Laura Ahva was a guest researcher at the HBI from August to December 2023.
Laura Ahva is
an Associate Professor (tenure track) of journalism studies at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences at Tampere University, Finland. She is a journalism researcher and educator and has a doctorate (Doctor of Social Sciences) in Journalism and Mass Communication from Tampere University. She is also docent at the University of Helsinki.
Laura Ahva's current project is a five-year (2020-2025) Academy of Finland Research Fellow project called "The Future of Dispersed Journalism: The Power of Start-ups, Metrics Analysis and Event Production" . This project investigates how start-up culture, metrics analysis and event production have become part of journalism in Finland.
Another project that Laura leads is called "Individual Paths of Journalists" and it aims to follow the lives and careers of about 40 young journalists for ten years. The project is funded by Helsingin Sanomat Foundation.
The project called "News Source Diversity Meter" aims to develop a data analytics tool for newsrooms that uses methods of natural language processing (NLP). It is funded by The Media Industry Research Foundation of Finland.
The themes Laura has been interested in throughout her research career are:
- The democratic and constructive role of journalism in society,
- The relationship between journalists and the audience,
- Journalistic work practices, and how to improve them,
- Participation in the media: why and how people use the media so that they sometimes want to take part in producing it, and
- The changing nature of journalism and its future, and how to theorize it.
Laura's Website at Tampere University
