Quirin Ryffel is a research assistant and PhD candidate in the Political Communication division. In his PhD project, he is investigating the antecedents and effects of exposure to diverse political viewpoints from a citizen’s perspective in Spain, Switzerland, and the United States in the context of two heavily-contested policy areas: climate change mitigation and immigration together with Prof. Dr. Thomas Zerback. The four-year research project (2022-2026) is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

Quirin holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication Science and Media Research with a minor in Political Science and a specialized master’s degree in Political Communication & Governance, both from the University of Zurich.

During his BA and MA studies, he worked as a tutor for several lectures and seminars and was involved in various research projects as a student research assistant in several divisions of the IKMZ. Between 2020 and 2022 he was employed at the Research Center for the Public Sphere and Society (fög) of the University of Zurich, where he was mainly involved in a subproject of the National Research Program 77 (Digital Transformation) on the importance of journalism for the digital information behavior of young adults. As part of his master’s thesis, he investigated the composition of mobile political information repertoires of young adults (between 18 and 24 years old) in Switzerland and how they are related to their political efficacy, their political surveillance knowledge, and different forms of political participation by linking digital trace data and survey data.  

political information behaviour, attitudinal and behavioral effects of political communication, media diversity, political viewpoint diversity exposure

SACM Annual Conference, 21 April 2022, Zurich

Co-organizer of the panel discussion “Mittelbau: Creating Permanent Positions in Science” (together with Dr. Sarah Marschlich, Dr. Silke Fürst and Stefanie Thai) 

Vogler, D., Weston, M., Ryffel, Q., Rauchfleisch, A., Jürgens, P., Eisenegger, M., Schwaiger, L., & Christen, U. (2023). Mobile News Consumption and Its Relation to Young Adults’ Knowledge About and Participation in Referendums. Media and Communication, 11(1), 6–18.  https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i1.6029

Ryffel, Q., Marschlich, S., Fürst, S., & Thai, S. (2022). From precarious conditions to permanent positions? Problems, responsible actors, and solutions for strengthening the academic mid-level staff in Switzerland. Studies in Communication Sciences, 22(3), 575–582. https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3936

Vogler, D., Weston, M., Ryffel, Q., Rauchfleisch, A., Jürgens, P., Eisenegger, M., Schwaiger, L., & Christen, U. (2022). ‪Mobile Mediennutzung und politisches Wissen von jungen Erwachsenen. In fög – Forschungszentrum Öffentlichkeit und Gesellschaft (Ed.), Jahrbuch Qualität der Medien 2022. Schwabe Verlag. https://doi.org/10.24894/978-3-7965-4646-4