ZeMKI Visiting Research Fellows 2025

This year, the ZeMKI welcomes a total of five Visiting Research Fellows as part of its Visiting Researcher Program.

From over 150 applications, the steering committee of the ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen selected five researchers who will work together with at least two ZeMKI labs in interdisciplinary research for four weeks each until the end of 2025. We are delighted to welcome the following colleagues:

Spring/Summer

Prof. Dr. Eugenia Siapera is Professor of Digital Technology, Politics and Society and Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Policy at University College Dublin, Ireland, alongside Elizabeth Farries. Her research focuses on digital technologies and media, political communication, journalism, technology and social justice, platform governance and the study of hate speech, racism and misogyny. She has led several research projects funded by organizations such as the IRC, SFI and Horizon, and has contributed extensively to the academic literature with numerous articles and book chapters. Eugenia will collaborate with the ZeMKI Labs “Platform Governance, Media and Technology” and “Datafication and Mediatization” during her fellowship.

Prof. Dr. Joyojeet Pal is an associate professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. His recent research has focused on the use of social media in mainstream politics and the flow and networks of misinformation on the Internet. He founded the “Social Media and Society” group at Microsoft Research and created and organized the “Social Media and Society in India” symposium in Michigan. He is a faculty member at the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing, the Michigan Institute for Data and Artificial Intelligence in Society, and the Center for South Asian Studies. Prior to returning to the University of Michigan, he was a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research, where he was a member of the Technology for Emerging Markets group. During his fellowship, Joyojeet will collaborate with the ZeMKI Labs “Political Communication and Innovative Methods”, “Media Change and Long-Term Transformation Processes” and “Media and Education”.

Fall/Winter

Prof. Dr. Berber Hagedoorn is Assistant Professor of Media Studies and Audiovisual Culture at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Her research interests revolve around screen cultures (representations and cross-media narrative practices, especially in the field of television) and audiovisual cultural memory in Europe. She investigates, for example, how the combination of television with new (cross-)media technologies has influenced the role of television as a storyteller (“history teacher”) and source of information for today’s media generations. Hagedoorn is a member of the board of the EUscreen Foundation (representing research) and organizes collaboration for European research and education on the history of television and its future as a cross-platform storytelling practice. During her fellowship, Berber will collaborate with the ZeMKI Labs “Media Change and Long-Term Transformation Processes” and “Datafication and Mediatization”.

Prof. Dr. Lissa Holloway-Attaway is Associate Professor of Media Arts, Aesthetics and Narration at the University of Skövde, Sweden. She holds a PhD in English Studies with a focus on 19th century American literature, digital media and critical theory. She is co-director of the Computer Game Development and Graphics program and a member of the GAME Research Group. She teaches undergraduate courses in computer game development and graduate courses in media arts, aesthetics, and narrative. She is also currently a research member of the Posthumanites Hub at Linköping University in the Department of Gender Studies, where she is also the coordinator for the research strand “New Media, Digital Cultures and Social Imaginaries in Feminist Posthumanities” at GEXcel International Collegium for Advanced Transdisciplinary Gender Studies. During her fellowship, Lissa will collaborate with the ZeMKI labs “Media and Religion” and “Media Change and Long-Term Transformation Processes”.

Prof. Dr. Andrea L. Guzman is an associate professor of journalism at Northern Illinois University, USA. She is an expert in human-machine communication (HMC) in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated journalism. Her research focuses on people’s perceptions of and interactions with AI. As a former journalist, she also studies the integration of AI in the media industry. Andrea is the lead editor of the SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication and editor of Human-Machine Communication: Rethinking Communication, Technology, and Ourselves. Andrea’s research has been published in prestigious journals such as New Media & Society, Computers in Human Behavior, Digital Journalism, and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and presented at leading interdisciplinary and disciplinary conferences worldwide. Andrea will collaborate with the ZeMKI Labs “Datafication and Mediatization”, “Platform Governance, Media and Technology” and “Sociotechnical Systems and Critical Data Studies” during her fellowship.