Stefan Weber (media scientist)

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Stefan Weber (born June 14, 1970 in Salzburg ) is an Austrian media scientist , journalist and plagiarism expert . In the media he is often referred to as a "plagiarism hunter" due to his expert work and the plagiarism allegations he has made public.

biography

Stefan Weber studied 1989-1996 Media and Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg , where he in 1996 with one of Peter A. Bruck supervised dissertation to Dr. phil. and worked in Salzburg as a journalist and university lecturer. In 2005 he qualified as a professor at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies at the University of Vienna . In 2009 he reached second place on the list with an application for the temporary endowed professorship (W2) for “Communication Studies with a Focus on Emerging Communications and Media” at the Technical University of Dresden .

He is a university lecturer at the University of Vienna and the Technical University of Vienna . At Research Studios Austria Forschungsgesellschaft he is a Senior Researcher in the field of Smart Media for Science.

Since Weber discovered in 2005 that the Tübingen-based theologian and computer scientist Joachim Fels in 2004 had taken almost half of his dissertation largely verbatim from Weber's dissertation from 1996, he has increasingly turned to the media to address the plagiarism problem at universities to draw attention. The plagiarist was stripped of his doctorate in July 2005 , and in 2007 he was convicted under criminal law.

Weber has been publishing in his “Blog for Scientific Righteousness” (ISSN 2197-6449) since June 2010, in which, among other things, he comments on cases of plagiarism, but also raises allegations of plagiarism himself.

In 2019 Weber criticized the Austrian newspapers “Addendum” and “Die Presse” for what he saw as the inadequate academic ability of today's generation of students.

Publicly raised allegations of plagiarism

Stefan Weber raised allegations of plagiarism or other scientific misconduct against several people in public.

The accusations against the then Austrian Science Minister Johannes Hahn in 2007 that he had "copied pages without citing" in his dissertation initially attracted a great deal of media attention . The University of Vienna commissioned Peter Schulthess (University of Zurich) with an expert opinion that exonerated Hahn with regard to the criticized positions.

Since the media artist Peter Weibel repeatedly mentioned a dissertation he had written in his résumé, without even including the doctoral degree, which was incorrectly repeatedly attributed to him, as part of his name, Weber referred to this in 2010 - as an example of a “perfect life lie” - in ironically on his blog as “The Weibel Dissertation-Doctoral Paradox” and asked whether “a dissertation that has not been submitted is actually a dissertation”.

In 2011, Weber was commissioned by Peter Pilz to review Hahn's entire doctoral thesis - who is now EU Commissioner. In his report, Weber again raised allegations of plagiarism based on other sources. Hahn described it as "politically motivated commissioned work, not surprising and not significant due to the known activism". Shortly after the report was presented by the Greens , Weber also charged that Peter Pilz's dissertation was self-plagiarism. Pilz submitted a dissertation study that was written together with a colleague without having correctly identified it. Pilz rejected Weber's accusation and called his way of working "dubious".

Weber characterized the dissertation of the German Bundestag President Norbert Lammert as a clear plagiarism, the consequence of which could only be the withdrawal of the doctorate. After a detailed examination of the allegations, the Ruhr University Bochum concerned announced: "The dissertation does contain avoidable weaknesses in the citations, but these do not justify the suspicion of plagiarism or deception" and decided not to initiate plagiarism proceedings.

According to a report in the Sächsische Zeitung from 2014, Weber's allegations of plagiarism against two researchers from the Technical University of Dresden were “wrongly”, as “expert commissions from two German universities determined after a long review”.

In June 2016 he described the dissertation of the Styrian regional councilor Christian Buchmann as having been written off by 30 percent, and an investigation was initiated. As a result, Buchmann's doctorate was revoked in April 2017 and he submitted his resignation from the post of regional councilor.

In response to a plagiarism report by Stefan Weber, the University of Vienna initiated proceedings against the designated director of the Vienna State Opera , Bogdan Roščić , in spring 2017 . However, the proceedings were discontinued towards the end of the same year: The external reviewers commissioned to examine Roščić's dissertation from 1988 (“proven technical experts”) came to the conclusion that there was “no scientific misconduct”, which meant “the withdrawal of the doctoral degree awarded almost 30 years ago [...]. "

Also in 2017 Weber dealt with the diploma thesis of the SPÖ politician Thomas Drozda . Drozda, who himself had submitted his diploma thesis at the University of Linz for review in May 2017 after allegations of plagiarism became known, was allowed to keep his master’s degree because, as the university found, the “statutory requirements for a revocation are not standardized fulfilled ".

In February 2018 Weber raised allegations against Austria's only Afghanistan court expert because of a lack of scientific knowledge in one of his reports. The expert was removed from the list of court experts in September 2018.

In January 2019, Weber raised allegations against the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) for its contribution to the re-authorization report for glyphosate in Europe in an expert report prepared with colleagues . According to Weber and co-authors in the report, the contribution contains fragments of plagiarism. The BfR denied the existence of plagiarism in an open letter.

In December 2019, after a cursory analysis of the first three articles in the final report of the FPÖ's historians' commission , he raised an allegation of plagiarism, according to which the report contained numerous matches with Wikipedia articles.

Publications

Monographs:

  • News construction in the tabloid medium. The reality of the "Kronen Zeitung" . Passagen Verlag, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85165-163-4
  • The dualization of knowing. On constructivism, neurophilosophy and media theory . Passagen Verlag, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85165-245-2
  • How journalistic realities arise (= series of publications by the Kuratorium für Journalistenausbildung , Volume 15). Salzburg 1999.
  • What controls journalism? A system between self-reference and external control (UVK Medien Verlag, Konstanz, 2000), ISBN 3-89669-293-3
  • Media - systems - networks. Elements of a theory of cyber networks (Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, 2001), ISBN 3-933127-77-7
  • Non-dualistic media theory. A philosophical foundation (UVK Verlag, Konstanz, 2005), ISBN 3-89669-474-X
  • Austria's journalists work for newspapers and magazines (=  series of publications by the Kuratorium für Journalistenausbildung . Volume 18 ). Salzburg 2006 ( online version [PDF; 1.8 MB ]).
  • The google copy paste syndrome. How network plagiarism endangers training and knowledge (Heise / "Telepolis" series at dpunkt Verlag, Hannover / Heidelberg, 2007; 2nd, revised edition 2009), ISBN 3-936931-37-2
  • The medialization trap. Critique of the digital zeitgeist (Edition Va Bene / series “Eine Analyze”, Vienna / Klosterneuburg, 2008), ISBN 3-85167-209-7
  • Robot journalism, chatbots & Co .: How algorithms produce content and influence our thinking . Hot media. Hanover 2018. ISBN 978-3-95788-104-5

Editorships:

  • What does art construct? Art at the interface of constructivism, systems theory and distinction theory (Passagen Verlag, Vienna, 1999), ISBN 3-85165-357-2
  • Media theories. From cultural criticism to constructivism (UVK Verlag bei UTB, Konstanz, 2003; 2nd, revised edition 2010), ISBN 3-8252-2424-4
  • together with Alexander Riegler (Ed.): The Non-dualizing Philosophy of Josef Mitterer . 2008, ISSN  1782-348X ( overview of the online version (accessible after registration)).
  • The third philosophy. Critical contributions to Josef Mitterer's non-dualism (Velbrück Wissenschaft, Weilerswist, 2010, together with Alexander Riegler; 2nd, unchanged edition 2011), ISBN 3-938808-88-8
  • together with Alexander Riegler (Ed.): Non-dualism: A Conceptual Revision? 2013, ISSN  1782-348X ( overview of the online version (accessible after registration)).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann Horstkotte: The lonely plagiarism hunter. Retrieved June 21, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c curriculum vitae. In: Academia.edu. May 2016, accessed on 19 July 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b Privatdozent Mag. Dr. Stefan Weber. External lecturer. In: University of Vienna, Institute for Media and Communication Studies. 2018, accessed July 19, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Job posting. In: Dresdner Universitätsjournal 13/2009 p. 10, 21 July 2009, accessed on 19 July 2019 .
  5. ↑ https://publizistik.univie.ac.at/institut/lehrbeauftragte/weber-stefan/
  6. ↑ https://tiss.tuwien.ac.at/course/courseDetails.xhtml?dswid=9168&dsrid=957&courseNr=280589&semester=2019S
  7. ↑ https://www.researchstudio.at/stefan-weber/
  8. ↑ The Plagiarist. In: Spiegel Online. November 2, 2005, accessed December 1, 2014 .
  9. ↑ http://science.orf.at/science/news/149043 ( Memento of the original from July 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / science.orf.at
  10. ↑ https://plagiatsgutachten.de/blog/
  11. ↑ https://www.addendum.org/news/studierunfaehig/
  12. ↑ Can't young academics anything anymore? In: DiePresse.com. June 5, 2019, accessed August 10, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Citation rules still different back then? .
  14. ↑ http://images.derstandard.at/2011/03/11/Stellungnahme_UniversitaetZuerich_Hahn.pdf
  15. ↑ Supposedly this work was not even written by Weibel himself, but by the Viennese mathematician Werner Schimanovich ; see. Doubts about Peter Weibel's dissertation. - Der Standard, September 26, 2010. Retrieved July 16, 2019 .
  16. ↑ The Weibelsche dissertation doctoral paradox (WDD paradox). September 24, 2010. Accessed July 16, 2019 .
  17. ^ "Bucking up before the Minister". In: Spiegel Online. March 25, 2011, accessed December 1, 2014 .
  18. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gruene.at
  19. ↑ Greens: Hahn dissertation is plagiarism. In: DiePresse.com. May 23, 2011, accessed January 21, 2018 .
  20. ↑ news.ORF.at .
  21. ↑ http://www.peterpilz.at/2011-06/peter-pilz-tagebuch.htm#t_10
  22. ^ Salzburger Nachrichten: Salzburg Expert: Lammert's dissertation is plagiarism .
  23. ↑ Plagiarism allegation. University of Bochum closes proceedings against Lammert. on 06.11.2013 at Spiegel online .
  24. ↑ Doreen Reinhard and Annechristin Kleppisch: The dispute over the doctorate (February 18, 2014). Online also at tu-dresden.de .
  25. ^ "Very serious" allegations of plagiarism against Styrian ÖVP politicians. Retrieved July 1, 2016 .
  26. ↑ https://steiermark.orf.at/v2/news/stories/2835237
  27. ↑ https://www.kleinezeitung.at/politik/innenpolitik/5202447/Plagiatsaffaere_BuchmannRuecktritt_Das-sind-die-Hintergruende?offset=125&page=4
  28. ↑ Michaela Hessenberger: University of Vienna closes plagiarism proceedings against Bogdan Roscic - Salzburger Nachrichten, November 14, 2017. Accessed on July 16, 2019 .
  29. ↑ Bogdan Roščić's academic degree will not be revoked - University of Vienna, November 14, 2017. Retrieved July 16, 2019 .
  30. ↑ Thomas Drozda is allowed to keep master’s degree after plagiarism examination. - Der Standard, October 1, 2018. Retrieved July 16, 2019 .
  31. ↑ https://www.profil.at/oesterreich/vorwuerfe-gerichtsgutachter-karl-mahringer-8957728
  32. ↑ https://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/politik/oesterreich/983629-Umstrittener-Afghanistan-Gutachter-wird-gestrichen.html
  33. ↑ https://www.greens-efa.eu/files/doc/docs/298ff6ed5d6a686ec799e641082cdb63.pdf
  34. ↑ https://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/343/offener-brief-des-bfr-an-doz-dr-stefan-weber-sachverstaendiger-fuer-plagiatspruefung.pdf
  35. ↑ APA : FPÖ historian's report: "Numerous matches" with Wikipedia. In: The press . December 24, 2019, accessed December 25, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Weber, Stefan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian media scientist and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Salzburg