Research Team

The team is led by Mervi Pantti, Professor at the Media and Communications Studies, University of Helsinki. She has a long record of conducting research on the role the media and journalism play in the public life, particularly on the moral role of media and the role of digital media platforms for political contention and civic engagement.

Dr Salla-Maaria Laaksonen is a communication and technology researcher who also works in the areas of organizational studies, critical data studies, and computational social sciences. She has specialized expertise in organization studies and combining qualitative and computational methods.

Dr Matti Pohjonen  has a background in media anthropology and comparative digital media studies. His work has focused on comparative dimensions of digital politics relating to online politics, social media and hate speech.  He has expertise in studies of social media and comparative research and combining qualitative and computational methods.

Dr Niko Hatakka  is a postdoctoral researcher whose work focuses on populism, political communication, and the public sphere.

Dr Kari Karppinen  is a University Lecturer in Media and Communication Studies at the University of Helsinki. His research focuses on media policy, theories of democracy and the public sphere, and questions around freedom of communication, media pluralism and digital human rights. Specialized expertise in media policy studies and policy document analysis.

Dr Markus Ojala  is a political communication researcher with a specific interest in the implications of new communication technologies on the public sphere. He has recently studied the uses of social media by citizens to put pressure on Finnish immigration officials and journalists reporting on asylum issues. He has specialized expertise in political communication and qualitative methods.

Dr Minna Vigren is a media technology scholar interested in questions on human agency, infrastructuration, power, resistance, and sociotechnical imaginaries. Her research in MAPS focuses on the environmental responsibility of Big Tech.

Outi Puukko is a doctoral researcher in media and communication studies at the University of Helsinki. She is working on her dissertation “Civil society actors and the digital human rights discourse”.

Tuomas Heikkilä is a doctoral researcher in media and communication studies at the University of Helsinki. He is working on his dissertation “Correcting online misinformation during the Covid-19 and beyond”.

Yang Xu is a doctoral researcher in media and communication studies at the University of Helsinki. He is working on his dissertationA cultural approach to internet governance: Diverging norms and values in the US, China, and the EU”.