Dr Sanja Vico
Lecturer in Communications and Digital Media (E&R)
Overview
I am a Lecturer in Communications and Digital Media (E&R) in the Department of Communications, Drama and Film. My research has been focused on social media in contexts of identity, migration, nationalism, and post-conflict justice and reconciliation. I have expertise in a range of qualitative methods, primarily (digital) ethnography, interviews, focus groups, and discourse analysis, and experience in collaborating on quantitative projects, including survey, experiments, and quantitative text analysis. I hold a PhD in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths (2019), an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science (2013) and a BSc from the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade (2012). I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
My awarded past research project explored how Serbian Londoners navigated social media environments to negotiate their identities, with a focus on their banal expressions of nationalism and cosmopolitanism. In my current project, I study intra-ethnic interactions on social media and offline regarding the legacy of war to consider the role of social media in promoting discourse shifts in this context. I have given interviews about my research and have commented on current affairs in the Western Balkans for several media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans.
Prior to joining the University of Exeter, I held a prestigious fellowship at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where I worked as a Postdoctoral Research Officer on the ERC-funded project Justice Interactions and Peacebuilding. Previously, I taught at Goldsmiths, LSE, and the University of Belgrade. I have also worked as a Research Consultant and Analyst on projects related to the media and politics in the Western Balkans for several companies and organisations, including BBC Media Action, and provided expert advice to various government officials and commercial stakeholders, including the House of Lord and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). My collaboration with the BBC led to the launch of BBC News service in Belgrade in 2018.
I have been recognised as a Global Talent by the British Academy, and received the Best Paper Award, honorable mention, for my article on identity politics on social media by the European Communication and Education Association (ECREA) in 2019. My book on nationalism on digital media is forthcoming with Routledge.
I have an affiliation with the LSE Research Unit on Southeastern Europe (LSEE) and the Centre for the Studies of the Balkans at Goldsmiths.
Twitter: @sanja_vico
LinkedIn: @sanja_vico
Office: 7 White House, Thornlea, Exeter EX4 4LA, UK
Office hours: Thursdays, 10:00-12:00 (please email to book an appointment)
Research
- Social and Mobile Media
- Identity
- Migration
- Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism
- Post-Conflict Justice and Reconciliation
- Qualitative Research Methods
Research collaborations
- ERC project Justice Interactions and Peacebuilding: From Static to Dynamic Discourses across National, Ethnic, Gender, and Age Groups (JUSTINT), European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science
Supervision
I welcome research proposals from prospective PhD and MA candidates in any of the areas of my research interests or other related areas, including:
- Social and Mobile Media
- Identity
- Migration
- Nationalism
- Cosmopolitanism
- Post-Conflict Justice and Reconciliation
- Digital Diplomacy
- Nation Branding
- Activism
- Mediated Interpersonal Communication
- Memory Studies
Publications
Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2020 | 2019 |
2024
- Vico S. (2024) Social media, stereotypes, and the acknowledgement of war crimes, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, DOI:10.1080/17502977.2024.2316747. [PDF]
2023
- Vico S, Sokolic I, Kostovicova D. (2023) JUSTINT Policy paper: Inter- and intraethnic dialogues on war-time violence and its legacies.
2022
- Vico S. (2022) Cognitive Dissonance in Social Media and Face-to-Face Interactions in Relation to the Legacy of War, International Journal of Communication, volume 16, pages 5739-5758.
- Vico S. (2022) Destigmatization Strategies of Serbian Londoners on Social Media, Television and New Media, volume 23, no. 1, pages 22-43, DOI:10.1177/1527476420918384.
2020
- Vico S. (2020) ‘Globalized difference’: Identity politics on social media, Journal of Global Diaspora & Media, volume 1, no. 1, pages 55-70, DOI:10.1386/gdm_00004_1. [PDF]
2019
- Vico S. (2019) The politics of identity and notions of home: how Serbian Londoners perceived Brexit, Graduate Journal of Social Science, volume 15.
External impact and engagement
- Her collaboration on the project Youth and the Media in Serbia and Macedonia at BBC Media Action led to the launch of the BBC News service in Belgrade, Serbia in March 2018.
- She gave interviews for several media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans (September 2022), Oslobodjenje (January 2022) – Bosnian daily broadsheet founded in 1948, RTS Radio programme Digital Icons (June 2018) – Serbian public service television and radio broadcaster, and Grazia magazine (2017), among others.
- She provided political risk assessment for Serbia for Euromoney Country Risk report (2020).
- She has co-organised several workshops, public lectures and panel discussions, including a panel part of LSE COVID-19 policy response event series on the implications of COVID-19 pandemic in the Western Balkans: political, economic and social aspects, where she also discussed political implications of the pandemic in the Balkans.
- She wrote for the Conversation (2016).
- She wrote a book review for LSE Review of Books (2018).
- She has served as a Peer Reviewer for International Communication Association, and journals Social Media and Society, and International Journal of Communication.
