Soma Basu

I am a doctoral researcher in media studies at Tampere University, Finland, affiliated with the Research Centre for Communication Sciences (Taru). My research examines disinformation, hate infrastructures, mediatized memories, and communal and political violence, with a particular focus on how violence is sensed, mediated, and remembered. Drawing on sensory ethnography, non-human witnessing, and post-human and transhuman approaches, I explore how human and non-human actors co-produce memory, meaning, and experience within material and mediated environments.

Supported by the Kone Foundation, my doctoral research investigates how rumours interact with memory in post-conflict contexts and contribute to affective forms of violence. Methodologically, I combine ethnographic observation with sensory, affective, decolonial, and participatory approaches to trace how infrastructures, technologies, and emergent forms of perception shape social and cultural life. I am particularly interested in the interactions between bodies, objects, and digital media under post-human conditions, and in how violence reverberates across these domains.

I previously led the social media research team for the Luce Foundation–funded project Muslims in India in the Time of Hindu Majoritarianism, led by Prof. Christophe Jaffrelot (Sciences Po, Paris), Prof. Bernard Haykel (Princeton University), and Prof. Manan Ahmed (Columbia University). I am a former fellow of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford and a SUPRA fellow at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), University of Copenhagen.

I have taught journalism as a guest lecturer at several Indian universities and work as a media literacy trainer with the Factshala Initiative in India (supported by DataLEADS, Internews, and the Google News Initiative). I am also a certified media literacy and fact-checking trainer with the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA). To date, I have conducted over 40 media literacy and fact-checking workshops in India and Bangladesh, and as a fellow of the BBC Young Reporter India Initiative, I have delivered training programmes for school students.

My work brings together academic research and nearly two decades of investigative journalism across South Asia and Africa. As an investigative journalist, I have reported on environmental justice, human rights, disasters, and conflict. My work has received several international awards, including the Kurt Schork Memorial Award for International Journalism (2017), the United Nations Correspondents Association Global Prize for coverage of climate change (2015), and the Best Article Award from the Press Institute of India and the International Committee of the Red Cross for reporting on victims of armed violence. My final role in journalism was as India Editor of the fact-check division at Agence France-Presse (AFP).

I have also worked as a lead consultant on international media development projects, including mentoring investigative journalism at The Daily Star in Bangladesh (with Fojo, Linnaeus University) and strengthening access to trustworthy information in Afghanistan through newsroom training and support (with Internews, funded by the European Commission).

I write extensively on social media hate networks and digital cultures, and my commentary has appeared in international media including BBC, Time, Financial Times, Reuters, SBS, Refinery29, and The Diplomat.

Investigative journalism, fact-checking, OSINT, sensory ethnography, netnography

Basu, Soma. 2026. “Phantoms of the Drains: Imaginations of Conflict in Everyday Infrastructures.” Contemporary South Asia: 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2026.2649745.

Basu, Soma. 2024. “Porn, Protests, and Politics: Hindu Male Imaginations of Muslim Women.” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, no. 32. https://doi.org/10.4000/136kk.

Basu, Soma. 2023. “‘Why Do Indians Cry Passionately on Insta?’: Grief Performativity and Ecologies of Commerce of Crying Videos.” South Asian Popular Culture 21 (3): 307–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2023.2215227.

Basu, Soma. 2023. “Leaderboards & Prestige Points: How Homegrown Applications Gamify Muslim Hate.” APSA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.33774/apsa-2023-869vb.