harm to adolescents. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), Madrid, Spain.

Kobilke, L. (2019, May). Towards a model of lexical diffusion in social media networks: A case study of the dissemination of the term “lying press” in Germany. Paper presented at the 69th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Washington, DC, USA.

2018

Kobilke, L. (2018, November). Der Kontakt mit gegenteiligen Meinungen in Sozialen Medien: Effekte auf die politische (Online-)Partizipation [Cross-cutting exposure in social media: Effects on political (online) participation]. Paper presented at the 18th NapoKo Colloquium, Mainz, Germany.

2017

Leiner, D. J., Kobilke, L., Rueß, C. & Brosius, H.-B. (2017, May). Patterns behind social media usage: Comprehending Facebook as a set of features to separate its functional domains. Paper presented at the 67th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), San Diego, CA, USA.

2015

Kobilke, L. & Baugut, P. (2015, July). Mediatization of politics from a psychological point of view. Exploring media effects on scandalized politicians in a qualitative analysis of two German cases. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), Montreal, Canada.

Awards and honors

• ICA Top Paper Award of the Environmental Communication Division: 2025
• ICA Top Student Paper Award of the LGBTQ+ Interest Group: 2020
• Faculty Award (performance bonus) at the LMU Munich: 3000€, 2024.
• Best Thesis Award: 50€, LMU Munich, 2017
• Top Student Award: 3,000€, LMU Munich, 2015
• Teaching Award: Data Journalism (Applied Communication). 1st prize at the Department of Media and Communication, LMU Munich (2022/23)
• Teaching Award: Balancing fun and risk: An analytical approach to categorizing viral TikTok challenges. 1st prize at the Department of Media and Communication, LMU Munich (2023/24)
• Teaching Award: AI, Discourse, and Electoral Decisions: Can We Use LLMs to Improve Democratic Decision-Making? 1st prize at the Department of Media and Communication, LMU Munich (2024/25)