Laia Castro Herrero

Photo: John Flury

I am an associate professor in the department of Political Science at University of Barcelona and the head of a research group focused on Digital Media & Politics. I specialize in political communication, comparative (social) media research & public opinion, with a particular focus on cross-cutting exposure and communication across political lines. Some of my papers have shown the positive impact of public service media on individual exposure to different political viewpoints; differences in partisan media bias and news use between Eastern and Western Europe; changes in information habits as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, and the positive relationship between cross-cutting exposure and political participation. Currently, I do empirical work on the deliberative and informative potential of social media by use of quantitative and computational methods. I am PI of the project OnlineHate funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and the project CSSInfoYouth supported by the La Caixa Foundation. I am also co-PI (wp5) of the project What-if: Advanced Simulations for Testing the Effect of the Information Environment on the functioning of democracies (call HORIZON-CL2-2024-DEMOCRACY-01-06). You can see my cv in here , visit my profiles at Google Scholar , ORCID and GitHub 

Selected publications 

Zhang, Y., Amsler, M., Castro, L. , Esser, F., & Bovet, A. (2025). Quantifying the Spread of Online Incivility in Brazilian Politics. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 19(1), 2241-2259. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v19i1.35931 

Heiberger, Raphael, Silvia Majó-Vázquez, Laia Castro Herrero, Rasmus K. Nielsen, and Frank Esser. "Do Not Blame the Media! The Role of Politicians and Parties in Fragmenting Online Political Debate." The International Journal of Press/Politics (2022): 19401612211015122.

Castro-Herrero, L., Nir, L., & Skovsgaard, M. (2018). Bridging gaps in cross-cutting media exposure: The role of public service broadcasting. Political Communication, 35(4), 542-565.  Best Paper Award ICA Political Communication division 2017.

Castro, Laia. "Measuring Partisan Media Bias Cross‐Nationally." Swiss Political Science Review 27, no. 2 (2021): 412-433.

Castro, Laia; Theresa Gessler; Sílvia Majó-Vázquez. "Content analysis in mixed method approaches" in Standardisierte Inhaltsanalyse in der Kommunikationswissenschaft-Standardized Content Analysis in Communication Research. Springer. (2023) pp.37-56. ISBN 978-3-658-36178-5.

Castro, Laia, Jesper Strömbäck, Frank Esser, Peter Van Aelst, Claes de Vreese, Toril Aalberg, Ana S. Cardenal et al. "Navigating high-choice European political information environments: A comparative analysis of news user profiles and political knowledge." The International Journal of Press/Politics (2021): 19401612211012572. Top paper award, ICA, 2021

Schemer, C., Stanyer, J., Meltzer, C., Gehle, L., van Aelst, P., Theocharis, Y., ... & Halagiera, D. (2024). The Relationship Between Political Entertainment Media Use and Political Efficacy: A Comparative Study in 18 Countries. International Journal of Public Opinion Research. 

Humprecht, Edda, Laia Castro Herrero, Sina Blassnig, Michael Brüggemann, and Sven Engesser. "Media Systems in the Digital Age: An Empirical Comparison of 30 Countries." Journal of Communication (2022).

Theocharis, Yannis, Ana Cardenal, Soyeon Jin, Toril Aalberg, David Nicolas Hopmann, Jesper Strömbäck, Laia Castro et al. "Does the platform matter? Social media and COVID-19 conspiracy theory beliefs in 17 countries." new media & society (2021): 14614448211045666.

Some of my coauthors are...

Toril Aalberg

Sina Blassnig

Alex Bovet

Michael Brüggemann

Florin Büchel

Ana Sofia Cardenal

Sven Engesser

Frank Esser

Raphael Heiberger

David Nicolas Hopmann

Edda Humprecht

Tarik Jusic

Silvia Majó Vázquez

Davor Marko

Lilach Nir

Manuel Puppis

Morten Skovsgaard

Tamir Sheafer

Agnieszka Stepinska

Desiree Steppat

Vaclav Stetka

Jesper Strömbäck

Yannis Theocharis

Fanni Toth

Peter Van Aelst 

Claes de Vreese

Yuan Zhang

Alon Zoizner

Selected teaching

Fall semester 2022, 2023 Lecture "TICs i Procesos Políticos" (MA level, University of Barcelona)

 Fall semester 2021 Lecture  "Anàlisi d'Audiències" (BA Degree, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya)

 Fall semester 2020 Research seminar  "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose? Political communication in multi-platform media environments" (BA Degree, University of Zurich)

Spring semester 2020 Seminar  "Comparative Political Communication Research" (BA Degree, University of Zurich) 

Fall semester 2019 Seminar  "Studying Political Communication and Public Opinion in the Digital Age" (BA Degree, University of Zurich) 

Fall semester 2019 Seminar "Medien, Politik und öffentliche Meinung" (BA Degree, University of Zurich)