Kaarina Nikunen

My research explores the ways in which media construct understanding of the world and possibilities of participation. I am particularly interested in the ways in which emotions and affect drive movements and participation – and the way emotions are crafted through and with media. The increasing significance of digital infrastructures and AI for humanity and for the formation of sense of solidarity and social justice are central in my research approach. 

My current research focuses on the ways in which datafication shapes the  everyday life in IDA project (Intimacy in Data Driven Culture). IDA  explores the ways in which digitalization and datafication affect and shape private, social, occupational, and collective lives and everyday experiences. Together with my research team we have explored  these experiences in the context of ‘data welfare state’ particularly among vulnerable groups, such as asylum seekers, older adults and the unemployed persons.  My other project HAFFECT explores affective engagements on social media, particularly the production and circulation of hate speech. In this area of research I have focused on the role of emotions and affects in ‘politics of irony’ and formations of ‘gut feelings’. 

For over 20 years I have engaged with questions around media and migration. This work includes  an ethnographic research on European refugee politics, geographic imagination and politics of place in the Mediterranean coast, in Southern Italy as well as the role of digitalization and datafication in the politics of migration and in the everyday life of undocumented migrants. In recent years I have explored the experiences of automation and datafication of borders as well as platformization of human smuggling. I am a member of European Cost Action DATAMIG. 

CV  

Selected books:

Nikunen, K (2019) Media Solidarities: Emotions, power and justice in the digital age. London: Sage.

Maasilta, M. & Nikunen, K. (2018) (eds.) Pakolaisuus, tunteet ja media [Refugees, emotions and the media] Tampere: Vastapaino.

Nikunen, K. and Eide, E. (2011) (eds) Media in Motion: Cultural complexity and migration in the Nordic Region. London: Routledge.

Paasonen S., Nikunen, K., Saarenmaa, L. (2007) (eds) Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture. Oxford: Berg.

Nikunen, K. (2005) Faniuden aika. Kolme tapausta tv-ohjelmien faniudesta vuosituhannen taitteen Suomessa. Tampere: TUP.

Journal articles and book chapters:

Nikunen, K. (2024) How datafication affects the welfare state and social solidarity? Nordisk välfärdsforskning/Nordic Welfare Research. 9(2):199–205 https://doi.org/10.18261/nwr.9.2.8

Nikunen, K. and Valtonen, S. (2024) Undocumented and Datafied: Anticipation, Borders and Everyday Life. In Leurs, K, and S. Ponzanesi (eds.), Doing Digital Migration Studies: Theories and Practices of the Everyday. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, doi 10.5117/9789463725774_ch15

Nikunen, K. (2023) Affective Temporalities of Digital Hate Cultures. In Lünenborg, M. & Röttger-Rössler, B. (eds) Affective Formation of Publics: Places, networks and the media. London: Routledge.

Nikunen, K. (2023) The Nordic Far Right and the Production of Gut Feelings. In Jayson Harsin (ed) Re-thinking Mediations of Post-truth Politics and Trust. London: Routledge.

Paasonen, S., Jaaksi, V., Koivunen, A., Nikunen, K., Talvitie-Lamberg, K., & Vänskä, A. (2023). Intimate Infrastructures We Depend upon: Living with Data. Media Theory, 7(2), 285–308. https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/576

Nikunen, K. (2023) Repairing algorithms, rebuilding data paths: material solidarity, the digital infrastructure, and the public. In Parks, Velkova & De Ridder (eds) Media Backends: The Politics of Infrastructure, Clouds, and Artificial Intelligence. University of Illinois Press.

Nikunen, K. & Valtonen, S. (2022) Precariousness and hope: Digital everyday life of the undocumented migrants explored through collaborative photography. Media and Communication 10(2): 218-229.

 Nikunen K. (2022) Echo of Experience: a feminist response to racialization of sexual crime in the hybrid media event. International Journal of Communication. 17(2023), 1348–1364.

 Laaksonen, S., Hokka, J. & Nikunen, K. (2022) Affective visual rhetoric of the far-right across social media. In Petterson K. & Nortio, E. (eds.)The far-right discourse of multiculturalism in everyday talk: Reproduction and contestation in intergroup interactions. Palgrave McMillan.

Andreassen, R., Kaun, A. & Nikunen, K. (2021) Fostering the data welfare state: A Nordic perspective on datafication. Nordicom Review 42(2):207-223.

Nikunen, K. (2021). Ghosts of white methods? The challenges of Big Data research in exploring racism in digital context. Big Data & Society,  8(2)  https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211048964

 Nikunen, K., Hokka, J. and Nelimarkka, M. (2021) Affective practice of Soldiering: How sharing images is used to spread extremist and racist ethos on Soldiers of Odin Facebook site. Television and New Media 22(1).

Nikunen, K. & Hokka, J. (2020) Welfare state values and public service media in the era of datafication. Special Issue on Datafication and the Welfare State, edited by Lina Dencik and Anne Kaun. Global Perspectives 1(2). 

Nikunen, K. (2020) Breaking the Silence: From representations of victims and threat towards spaces of voice. In Georgiou, M. Leurs, K., Smets, K. & Witteborn, S. (eds) Sage Handbook of Migration and Media. London: Sage, 411-423.

Nikunen, K. (2019) Emotions, Affect and the Media. In Curran J. and Hesmondhalgh, D. (eds) Media & Society. London: Bloomsbury.

Nikunen, K. (2019) Once a Refugee: Selfie activism, visualized citizenship and the space of appearance.  Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture 17(2): 154-170. DOI: 10.1080/15405702.2018.1527336

Nikunen, K. (2016) Media, Passion and Humanitarian Reality Television European Journal of Cultural Studies, 19 (3):265-282. 

Nikunen, K. (2014) Losing My Profession: Age, experience and expertise in the changing newsrooms. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism 15(7): 868–888.