Maxim Alyukov

Dr Maxim Alyukov is a Research Fellow at the University of Manchester's Department of Russian and East-European Studies, focusing on political communication and media in authoritarian contexts, particularly Russia. He holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki and an MA in Sociology from the European University at Saint-Petersburg. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at King’s Russia Institute (2021-2023), remaining a research associate there. His work explores how citizens process political information in autocracies, leveraging mixed methods like experiments and computational analysis.

Research Interests: Alyukov investigates media reception in hybrid systems, propaganda adaptation, and political cognition. His current Leverhulme Trust-funded project examines how authoritarian regimes exploit citizen reflexivity in saturated media environments.

Publications and Media: His work appears in journals like Political Communication, Nature Human Behaviour, and Qualitative Psychology. He frequently contributes to non-academic media (BBC, Al Jazeera, NYT) and public discourse on Russian politics and information warfare. Key themes in his articles include propaganda strategies, media credibility, and conflict narratives in authoritarian settings.

Labs and Affiliations: He is part of the Public Sociology Laboratory (comparing post-Soviet politics) and the International Panel on the Information Environment (analyzing global information threats). His expertise spans UN Sustainable Development Goals related to informed societies and democratic governance.