Johanna Martje zum Felde (born 1986) started in October 2017 as a Research and Teaching Associate at the department of International Communication. She teaches at the intersection of digitisation, government communication and the public sphere as well as the political and economical context conditions. In her PhD research these topics interest her particularly in relation to France. She has studied Applied Culture Science with Majors in Language & Communication and Business Administration as well as Minors in Media & Public Relations and Economy & Law (M.A. 2013). She spent time abroad during an Erasmus study exchange at the University of Central Lancashire in Great Britain  (B.A. International Business Communication 2009) and during other internships and work employments (among others Oxfam in Peking, World Bank Institute in Washington DC, Goethe-Centre in Namibia). After that she managt deliveries of organic fruit to offices with BIOBOB in Hamburg, researched on a freelance and voluntary basis, was politically engaged (2013-2015) and advocated the use of open data with the Open Knowledge Foundation in Berlin (2015-2017). 

In her PhD research she looks at the state of democracy in Frances public sphere during the Grand Débat National, a national consultation of great mesure that was started by the French government as a reaction to nationwide protests of the yellowvests movement in early 2019.

Publications and Working Papers

• 2016 (with Caro Glandorf, Tobias Knobloch, Julia Manske and Ole Wintermann): Deutschland und die Open Government Partnership: Chance auf einen Wandel der politischen Kultur und den Erhalt der offenen Gesellschaft. Stiftung Mitarbeit (Hrsg.), Bonn. http://www.buergergesellschaft.de/fileadmin/pdf/gastbeitrag_manske_ua_161116.pdf
• 2016 (with Bela Seeger and Anna Alberts): How to make Participatory Budgeting Tutorials - an Inventory. OpenBudegets.eu (Hrsg.), Berlin. http://openbudgets.eu/resources/2016/11/03/participatory-budgeting-report/
• 2015 (with Christian Heise, Stefan Heumann and Julia Manske): Offene Daten ohne Deutschland. Der G7-Gipfel und der steinige Weg zu mehr Transparenz. Stiftung neue Verantwortung e. V. (Hrsg.), Berlin. https://www.stiftung-nv.de/sites/default/files/impulse_g8-open_data_charta_1.pdf

• 2012 (with Samantha Custer): Beneficiary Feedback Interviews and Snapshots. In: Björn-Sören Gigler, Savita Bailur (Hrsg.) Closing the Feedback Loop. Can Technology Bridge the Accountability Gap? World Bank Institute, Innovation Practice, Washington, DC. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/18408/882680PUB0978100Box385205B00PUBLIC0.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Conference Contributions

• 2025: Liberté, égalité, fraternité? Structures and Perspectives on Democratic Dialogue during the French Grand Débat National, Presentation held at the ECREA Philosophy of Communication Section workshop, Berlin.
• 2023 (with Erik Bauer): Recognition of the Other as the Foundation of Democracy: A Conceptual Observation Applied to the French Public Sphere. Paper presented at the IAMCR conference Lyon, France.
• 2014: Beyond Fiction: How Political Television Series Reproduce the Public’s Pessimistic Perception of Politics. Paper presented at the ISA Annual Convention New Orleans, USA.

In the Media

• 2015: “Der politische Wille fehlt”. In: Frankfurter Rundschau, 05.10.2015. http://www.fr.de/fr-serien/freiheit/freiheit/open-data-in-deutschland-der-politische-wille-fehlt-a-425183

Blog Articles (Selection)

• 2016: Germany Joins the OGP with Government and Civil Society on Board. Open Government Partnership (Hrsg.), Washington, DC. https://www.opengovpartnership.org/stories/germany-joins-the-ogp-with-government-and-civil-society-on-board/
• 2016 (with Arne Semsrott andWalter Palmetshofer): „Rohstoff der Zukunft“: Was bringt das Open-Data-Gesetz?. Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland e.V. (Hrsg.), Berlin. https://okfn.de/blog/2016/10/opendata-gesetz/