Topic of the thesis: Social media and political participation in autocratic regimes.

Abstract: Although the influence of social media on democratisation process is subject of growing public attention, the nature of this relationship is rarely addressed in a systematic manner. The common perspective is that digital media may become a driver of democratic changes and alleviate the collective action problem. However, the available academic literature finds evidence of both positive and negative effects. In my PhD dissertation, I would like to develop this discussion and shed light on possible underline mechanisms. First, by employing an Interrupted Times Series Analysis technique, the future study will investigate whether elections and protests led people to search for uncensored political information online. If this tendency is present, I expect to see a significant increase in the engagement rate of political messages in time of important political events. The second part of the future work will concentrate on the analysis of communication strategies employed by the opposition and autocratic regimes online. The third chapter will relate online activism to offline political behaviour.

Research interests: Political communication – Social media – Democratization process.

Graduated from: Higher School of Economics (BA) – University of Milan (MA).

Degrees obtained: BA in Journalism – MA in Public and Corporate Communication.

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