Members
Prof Joost van Spanje
Joost is professor of political science and principal investigator on #NewNews. He has published around 50 journal articles and two books. Joost specialises in comparative politics, political communication, political behaviour, and public opinion. Joost has been awarded several grants, adding up to more than €3,000,000 of individual research funding. In addition, his students nominated him for the 2017 and the 2020 University of Amsterdam Lecturer of the Year Awards. Joost's media experience includes TV interviews on various international as well as national news media in Europe, North America, Australia, and South America. He is on X (see @joostvanspanje) and on BlueSky (see @joostvanspanje.bsky.social).
Dr Miku Matsunaga
Miku is a fulltime postdoctoral researcher on #NewNews. Her research interests lie at the intersection of political behaviour and political violence in representative democracies. She is also interested in political economy and defence policy. Her recent projects study the (violent) causes and consequences of (populist) radical right parties. Her papers have been published in PSRM, EJPR, Party Politics, and CPS. For her co-authored article in CPS she won the 2024 James Caporaso Prize. After having completed an LL.B., she earned an MPP degree (Tokyo), an MA degree in Politics (NYU), and a Ph.D. degree in Government (Essex). Before joining #NewNews, she was a research fellow at Department of Economics, University of Tokyo.
Dr Krisztina Szabo
Krisztina is a fulltime postdoctoral researcher on #NewNews, and a visiting lecturer at Central European University (CEU). She holds a PhD in Political Science from CEU and a PhD in Economics from Corvinus University. Krisztina studies the interaction of political and economic systems in developing countries and in Central and Eastern Europe. She has focused on studying voters' behaviour, public opinion and policy preferences as well as the electoral effect of various public policies. Krisztina is particularly interested in political methodology, quantitative methods, and (causal) inference in the social sciences. Her work has been published in The Journal of Development Studies and in Political Studies Review.
Dr George Melios
George is a fulltime postdoctoral researcher on #NewNews. His research interests lie at the intersection of political economy, comparative politics, and behavioural science. He is particularly interested in studying the foundations of democracy: how institutions function, how citizens interact with them and how they can be improved. His work looks at the electoral cycle through i) factors that affect citizens’ participation, ii) those that shape their preferences, iii) effects of elections on policies and welfare, and iv) collective decision making when institutions fail. He has publications in, among others, the Journal of Politics, and Political Behavior. He holds a PhD in Economics from Swansea. You can find him on Twitter via @georgemelios and at www.georgemelios.com
Dr Rachid Azrout
Rachid is assistant professor of political communication at the University of Amsterdam, working on the #NewNews project for one day a week. His research examines how EU citizens form opinions toward European Union enlargement and the role of the media in this process. His research interests also include immigration, electoral behaviour, political parties and polarization, combined with communication science, such as the influence of individual exposure to media content on opinion formation. Rachid’s work has been published in, among other journals, the European Journal of Political Research, Political Behavior, the Journal of Communication, and Public Opinion Quarterly.
Nicole Young
Nicole combines two functions on #NewNews: she is a project support officer and a research assistant. Taken together, she works on the ERC Consolidator Grant project for two days a week.