Dr Stefania Vicari
BA, MA, PhD, FHEA
Department of Sociological Studies
Senior Lecturer in Digital Sociology
Research Lead and Executive Board member, Sheffield Cancer Research
+44 114 222 6452
Full contact details
Department of Sociological Studies
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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Stefania joined the Department in September 2016 as a Senior Lecturer in Digital Sociology. Prior to this, she was a Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester (2011-2016) and a Lecturer in Sociology of Cultural and Communicative Processes at the University of Sassari, Italy, (2009-2010).
Stefania’s background sits at the intersection of sociology and media and communication studies, drawing on a highly international HE journey. She was awarded a BA in Communication Sciences (Summa cum laude) from the University of Torino (Italy), an MA in Globalization and Communications (Distinction) from the University of Leicester (UK) and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Reading (UK), having spent her last doctoral year as a visiting scholar at Emory University (USA).
- Research interests
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Stefania’s research focuses on participatory cultures, lived experiences of health and illness and methodological innovation. Her work has been funded by the British Academy (2012), the Wellcome Trust (2013; 2016), the ESRC (2018) and the Leverhulme Trust (2022).
Participatory cultures:
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 early 2000s Global Justice Movement, World Social Forum and Cuban blogosphere. She has also investigated several issue publics on the Italian and English Twitter, contributing, for instance, to scholarship on the role of social media content in pandemic discourses (e.g., were Covid-19 memes political communication?).
Social media and lived experiences of health and illness:
Stefania is a research lead and Executive Board member of Sheffield Cancer Research, co-directing its theme ‘Patient experience and voice’.
Stefania is interested in everyday digital media practices of self-care, patient advocacy, lay understandings of health and illness and health activism. Her work has provided evidence of the importance of social media for rare diseases patients and is currently exploring social media affordances for individuals with hereditary cancer syndromes (e.g., how do social media influence how we understand and experience illness?).
Digital methods for cultural research:
Stefania uses a range of methodological techniques informed by network theory, textual analysis (frame analysis, critical discourse analysis) and visual methods. She is specifically interested in developing combinations of ‘quanti’ and ‘quali’ methodological steps in digital methods designs (e.g., how do we research local cultures through global platforms?).
- Publications
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Books
Journal articles
- Contemporary visualities of ill health: On the social (media) construction of disease regimes.. Sociol Health Illn.
- Platform visibility and the making of an issue: Vernaculars of hereditary cancer on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. New Media & Society. View this article in WRRO
- The making of digital health citizenship. Polis, 37(1), 133-146. View this article in WRRO
- Frame semantic grammars: where frame analysis meets linguistics to study collective action frames. Discourse Studies, 25(2), 309-318.
- Hashtag publics, networked framing and the July 2016 'coup' in Turkey. First Monday, 28(3). View this article in WRRO
- Digital platforms as socio-cultural artifacts: developing digital methods for cultural research. Information, Communication & Society.
- Memetising the pandemic: memes, covid-19 mundanity and political cultures. Information Communication & Society, 24(16), 2422-2441.
- Is it all about storytelling? Living and learning hereditary cancer on Twitter. New Media & Society, 23(8), 2385-2408. View this article in WRRO
- The pandemic across platform societies: Weibo and Twitter at the outbreak of Covid-19 in China and in the West. Howard Journal of Communications, 32(5), 493-506. View this article in WRRO
- 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. View this article in WRRO
- One Platform, a Thousand Worlds: On Twitter Irony in the Early Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy. Social Media + Society, 6(3), 2056305120948254.
- Political hashtag publics and counter-visuality: a case study of #fertilityday in Italy. Information Communication & Society, 23(9), 1235-1254.
- 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 + Society, 3(3), 2056305117733224.
- Health activism and the logic of connective action. A case study of rare disease patient organisations. Information, Communication & Society, 19(11), 1653-1671.
- 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.
- Public reasoning around social contention: A case study of Twitter use in the Italian mobilization for global change. Current Sociology, 61(4), 474-490.
- Quantitative narrative analysis software options compared: PC-ACE and CAQDAS (ATLAS.ti, MAXqda, and NVivo). Quality & Quantity, 47(6), 3219-3247.
- 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
- How do grievances become manifestos? Developing frame analysis in social movement research In Cox L, Szolucha A, Lozano AA & Chattopadhyay S (Ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications for Social Movements (pp. 271-289). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited View this article in WRRO
- Memetising the pandemic: memes, covid-19 mundanity and political cultures, The Playful Politics of Memes (pp. 56-75). Routledge
- Digital methods to explore public opinion on Chinese social media : learning about Lai Chi Ying’s arrest on Weibo, SAGE Research Methods SAGE Publications View this article in WRRO
- Humans, COVID-19 and Platform Societies, BEING HUMAN DURING COVID-19 (pp. 36-43).
- Introduction, Digital Media and Participatory Cultures of Health and Illness (pp. 1-12). Routledge
- Health Advocacy and
Activism, Digital Media and Participatory Cultures of Health and Illness (pp. 38-57). Routledge
- From Patient
Organisations to Patient Networks, Digital Media and Participatory Cultures of Health and Illness (pp. 75-96). Routledge
- Participatory Cultures
of Health and Illness on Digital Health Platforms, Digital Media and Participatory Cultures of Health and Illness (pp. 133-152). Routledge
- Conclusion, Digital Media and Participatory Cultures of Health and Illness (pp. 153-158). Routledge
- Digital Media,
Participation and Citizenship, Digital Media and Participatory Cultures of Health and Illness (pp. 15-37). Routledge
- Participatory Cultures of
Health and Illness on Mainstream Social Media, Digital Media and Participatory Cultures of Health and Illness (pp. 99-132). Routledge
- The Rise of the
“Epatient” in the Internet That Was, Digital Media and Participatory Cultures of Health and Illness (pp. 61-74). Routledge
- Health, ICTs and the social In Reilly P, Veneti A & Atanasova D (Ed.), Politics, Protest, Emotion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. A book of blogs. (pp. 148-152). 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). Palermo: Social Books.
Book reviews
- "Book Review: Sharing Our Lives Online: Risks and Exposure in Social Media by David R. Brake." LSE Review of books. LSE Review of books.
- "Book review: transnationalizing the public sphere by Nancy Fraser et al." LSE Review of books. LSE Review of books.
Conference proceedings papers
- "You can't see it but it's a matter of life and death". Of platforms, power, and the invisible. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. Dublin, Ireland, 2 November 2022 - 2 November 2022. View this article in WRRO
- Bringing the pandemic home: memes as local politics at times of global crisis. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. Online, 13 October 2021 - 16 October 2021.
- COVID-19 across platform societies: exploring the pandemic through Weibo and Twitter. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. Online, 13 October 2021 - 16 October 2021.
Other
- "Do social media companies undervalue the expertise of online communities?" LSE Impact blog. LSE Impact Blog.
- "Career opportunities in digital media". Deccan Herald. Deccan Herald.
- Contemporary visualities of ill health: On the social (media) construction of disease regimes.. Sociol Health Illn.
- Research group
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Digital Media and Society research area
Science, Technology and Medicine in Society (STeMiS)
Postgraduate supervision
Stefania has examined doctoral candidates in the UK and abroad, having herself supervised the following PhD students to completion.
- Jantiga Supapong, “More performing, less protesting: Exploring the mediated political engagement of Thai middle classes”;
- Zheng Yang, “Citizen Science Communicators, Boundary-Work and Scientific Authority: Struggle for Discourse Authority between Scientists and the Public in the Digital Media Environment of China”;
- Semra Demirdis, “Hashtag activism? The role of Twitter hashtags during the 15th July ‘coup attempt’ in Turkey”;
- Nuha Almohammadi, “Understandings and Experiences of Sports, Physical Activity and Related Digital Campaigning Among Saudi Young Women in Saudi Arabia”.
She is currently supervising:
- Yumeng Guo
- Jingyi Ji
- Siyi Wang
- Victoria Knowles
- Annalisa Johnson
- Arif Lukman Hakim
- Meng Wu
- Grants
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2022-2025: Leverhulme Trust, Research project grants scheme. Project Awarded: 'Previvorship in the platform society: Cancer genetic risk in the digital age’ (Principal Investigator). [Grant Ref. RPG-2021-152]
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 currently convening the postgraduate core module SCS6081 Digital Methods, having previously taught on a broad range of sociological and media communication modules across levels, programmes, institutions and countries.
From 2020 to 2024, Stefania was the Pathway Director for Data, Communication and New Technologies with the White Rose Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership.
From 2016 to 2020, she was the Programme Director of the newly born MA Digital Media and Society, also designing and convening the programme's core modules "Researching Digital Society", "Digital Methods" and "Dissertation is Digital Media and Society".
- Professional activities and memberships
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Stefania has been a member of the British Sociological Association, the International Communication Association, the European Communication Research and Education Association and the Association of Internet Researchers.
She is an Associate Editor of Information, Communication & Society and has been part of the Editorial board of Sociology since 2018.
She has been a member of the Grant Assessment Panel B (Sociology) of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) since September 2022.
She has acted as a research grant peer reviewer for national and international fundings bodies, like the ESRC, Wellcome Trust, Volkswagen Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation and MIUR (Ministry of Education, University and Research, Italy).
She has acted as a peer reviewer for a range of academic journals, among which American Journal of Sociology, Information, Communication and Society, Journal of Computer-mediated Communication, Mobilization, New Media and Society, Social Media + Society, Social Movement Studies, Social Networks, Sociological Inquiry and Sociology.
She has worked as an external examiner for the MA Communication and Media at the University of Leeds (2017-2021) and the MA Digital Media and Society at the University of Leicester (2021 - 2022).
- Partnerships, engagement and impact
Stefania’s past and current research on rare diseases and cancer has developed in interaction with advocacy and patient organisations, seeing this interaction as a means to understand what matters to patients. For instance, following conversations with patient representatives from Lynch Syndrome UK and Lynch Syndrome Ireland, Stefania’s project ‘Previvorship’ has developed an interactive animation meant to provide accessible information about Lynch Syndrome, a hereditary cancer condition.
Stefania’s work has been featured at Off the Shelf Festival of words and in the LSE Impact Blog.