Thorsten Quandt is the professor of online communication at the University of Münster, Germany. He has a particular interest in online communication, digital games and journalism. He authored more than 150 scientific articles and several books, including Participatory Journalism, which was influential in establishing the citizen journalism model. He has edited numerous books, primarily in the field of online media and digital games research, including the books Multiplayer and The Video Game Debate. His work was awarded with several scientific prizes, including international Top Paper Awards, the dissertation award of the German Communication Association, and an ERC grant.
Quandt's work is focusing the impact and social aspects of digital games use, participatory journalism, and risk factors of online communication, like online and video game addiction, media induced aggression and cyberbullying. While Quandt's work is also focusing the problematic side of digital media use, he asks for a neutral and balanced perspective on media use, including positive aspects of use. Quandt argues that research on digital media has to ‘normalize’ and move beyond a state of repeating moral panics. He is one of the authors of an open debate paper to the WHO, criticizing the introduction of Gaming Disorder as a "disorder due to addictive behaviors" in the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases, which they see as a result of a "moral panic around the harm of video gaming". The authors mention several "fundamental issues" of Gaming Disorder in their paper, which triggered a public debate. Quandt's large-scale, representative survey studies on online gamers were widely cited, as they did not support the popular notion of notable differences between gamers and non-gamers. This is especially true for his analyses on digital games addiction that showed a relatively low level of stable problematic behavior. His team's work on sexism among gamers was picked up by the international press and gamers alike, as the measured differences between gamers and non-gamers in the study were marginal. The research was also discussed in relation to the gamergate controversy. However, Quandt and colleagues pointed out that their research does not necessarily prove the non-existence of sexism in specific gamer groups or the content itself, but that it rather supports the notion that gaming has become mainstream entertainment in modern societies thus approaching an average level of sexism. In an interdisciplinary project on the analysis of social bots and their use in online propaganda, Quandt and colleagues develop computer-supported and automatic identification methods. During the project, they observed the German elections 2017. The team identified attempts at manipulating the public, including an unsuccessful Twitter attack on the electoral debate between chancellor Merkel and the social-democrat Schulz. The attackers were identified by journalists as a right-wing extremist group called Reconquista Germanica.
Selected books
Kowert, R. & Quandt, T. . The video game debate. Unravelling the physical, social, and psychological effects of digital games. New York, London: Routledge.
Quandt, T., & Kröger, S. . Multiplayer: The social aspects of digital gaming. London: Routledge.
Singer, J., Hermida, A., Domingo, D., Heinonen, A., Paulussen, S., Quandt, T., Reich, Z., & Vujnovic, M.. Participatory journalism: Guarding open gates at online newspapers. Malden, Oxford, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
