Research

My specific expertise concerns statistical and computational methods applied to digital media data. I study digital communication around relevant social and political issues using a wide range of established and innovative data analysis methods and social science approaches.

Methodological interests

From a methodological perspective, I am interested in computational, statistical, and digital techniques, tools, and methods for data analysis, text analysis and natural language processing, and web scraping.

I mainly rely on R coding for my studies, but I also use other software to perform specific analyses. Sometimes I use both quantitative and qualitative approaches such as digital ethnography and more traditional interviews, surveys, and observations. I co-developed the R package CooRnet and CooRtweet. On my GitHub you can find repositories with code and methodological content.

Substantive interests

I am interested in digital communication, information, and problematic information online, including digital activism and controversial movements and political cultures. I have researched the anti-gender movement, men’s rights movement, vegans and animal rights movement, and religious and quasi-religious movements. My current research agenda is mainly focused on the digital dimension of the ultra-conservative and far-right mobilization around morality issues, with specific reference to gender-related issues.

Recent grants and externally funded research projects