Dr Stefania Vicari
Laurea (Hons), MA, PhD
Department of Sociological Studies
Senior Lecturer in Digital Sociology and Director of the Data Communication and New Technologies (DCT) pathway of the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership (WRDTP).
+44 114 222 6452
Full contact details
Department of Sociological Studies
Elmfield Building
Northumberland Road
Sheffield
S10 2TU
- Profile
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Stefania joined the Department in September 2016 as a Senior Lecturer in Digital Sociology. Prior to this, she worked as a Lecturer in Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes at the University of Sassari, Italy, (2009-2010), and as a Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester (2011-2016).
Stefania's university life started at the University of Turin, Italy, where she was awarded a laurea in Communication Sciences (summa cum laude).
Stefania then moved to the UK to receive a Master in Globalization and Communications (Distinction) from the University of Leicester and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Reading. She spent her final year as a visiting PhD student at the Sociology Department of Emory University, USA.
- Research interests
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Stefania’s work lies at the intersection of sociology and media and communication studies. Her overarching research interest is in digital media and social change.
The activist mundane. Stefania has explored mundane social media practices of ‘talking politics’. Her work in this field has focused on deliberative processes in the contexts of the Global Justice Movement, the World Social Forum, the Cuban blogosphere and in several issue publics on the Italian and the English Twitter. Stefania has recently focused on mundane memetics in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Social media and expert patients. Stefania is interested in the role of digital media in self-care, patient advocacy, health public debate, and health activism. Her main interest is in if, how and to what extent digital media may shape bottom-up, patient-centred health practices. Stefania's work in this area is currently looking at social media affordances for individuals with hereditary health conditions.
Digital methods for cultural research. Stefania uses a range of digital methods techniques informed by network theory and textual analysis (frame analysis, critical discourse analysis). As her recent work has focused on how linguistically or geographically local publics make themselves at home on global social media platforms, Stefania is specifically interested in developing combinations of ‘quanti’ and ‘quali’ methodological steps in digital methods designs.
- Publications
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Journal articles
- Organisational hashtags during times of crisis : analysing the broadcasting and gatekeeping dynamics of #PorteOuverte during the November 2015 Paris terror attacks. Social Media + Society(Jan-Mar 2021), 1-13.
- One platform, a thousand worlds: On Twitter irony in the early response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Social Media and Society, 6(3). View this article in WRRO
- Is it all about storytelling? Living and learning hereditary cancer on Twitter. New Media and Society. View this article in WRRO
- Political hashtag publics and counter-visuality: a case study of #fertilityday in Italy. Information Communication & Society. View this article in WRRO
- What's in a Text?: Answers from Frame Analysis and Rhetoric for Measuring Meaning Systems and Argumentative Structures. Rhetorica: a journal of the history of rhetoric, 36(4), 393-429. View this article in WRRO
- Twitter and Non-Elites: Interpreting Power Dynamics in the Life Story of the (#)BRCA Twitter Stream. Social Media and Society, 3(3). View this article in WRRO
- Health activism and the logic of connective action. A case study of rare disease patient organisations. Information, Communication & Society, 19(11), 1653-1671. View this article in WRRO
- Exploring the Cuban blogosphere: Discourse networks and informal politics. New Media & Society, 17(9), 1492-1512.
- The Interpretative Dimension of Transformative Events: Outrage Management and Collective Action Framing After the 2001 Anti-G8 Summit in Genoa. Social Movement Studies, 14(5), 596-614.
- Blogging politics in Cuba: the framing of political discourse in the Cuban blogosphere. Media, Culture & Society, 36(7), 998-1015.
- Networks of Contention: The Shape of Online Transnationalism in Early Twenty-First Century Social Movement Coalitions. Social Movement Studies, 13(1), 92-109.
- Quantitative narrative analysis software options compared: PC-ACE and CAQDAS (ATLAS.ti, MAXqda, and NVivo). Quality & Quantity, 47(6), 3219-3247.
- Public reasoning around social contention: A case study of Twitter use in the Italian mobilization for global change. Current Sociology, 61(4), 474-490.
- Ways of Measuring Agency. Sociological Methodology, 42(1), 1-42.
- Measuring collective action frames: A linguistic approach to frame analysis. Poetics, 38(5), 504-525.
Chapters
- Health, ICTs and the social In Reilly P, Veneti A & Atanasova D (Ed.), Politics, Protest, Emotion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. A book of blogs. Sheffield: Information School, University of Sheffield.
- Networks of Contention: The Shape of Online Transnationalism in Early Twenty-First Century Social Movement Coalitions In Crossley N & Krinsky J (Ed.), Social Networks and Social Movements: Contentious Connections (pp. 92-109). London: Routledge.
- Twitter and Public Reasoning Around Social Contention: The Case of #15ott in Italy In Tejerina B & Perugorria I (Ed.), From Social to Political. New Forms of Mobilization and Democratization (pp. 277-292). Bilbao: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del Pais Vasco.
- Investigating Facebook walls: A quantitative approach to online community building In Krippendorff K & La Rocca G (Ed.), Qualitative research and young researchers (pp. 146-156).
Other
- Do social media companies undervalue the expertise of online communities?.
- Career opportunities in digital media.
- Book Review: Sharing Our Lives Online: Risks and Exposure in Social Media by David R. Brake..
- Book review: transnationalizing the public sphere by Nancy Fraser et al..
- Organisational hashtags during times of crisis : analysing the broadcasting and gatekeeping dynamics of #PorteOuverte during the November 2015 Paris terror attacks. Social Media + Society(Jan-Mar 2021), 1-13.
- Grants
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- 2018-2021: ESRC Project Awarded: 'Sustainable Consumption, the Middle Classes and Agri-food Ethics in the Global South’ (co-Investigator. Principal Investigator: Alex Hughes). [Grant Ref. ES/R005303/1]
- 2016-2017: Wellcome Trust, Society and Ethics Small Grants Scheme. Project Awarded: 'Twitting rare diseases on and off the "Jolie effect": A study of Twitter affordances for health public debate’ (Principal Investigator). [Grant Ref. 200223/Z/15/Z]
- 2016-2017: University of Leicester REF-Research Impact Development Fund Scheme. Project Awarded: 'Developing the Rare disease epatient multi-project research as an impact case study'.
- 2013-1014: Wellcome Trust, Society and Ethics Small Grants Scheme. Project Awarded: 'Bridging the gap between patients and carers: The case of rare disease patient-advocacy actors' (Principal Investigator). [Grant Ref: 101785/Z/13/Z].
- 2012-2013: British Academy, Small Research Grants scheme. Project awarded: 'The Cuban blogosphere: A leak of voice from an authoritarian regime to a global public' (Principal Investigator). [Grant Ref: SG112222].
- Teaching activities
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Stefania is the Director of the Data Communication and New Technologies (DCT) pathway of the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership (WRDTP).
From 2016 to 2020, she directed the newly born MA Digital Media and Society, also designing and convening the programme's core modules SCS6078 Researching Digital Society, SCS6081 Digital Methods, SCS6083 Dissertation is Digital Media and Society. During her time as Programme Director, Stefania designed the specifications of the optional modules SCS6109 Global Challenges in the Digital Society, SCS6108 Advanced Social Media Research and SCS61015 Academic Skills and Literacy.
Since 2020, Stefania has been convening:
- SCS6107 Researching Society (postgraduate)
and contributing teaching to:
- SCS2024 Digital Media and Social Change (undergraduate)
- SCS6081 Digital Methods (postgraduate)
- Professional activities
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- Sociology Editorial Board member
- Peer reviewer for ESRC Research grant scheme, Italian scientific evaluation (REPRISE), Volkswagen Foundation.
- External examiner for MA Communication and Media, University of Leeds (2017-2021); MA Digital Media and Society, University of Leicester (2021 - ongoing)
- PhD Students
- Zheng Yang
- Yumeng Guo
- Semra Demirdis
- Nuha Almohammadi
Stefania has supervised PhD projects looking at different aspects of digital media use, among which, digital literacy, digital activism and online political participation.
She is particularly interested in supervising students investigating participatory dynamics on digital media platforms and/or who wish to apply digital methods approaches.
Stefania also has a strong interest in projects looking at health and social media use.