Dr. Dennis Frieß is coordinator of the DIID. Since May 2019, he was coordinator of the NRW Research College Online Participation. From 2014 to 2019, he was a research assistant at the Chair of Communication and Media Studies III at MUHS-Gelsenkirchen and a staff member at DIID. He studied Social Sciences, Law and Communication Science at the University of Erfurt (B.A.) and Political Communication in Gelsenkirchen (M.A.). His doctoral thesis focused on the analysis of deliberative online publics. His research focuses on political (online) communication, online deliberation, and online participation.

At the DIID, he is particularly interested in online-supported deliberation processes and the democracy-relevant expectations associated with online participation offerings.