Dr Sanja Vico is a Lecturer in Communications and Digital Media (E&R) in the Department of Communications, Drama and Film. Her research has been focused on social media in contexts of identity, migration, nationalism, and post-conflict justice and reconciliation. She has expertise in a range of qualitative methods, primarily (digital) ethnography, interviews, and discourse analysis, and experience in collaborating on quantitative projects. She holds 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). She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Her 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 her current project, she studies intra-ethnic interactions comparatively - on social media and in physical environments - regarding the legacy of war to consider the role of social media in promoting discourse shifts in this context. She has given interviews about her research and has commented on current affairs in the Western Balkans for several media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans.

Prior to joining the University of Exeter, Dr Vico held a prestigious fellowship at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Officer on the ERC-funded project Justice Interactions and Peacebuilding. Previously, she taught at Goldsmiths, LSE, and the University of Belgrade. She has 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). Her collaboration with the BBC led to the launch of BBC News service in Belgrade in 2018.

She has been recognised as a Global Talent by the British Academy, and received the Best Paper Award, honorable mention, for her article on identity politics on social media by the European Communication and Education Association (ECREA) in 2019. Her book on nationalism on digital media is forthcoming with Routledge.

She has 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

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