Professor Tanja Sihvonen is the project’s Principal Investigator. She is a Professor in Communication Studies and a media research specialized in digital cultures, media technologies and games. Tanja defended her thesis in Media Studies on the subject of modding computer games. Recently her work has focused on, among others, bots, digital journalism and communicative challenges posed by a hybrid media environment. What especially inspires her in the current project is the opportunity to learn more about audiovisual expression and aesthetics on video sharing platforms.
Contact: firstname.lastname(at)uwasa.fi
PhD, Researcher Liisa Kääntä is a jack-of-all-trades in the study of digital society, interested in various phenomena in work-life and media. Her thesis is from Finnish language studies, with a focus on peer-to-peer interaction in institutional online conversations. Currently Liisa studies, among other things, mediation through video in vocational contexts and media discourses revolving around climate-smart living. She is fascinated by the format of short-form video in a modern, hybrid media environment, and the ways different types of consumer-producers use the format.
Contact: firstname.lastname(at)uwasa.fi
PhD, Researcher Ville Manninen defended his thesis in Journalism Studies, having studied young adult Finns’ trust towards online journalism. He has also studied media pluralism and technological innovations in journalistic work. The current project interests Ville especially in terms of what opportunities – and challenges -short-form video presents to so-called “traditional journalism”.
Contact: firstname.lastname(at)uwasa.fi
PhD, Researcher Virpi Salojärvi studies shifts in political communication, journalism and social media. Her thesis pertained to the role of traditional media in populist conflict. Most recently she took part in a EU-wide project studying how information changes and is reshaped on social media, and in that project Virpi also took part in developing new (audio-)visual research methods. In the current project, Virpi is particularly interested in the visuality of different social media platforms and emotions as part of journalism.
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PhD, Senior Lecturer Teija Waaramaa is a researcher of speech, voice, emotion, interaction and the cultural variations thereof. She completed her thesis on emotion in spoken language. Teija has the title of Docent with a specialization on vocology and non-verbal communication. She has studied internationally the reception of emotion from acoustic signals, voice, and the reception of personality between native speakers and non-native speakers. Teija has also studied the work of Finnish news anchors.
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M.Soc.Sc. University Teacher Nuppu Pelevina is preparing her doctoral thesis on political social media influencers and, especially, influencers’ role in international politics. Pelevina is broadly interested in political communication on visually-oriented social media platforms, on which her research focuses on strategic narratives, propaganda and populism.
Contact: nuppu-maija.lastname(at)uwasa.fi