People

Associate Prof Stefania Vicari

Stefania is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Sociology at Sheffield University. Stefania's overarching research interest is in dynamics of civic engagement on digital platforms of communication. Her approach to online data is based on a variety of textual analysis techniques - with an increasing focus on text analytics - informed by social network and framing theories. Stefania specifically focuses on:

  • Digital activism: Stefania's early research focused on how digital media ease upward and downward scale shifts (i.e., from local to transnational and vice versa) in framing grievances. Work in this camp investigated the Global Justice Movement and the World Social Forum. Stefania is also particularly interested in social media use with relevance to public sphere processes in the context of protest events, issue publics, everyday talk. Her work in this field has specifically focused on interactional and deliberative processes in the Cuban blogosphere and on meaning construction on Twitter streams relevant to anti-austerity protests in Italy.
  • Digital health. Stefania is interested in the role of digital media in health democratizing processes, especially in processes of self-care, patient advocacy, health public debate, and health activism. Her main interest is in if, how and to what extent digital media may enhance bottom-up, patient-centred health practices. Stefania's work in this area is currently looking at online affordances for rare disease patient organisations in advocacy and activist dynamics and rare disease discourse practices on Facebook and Twitter.

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. 

Stefania is one of the Co-Investigators dealing with the quantitative research for the project.