About me

CORE Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies – on research leave from Maastricht University 2022/23

I am fascinated by how information circulates in societies and seek to understand how (authoritarian) governments try to shape and control the dissemination of information. In connection to this, I am interested in how the boundaries of freedom of expression, media and internet freedom are continuously negotiated and legitimated. The topics I study are complex. Therefore, my research agenda is interdisciplinary and draws upon, among others, Media Studies, Political Communication, International Relations and Critical Internet Studies.

  • Member of the Expert Pool on Cyber and Expert Pool on Russia of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE)
  • Editor of open access journal Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media (digitalicons.org)

Research focus

Platform governance

Human rights

Russian politics

Internet freedom

Internet policy

Political communication

Positions

CORE Fellow, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (2022-2023)

Assistant Professor in Cyber-Security and Politics, Maastricht University
(2019 – ) on leave 2022/2023

(Non-resident) Visiting Researcher, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki
(2019 – 2022)
Principle Investigator of the research project ‘Towards sustainable journalism for the algorithmic future’ funded by Helsingin Sanomat Foundation.

NWO Rubicon Postdoctoral Fellow, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki
(2018 – 2019)
Project: Selling censorship – Affective framing and the legitimation of internet control in Russia

Postdoctoral Researcher, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki
(2017 – 2018)
Project researcher. Russian Media Lab: Freedom of Speech and Critical Journalism in Russia.

Lecturer in East European Studies, University of Amsterdam
(2016 – 2017)

PhD assistantship, University of Groningen
(2012 – 2016)
PhD thesis: Memory politics in contemporary Russia: Television, cinema and the state.