Katja Valaskivi

Description of research and teaching

Katja Valaskivi is Professor in Religious Studies and Media Research and heads the Helsinki Research Hub on Religion, Media and Social Change (Heremes). She is also one of the three research directors in the datafication research programme at the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH). She specializes in datafication and mediatization of religions, belief systems, worldwiews and ideologies and has developed multi-method approaches for the study of  disruptive, hybrid media events such as terror attacks and natural disasters. Currently Valaskivi leads the Mediatized Religious Populism (Merelpo) research consortium funded by the Research Council of Finland. She is an Advisory Board member in the International Society of Media, Religion and Culture (ISMRC).