Since December 2018, Irene Broer has been working as a junior researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research │ Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) within the
BMBF-funded joint project "MeWiKo". The project investigates external science communication (e.g. science journalism) and its influence on scientific publications.
The sub-project, which is based at the HBI, is particularly concerned with the editorial selection practices and relevance assessment of science journalists. As part of her research, she conducted editorial ethnographies at the
Science Media Center Germany in Cologne for several weeks. In episode 57 of our
podcast, she reported on this experience in detail.
From 2019-2020, Irene Broer was spokeswoman for the doctoral students at the institute and represented the HBI in the "
Leibniz PHD Network", the doctoral student network of the Leibniz Association. There she was also spokesperson of Section B and thus representative of all doctoral students of the Leibniz institutes from the fields of economics, social sciences and spatial sciences.
Irene studied Cultural Anthropology at the University of Utrecht, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest and Radboud University Nijmegen. Following her interest in media, she went on to complete the Erasmus Mundus Master's programme "Journalism, Media and Globalisation" in Aarhus and Hamburg. After her graduation, she was involved in a cross-method research project at Universität Hamburg focusing on sustainable remembrance culture in journalism.
Besides her research activities, Irene Broer worked for several years for various local and international media. She is also co-founder of the magazine "Gute Leute", an English language print and online magazine for Hamburg.