Our team

Birgitte Kjos Fonn

Birgitte Kjos Fonn, Professor of journalism at Oslo Metropolitan University. Fonn holds a PhD in History and has published monographs about Cold War journalism and  the history of the Norwegian journalist education, and several contributions about political and economic journalism. She is co-chair of the research group Index (Individual Exposure in Journalism) at Oslo Metropolitan University, and responsible for the non-fiction writing track of OsloMet’s MA degree in Media Development. She is also Editor of the refereed Mediehistorisk Tidsskrift (Norwegian Journal of Media History), and a former journalist with specialisation in foreign news and economic journalism.

Elisabet M. Nilsson

Elisabet M. Nilsson, Ph.D. Educational Sciences, has a background as computer games researcher, and holds a position as Senior Lecturer in Interaction Design at the School of Arts and Communication (K3), Malmö University in Sweden. Her research interest concerns the relationships between social change and technological development, and how the introduction of new technologies and mediating tools evoke new patterns of behaviour and thinking. Since 2010 she has been working in the field of interaction design running research projects conducted in real-world settings, applying participatory design, and living lab methodologies. In one way or another, all her projects circulate around matters of sustainability with a focus on tools and methods for prototyping alternative futures and promoting dialogue, collaboration and knowledge transfer. Besides research activities, she also teaches at the Interaction Design Master’s and Bachelor’s Programmes at K3. 

Eva Goldgruber

Eva Goldgruber is a researcher and lecturer at FH JOANNEUM – University of Applied Sciences Graz (Austria), Department Media & Design, Institute of Journalism & Public Relations.

She studied Information and Communication (University of Teacher Education Graz), Applied Knowledge Management (University of Applied Sciences Burgenland)  and Interdisciplinary Women’s and Gender Studies (University of Graz). From 2007 to 2012 she worked as an ICT-trainer and learning facilitator in adult education. 

Eva teaches, researches and leads projects in the area of Web Literacy. Anchored in interdisciplinary study, her work engages with qualitative and Science-Technology-Society (STS) oriented approaches to explore the intersections of education, technology and communication. 

Florence Namasinga Selnes

Florence Namasinga Selnes is a Postdoctoral research fellow, Department of Journalism and Media Studies under the U-YouPa project. Researching teenagers’ understanding and experiences with misinformation in social media and how that affects their participation in those spaces. PhD thesis focused on journalists’ sourcing practices through social media. Taught journalism and media studies at the department of journalism and communication, Makerere University in Uganda (2012 – 2018) Research interests relate to: Social media, journalism & ICTs, media and gender, political communication; safety for journalists; media regulation and freedom.

Harald Hornmoen

Harald Hornmoen is Professor of Journalism at the Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Oslo Metropolitan University. His research interests include risk and environmental communication, science journalism and literary journalism. He has coordinated the international research project RESCUE: Researching Social Media and Collaborative Software Use in Emergency Situations (2014-17), and currently coordinates the research project U-YouPa: Understanding Youth Participation and Media Literacy in Digital Dialogue Spaces (2020-24).

Henry Mainsah

Henry Mainsah is a senior researcher at Consumption Research Norway (SIFO), Oslo Metropolitan University. He has a PhD in Media and Communication from the University of Oslo, and he was previously Associate Professor at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. He conducts research interdisciplinary between the fields of media studies, design, new literacies, and Cultural Studies and his research focuses on topics such as digitization, consumption, social media, smart living, creative research methods, and participatory design.

Laurence Habib

Laurence Habib is a Professor in Information Technology and Learning at OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University. She holds  an MSc and a PhD in information systems from the London School of Economics as well as a business degree from EDHEC Business School. She has worked in software and management consultancy, as well as research and Higher Education. She has performed research in the areas of domestic technologies, e-learning, educational development and universal design of technology. She is currently the Head of the Department of Computer Science at OsloMet, as well as a Faculty Fellow at the School of Leadership Studies at Fielding Graduate University.

Lea Dvoršak

Lea Dvoršak, is a researcher at the master’s program in Content Strategy and at the Web Literacy Lab at FH JOANNEUM, University of Applied Sciences in Graz. She started her journey in journalism, working for various Slovenian newspapers between 2007 and 2014, then relocated to Austria to further her media design skills. She became a part of the FH JOANNEUM team in late 2014 as a researcher in the only accredited master’s program in content strategy in Europe. She especially focuses on the e-learnng aspect of the program, mentors students in their academic projects and also mentors lecturers in developing and improving innovative didactic approches. Lea joined the Web Literacy Lab in 2019 and her current research includes social media, content strategy, participatory research and youth participation.

She is also a musician and a founder of She Rocks Slovenia, the first community for female musicians in Slovenia. She founded this community in the course of her master thesis project in 2016 with use of participatory action research and content strategy methodologies, and it has been growing ever since.

Gabriel Malli

Gabriel Malli works as a Researcher at the Web Literacy Lab at FH Joanneum – University of Applied Sciences in Graz and as a Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the University of Graz. His main research interests are in the field of qualitative media and discourse analysis. He finished his doctoral studies in sociology in 2023, with his dissertation focusing on Muslim vloggers and influencers on YouTube. Currently, he works on projects on youth participation in social media (U-YouPa) and data journalism (SEVA) and teaches courses in Empirical Social Research.

Training and Development:

• PhD in Sociology, University of Graz and Max-Weber-Center Erfurt (2018-2023)
• Research fellowship, Freie Universität Berlin (2021-2022)
• MA degrees in Sociology and Cultural Sociology, University of Graz and University of Trento (2015-2019)
• BA degrees in Sociology and Economics, University of Graz (2012-2017)
• Professional experience:
• Researcher at Web Literacy Lab, FH Joanneum – University of Applied Sciences (2022-onwards)
• Lecturer in Empirical Social Research at the Department of Sociology, University of Graz (2019; 2022-onwards)
• Doctoral researcher in the Graduate School “Resonant Self-World Relations”, University of Graz (2018-2022)
• Student assistant and tutor at the Department of Sociology, University of Graz (2016-2018)

Find further information and publications on ResearchGate.

Lukas Mozdeika

Lukas Mozdeika is a doctoral student at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. He has a background in international communication and globalization studies, although his interests encompass political philosophy, cultural studies and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

His doctoral project employs psychoanalytical perspectives to better understand how gamified social media experience gradually transforms styles, norms and expectations of political expression and dialogue among young users. The prevailing values of the platform society such as authenticity and active engagement not only thrive on fascination but produce frustration, anxiety and addiction of which youth are increasingly aware. Theoretically, the study contributes to an emergent disciplinary gap between media anthropology, disconnections studies and democratic participation theory. Empirically, it focuses on young adults in Oslo, Norway, relying on qualitative research methods.

Robert Gutounig

Robert Gutounig is FH-Professor at the Institute of Journalism & Digital Media and Head of the Content Strategy degree programme at the Department of Media & Design at FH JOANNEUM – University of Applied Sciences (Graz, Austria). He holds a PhD (University of Graz) with a thesis on knowledge processes in digital network structures. His research interests focus on social implications of (media) transformations in the digital age, internet studies and media literacy.

Dagny Stuedahl

Dagny Stuedahl is Professor at Department of journalism and media studies, Oslo Metropolitan University. She holds a MA in ethnology, and a Dr.Polit (PhD) in educational design (University of Oslo). Along her academic career Stuedahl has a dual and interdisciplinary focus on humanities, social sciences and an applied approaches to design of digital media, relating these to research fields as Media Literacy, Science and Technology Studies (STS), Participatory Design, Co-design, and the emerging field Digital Cultural Heritage. 

Nathalie Hyde-Clarke

Nathalie Hyde-Clarke (PhD) is currently the Vice Dean for Education in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Oslo Metropolitan University (Norway), and a Docent in Media and Communication at the University of Helsinki (Finland). She has previously served as a Head of Department in four higher education institutions in Norway, Finland and South Africa while maintaining a strong teaching presence and research focus in communication, culture and media studies. Her research and findings inform academic publications, University courses and international conference papers. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA).

Sonja Radkohl

Sonja Radkohl is a junior researcher at FH JOANNEUM – University of Applied Sciences (Austria), Department Media & Design, Institute of Journalism & Public Relations. She studied „Content Strategy“ and „Journalism and Public Relations“ and wrote her master thesis about content strategies for startups. Her research focuses on web literacies, social media studies, digital innovations in journalism and public relations and recent phenomena in online communication like hate speech.

Susanne Sackl-Sharif

Susanne Sackl-Sharif is a key researcher and lecturer at University of Music and Performing Arts (Austria). She is a sociologist and musicologist with research focuses on social media, digital literacy, gender studies, popular culture, youth, and political participation. Her dissertation “Gender – Metal – Videoclips” was awarded with the “Gabriele-Possanner-Förderungspreis 2015” for Feminist Studies by the “Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy” and with the “Josef-Krainer-Förderungspreis 2015” for innovative research. From 2006 to 2009 she worked as social worker and was the head of a youth centre. Since 2009 she has been working as a lecturer and researcher at several universities in Austria and Germany. She is a founding member of the working group „music | media | publishing“ and was a board member of the Gender Studies Association Austria (2014-2018).

Yngve Benestad Hågvar

Yngve Benestad Hågvar is Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism and Media Studies, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University. His main fields of interest are journalistic genre development, rhetoric, discourse analysis and social semiotics. Hågvar is a member of the INDEX Research Group (Individual exposure in journalism) and the Digital Journalism Research Group, both at OsloMet.