Dr Panayiota Tsatsou

Associate Professor

Telephone: 0116 252 2889
Email: pt133@le.ac.uk
Office room: 2.02 Astley Clarke Building, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH

Personal details

• PhD Media and Communications (LSE, UK)
• MSc Media and Communications (LSE, UK)
• MA Political Science (University of Birmingham, UK)
• BA Hons Political Science and Public Administration (University of Athens, Greece)

Prizes & Scholarships

• University of Leicester Merit Award on Leadership for Curriculum Transformation (2017)
• ESRC Methods Training Bursary, Sentiment analysis: How it works and how to use it in the social sciences, University of Manchester (2017).
• ESRC Methods Training Bursary, Gathering and analysing social media data from Twitter and YouTube, University of Manchester (2017).
• ESRC Methods Training Bursary, NVivo 9.0 training, University of Surrey (2012).
• ESRC Methods Training Bursary, Higher statistics training, University of Hertfordshire (2010).
• Best Young Researcher Nomination, The Good, the Bad and the Unexpected Conference, Moscow, Russian Republic (2007).
• LSE Postgraduate Scholarship, London School of Economics and Political Science (2006-8).
• State Scholarship for Postgraduate and Doctoral Studies, Hellenic State Scholarships Foundation (IKY), Greece (2003-7).
• N.A.T.O Science Fellowship Program, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Brussels, Belgium (1999-2000).
• Prize of Academic Excellence, Hellenic State Scholarships Foundation (IKY), Greece (1996-8).

Editorial Positions

• Advisory Board and Scientific Committee Board Member, Journal of Media Critiques.
• Associate Editor: International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development (IJICTHD)
• Editorial Board Member, International Journal of Communication and Health.
• Editorial Board Member GSTF Journal on Media and Communications.
• Editorial Board Member, Essachess - Journal for Communication Studies.
• Editorial Board Member, Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations
• Editorial Board Member, Cyborg Subjects Journal.
• Editorial Board Member, Webology.
• Editorial Board Member, KOME – An International Journal of Pure Communication Inquiry.
• Editorial Review Board Member, International Journal of Technology and Management.
• Member of the International Committee of International Scientific Reviewers, Comunicar Scientific Journal.
• Member of Reviewer Panel, Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT).
• Editor of ‘IS Innovation, Adoption and Diffusion’ Track, ECIS 2013, 21st European Conference on Information Systems, 5-8June, Utrecht.
• Editor of ‘IS Innovation, Adoption and Diffusion’ Track, ECIS 2012, 20th European Conference on Information Systems, 11-13 June, Barcelona.
• Program Committee Member, 15th IFIP I3E Conference on ‘Social Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!’, 13-15th September 2016, Swansea University, UK.

Teaching

I apply research-led teaching and I teach undergraduate and postgraduate courses on digital media and digital media research. I also teach methodological courses and various methods of research. I currently convene the following modules:

• MS1001 Introduction to Media and Communication
• MS7060 The Sociology of Digital Media

I also contribute teaching to the following modules:

• MS7042 Research Methods for the Online World
• MS7043 Digital Media and Everyday Life

Publications

Link to publications

Research

My research interests lie in the broader field of digital media research. I research the areas of digital divides/digital inclusion and Internet studies and my work has addressed phenomena concerning digital exclusion, digital/Internet research, digital media and civic activism, children and the Internet, gender and the Internet, and digital policy and regulation.

I have published widely on digital media and the role of ordinary people and researchers as digital media actors and my work aims to contribute to innovative and evidence-based solutions to issues arising in people’s relationships with digital media. I have developed research collaborations in the UK and internationally and I have presented my work in diverse venues.

I am the author of Digital Divides in Europe: Culture, Politics and the Western-Southern Divide (2011, Berlin: Peter Lang) which examines the hotly debated subject of digital divides and addresses the Western–Southern divide in Europe. The book identifies the role of decision-making and socio-cultural parameters in the Western–Southern divide in Europe and concludes that this divide should be seen as a ladder of divides influenced by a complex set of socio-cultural and policy/regulatory factors.

I’m the co-editor of   the monograph Social Inclusion and Usability of ICT-enabled Services (2017, Routledge), co-edited with J. Choudrie and S. Kurnia, that offers a collection of studies conducted in different parts of the world and for different population groups, so as to explore a wide range of issues concerning innovative ICT-enabled digital services, their usability and their consequent role in social inclusion.

I am also the author of Internet Studies: Past, Present and Future Directions (2014, Ashgate) which aims to offer a critical account of the past, present and future study of the Internet. It examines the lessons so far from the emergence of the Internet and the development of the field of Internet studies, whilst also considering possible directions for the future. It maps key areas of certainty and uncertainty in the field of Internet studies and, as such, it is of interest to scholars and students of media and communication, sociology and social research methods.

In terms of externally funded research, in 2011 I led on an AHRC funded research project on digital inclusion and minority communities in Wales, UK, and in the period 2011-2014 I worked as Co-investigator in a British Academy funded research on digital inclusion, identity and literacy in the UK, In 2014 and 2015 I conducted research on the role of digital technologies in social research in the UK that was funded by the EPSRC Communities and Culture Network+ (CCN+) and the College of Social Sciences at the University of Leicester. Since 2016, I’ve been leading research on the status and importance of vulnerable people’s digital inclusion and I’m the Principal Investigator of a large £1 million research grant proposal, which is currently under review by ESRC, for the conduct of large-scale research in this area.

Below is a list of the research grants I have been awarded to date.

Research Grants (Awarded)

PhD Supervision

I currently supervise six PhD students. I welcome enquiries from prospective research students who wish to undertake projects related to the following research fields:

• Digital divides/digital inclusion
• Internet research/digital research/e-research
• Digital inclusion and policy provision
• Digital media, politics and civic activism
• European Information Society
• Children and digital media
• Digital media and gender representations