Chair of Computational Social Science
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pfeffer
Richard-Wagner-Str. 1
80333 Munich
Office: B.362
Phone: +49 89 907793-200
E-Mail: juergen.pfeffer@tum.de
Team Assistance:
Verena Schmidt
Room: B.360
E-mail: verena.schmidt@hfp.tum.de
Phone: +49 89 907793-200
About
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pfeffer is Full Professor of Computational Social Science at the School of Social Sciences and Technology at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Before joining TUM in 2016, he was Assistant Research Professor of Societal Computing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA.
Jürgen Pfeffer studied computer science at the Vienna University of Technology. After ten years of professional experience in consulting and non-university research institutions, he received his doctorate in Business Informatics in 2010. He subsequently worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Research Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
His research lies at the intersection of social science, political science, and computer science. He studies how digital technologies transform society, with a particular focus on information and democracy, social media and digital public spheres, artificial intelligence and power, and human agency in an increasingly data-driven society. His research combines large-scale computational analysis with questions about the societal and political consequences of digital technologies.
Methodologically, his work focuses on Computational Social Science, social network analysis, large-scale social media analysis, natural language processing, machine learning, and Large Language Models. A recurring theme throughout his research is the critical examination of the data, algorithms, and computational methods used to study society.
Books
Pfeffer, Matthias, Paul Nemitz, and Jürgen Pfeffer (2026). Die offene Zukunft und ihre Feinde: Wie wir die freie Gesellschaft vor der KI-Diktatur bewahren können. Bonn: Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. ISBN 978-3-8012-0714-4.
Pfeffer, Matthias, Jürgen Pfeffer, and Paul Nemitz (2026). The Open Future and Its Enemies: How We Can Protect Free Society from AI Dictatorship. Bonn: Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachf. ISBN 978-3-8012-3111-8.
The book (available in German and English) examines how artificial intelligence and the growing power of technology companies are changing the relationship between technology, democracy, and individual freedom. It addresses questions of democratic and technological sovereignty, the future of the digital public sphere, human agency, and the political choices societies face in shaping the development and use of AI.
Hennig, Marina, Ulrik Brandes, Jürgen Pfeffer, and Ines Mergel (2012). Studying Social Networks: A Guide to Empirical Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Selected Publications
Spiekermann-Hoff, Sarah, Marc Langheinrich, Johannes Hoff, Christiane Wendehorst, Jürgen Pfeffer, Thomas Fuchs, and Armin Grunwald (2026). The Power of 10: New Rules for the Digital World.
Pfeffer, Jürgen, Sebastian Krügel, and Matthias Uhl (2026). Does a Smarter ChatGPT Become More Utilitarian? Science and Engineering Ethics 32(1), 1.
Steel, Benjamin, Miriam Schirmer, Derek Ruths, and Jürgen Pfeffer (2026). Just Another Hour on TikTok: ID Sampling to Obtain a Complete Slice of TikTok. Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media 6.
Parfenova, Angelina, Andreas Marfurt, Jürgen Pfeffer, and Alexander Denzler (2025). Text Annotation via Inductive Coding: Comparing Human Experts to LLMs in Qualitative Data Analysis. Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: NAACL 2025, 6471–6484.
Falkenberg, Max, Fabiana Zollo, Walter Quattrociocchi, et al. (2024). Patterns of Partisan Toxicity and Engagement Reveal the Common Structure of Online Political Communication Across Countries. Nature Communications 15, 9560.
Matter, Daniel, Miriam Schirmer, Nir Grinberg, and Jürgen Pfeffer (2024). Investigating the Increase of Violent Speech in Incel Communities with Human-Guided GPT-4 Prompt Iteration. Frontiers in Social Psychology 2, 1383152.
Voggenreiter, Angelina, Sophie Brandt, Fabian Putterer, Andreas Frings, and Jürgen Pfeffer (2024). The Role of Likes: How Online Feedback Impacts Users' Mental Health. Proceedings of the 16th ACM Web Science Conference, 302–310.
Kasneci, Enkelejda, et al. (2023). ChatGPT for Good? On Opportunities and Challenges of Large Language Models for Education. Learning and Individual Differences 103, 102274.
Pfeffer, Jürgen, Daniel Matter, Kokil Jaidka, et al. (2023). Just Another Day on Twitter: A Complete 24 Hours of Twitter Data. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 17(1), 1073–1081.
Pfeffer, Jürgen, Angelina Mooseder, Jana Lasser, Luca Hammer, Oliver Stritzel, and David Garcia (2023). This Sample Seems to Be Good Enough! Assessing Coverage and Temporal Reliability of Twitter’s Academic API. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 17(1), 720–729.
Pfeffer, Jürgen, Katja Mayer, and Fred Morstatter (2018). Tampering with Twitter’s Sample API. EPJ Data Science 7, 50.
Ruths, Derek, and Jürgen Pfeffer (2014). Social Media for Large Studies of Behavior. Science 346(6213), 1063–1064.
Pfeffer, Jürgen, Thomas Zorbach, and Kathleen M. Carley (2014). Understanding Online Firestorms: Negative Word-of-Mouth Dynamics in Social Media Networks. Journal of Marketing Communications 20(1–2), 117–128.
Morstatter, Fred, Jürgen Pfeffer, Huan Liu, and Kathleen M. Carley (2013). Is the Sample Good Enough? Comparing Data from Twitter’s Streaming API with Twitter’s Firehose. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 400–408.