Kaarina Nikunen

Kaarina Nikunen is Professor of Media and Communication Research at Tampere University's Faculty of Information Technology and Communication. Her academic trajectory includes prior appointments as Acting Professor of Journalism at the University of Jyväskylä (2015), Acting Professor of Media Culture at the University of Tampere (2014), and Associate Professor/Lecturer in Media Culture and Journalism at the University of Tampere (2013-2016). She has held distinguished visiting positions at University of Massachusetts Amherst (2019), Microsoft Research Institute Cambridge (2019), London School of Economics (2017), Tulane University (2016), Stanford University (2012), and SOAS, University of London (2009).

Her research critically examines politics of participation, emotions and affect, datafication, migration, gender, inequalities, and media solidarities within digital media landscapes. Nikunen pioneers methodological integration of big data analytics with qualitative multi-sited media research to investigate humanitarian crises, refugee representations, and affective dimensions of social justice. Her work reveals how digital platforms mediate solidarity formations while exposing underlying power structures in media ecosystems.

Analysis of her 2016-2021 publications shows consistent thematic focus on affective practices in social media activism (e.g., Soldier of Odin extremism), racism/nationalism in media circulation, and welfare state values under datafication. She innovatively combines computational methods with deep qualitative analysis to dissect visual activism (e.g., refugee selfies), reality television's humanitarian narratives, and data-driven intimacy cultures, establishing new frameworks for understanding media's role in contemporary social conflicts.

Nikunen currently leads three major research initiatives: BIBU (media participation), IDA (Intimacy in Data Driven culture), and the recently completed HYBRA project on racism in hybrid media. These projects exemplify her commitment to methodologically rigorous, socially engaged scholarship that bridges computational and critical traditions while addressing urgent societal challenges through media analysis.