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Media and communication studies

  • Journalism
  • Digitalization
  • Media and democracy
  • Visual and multimodal  communication
  • Conversation analysis
  • Discourse studies
  • Rhetoric
  • Popular science communication
  • Data visualization
  • International media studies
  • Media and children/young adults
  • AI and communication
  • Critical media literacy

The research group is working on a number of projects in the field of communication and media. Some projects are related to specific fields of practice, such as journalism or strategic communication. Others examine more extensive trends over time, such as digitalization or applications of data visualization. A main focus in the group is to investigate how developments in media technology affect the ways in which communication unfolds within different genres and on different arenas and platforms.

In recent years, the group's members have been involved in several major international research projects, see the list below. 

 

PhD programme in Humanities and Education

Participants

Abit Hoxha is a researcher at the Institute of Nordic and Media Studies at the University of Agder in Norway. His research focuses on journalism and dealing with the past. He is currently working on his PhD titled Conflict News Production at LMU Munich, Germany, where he compares journalistic news production in the Western Balkans, the Middle East, and the Great Lakes region in Africa by reconstructing news coverage together with journalists to identify influences on news production and how news comes into being.

Aleksander Torjesen is a PhD Research Fellow in Linguistics. His academic interests span a range of topics related to audiovisual communication, social media, marketing, and influence. In his dissertation, he examines the professionalisation of user-generated content, the intersection between production and consumption, and how new multimodal genres and strategic forms of expression are used to influence children and young people.

Berit Huntebrinker is an Associate Professor of Literary Studies at the Department of Nordic and Media Studies. She has a background in general and comparative literature, Nordic studies, and Latin American studies from Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. In her PhD project at UiA, Huntebrinker researched concepts of environmental citizenship in comics and picture books. She is interested in and conducts research on ecocriticism, literature and war, and popular culture. A common thread in her work is literary and popular cultural representations of boundary transgressions. Huntebrinker teaches in teacher education programmes, as well as at BA and MA level at UiA.

Geir Christian Johannessen is a PhD Research Fellow in Linguistics and also teaches in the bachelor’s programme in Communication and Media. His areas of interest are particularly related to rhetoric, strategic communication, and journalism. His PhD project is a multimodal critical discourse analysis of NRK Supernytt, where he is interested in the representations of reality conveyed through news broadcasts for children.

Gunhild Kvåle is a Professor of Linguistics. Her research focuses particularly on multimodal, visual, and digital communication, partly in relation to the field of education and partly in a more general context. She works with discourse-analytical and social semiotic perspectives on texts and digital technologies. She has taught and supervised across a wide range of courses offered by the Department of Nordic and Media Studies, particularly in the Master’s programme in Social Communication and in various Norwegian-language subjects within teacher education.

Hans-Olav Hodøl is a Docent in media production and has a background in practical television production. Since the mid-1990s, he has primarily worked in academia, first at Gimlekollen School of Journalism and Communication (now part of NLA University College), and since 2009 at the University of Agder. Hodøl teaches journalism, media production, and strategic communication, and has held various roles including programme coordinator and head of department. His research interests are particularly focused on media practices and digital culture in a church context, which falls under the broader field of Religion and Media.

Jan Svennevig is a Professor of Linguistic Communication. He researches conversation and spoken language use in different contexts. His main interest is the establishment of understanding in conversations where one of the participants is a second-language speaker. He has also conducted research on pragmatic particles in Norwegian and on conversations in various institutional settings, such as meetings in organisations. He is currently leading the project Police Interviews in Norwegian as a Second Language – Communicative Challenges and Solutions (2025–2028), which investigates police strategies for ensuring understanding in interviews with suspects who have a second-language background.

Johanne E. Christensen is a PhD Research Fellow in Literary Studies and researches queer representation in Norwegian and Swedish media. She is interested in popular entertainment and the relationship between gender, sexuality, and culture. In her doctoral project, she examines how queer parents are represented within the comedy genre, the scope of agency they are given, and how this sheds light on the idea of Scandinavian homotolerance.

Kenneth Andresen is a Docent in media production and media studies. He researches journalism and media development, particularly in relation to historical conflicts in Europe. He has extensive experience with international research collaboration. In recent years, he has been responsible for UiA’s contribution to a larger EU project (the Horizon 2020 project RePAST) on Europe’s difficult past and how it affects societies today. He is also involved in the international collaborative project Worlds of Journalism, which examines the conditions of journalism in more than 70 countries. He has many years of experience teaching and supervising in communication, media studies, and journalism, and is currently the programme director for UiA’s Master’s programme in Social Communication.

Martin Engebretsen is a Professor of Language and Communication. He has conducted research on a range of topics at the intersection of linguistics and media studies, particularly related to genre changes associated with digitalisation. He studies multimodal and visual texts, frequently with a theoretical grounding in rhetoric, social semiotics, and discourse analysis. He also has extensive teaching experience in language and text studies, visual communication, and strategic communication.

Niamh Ní Bhroin (leader) is an Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of Agder. She researches how the digitalisation of society and new technologies affect the everyday lives of children and young people. Ní Bhroin is a member of the EU Kids Online network in Norway. She has participated in national and international projects examining children’s media use, and publishes and disseminates research on “screen time,” media harm, the digitalisation of education, and parental sharing of images and information about their children. Ní Bhroin holds a PhD in Media Studies from the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo (2015). She teaches at BA and MA level at the University of Agder.

Roy Emanuelsen is a Docent and Programme Director for the BA in Communication and Media at UiA. He is particularly concerned with building bridges between professional practice, development work, and teaching. His research focuses on the journalism and communication sectors. His teaching is partly related to practical media and communication work, and partly to communication theory and methods. He has extensive experience as a journalist and communications professional (Head of Communications) and also teaches journalism both nationally and internationally.

Signe Tørå Karsrud teaches in the film specialisation within the bachelor’s programme in Literature, Film and Theatre, as well as in Media Production at the Department of Nordic and Media Studies. She is a practicing documentary filmmaker with a background in visual arts and religious studies and specialises in artistic research in and through film. In her work, she explores themes at the intersection of metaphysics and moving images, with a particular interest in representations of the “absolute other” in film.

Siri Hempel Lindøe is an Associate Professor with a background in the history of ideas and media studies. She has conducted research on the use of images, focusing on aesthetic and ethical issues. Two themes have been central to her research interests: documentary images as a medium in representations of suffering, and iconoclasm as a phenomenon in different contexts. She has extensive teaching experience in film and media education.

Søren Sandager Sørensen is a postdoctoral researcher in forensic linguistics. He has a background in conversation analysis. His research focuses on how conversational structures are reflected in grammar, and he has examined structures that deviate from typical sentences, with a particular focus on response tokens and other single-word constructions, as well as question types and evaluative formats. As part of the project “Police Interviews in Norwegian as a Second Language – Communicative Challenges and Solutions”, he investigates conversational structures that are specific to interviews and the challenges they present.

Trond Arntzen is a university lecturer and teaches in the Bachelor’s programme in Literature, Film and Theatre, with subject responsibility within the film specialization. He holds a degree in screenwriting from Leeds Metropolitan University (MA in Screenwriting) and has been writing for film and theatre since 2004. His research interests particularly include artistic development work and development processes from idea to storytelling.

Verónica Pájaro is Associate Professor in Nordic Linguistics. She researches issues of discourse, power and multilingualism and how these are played out in social interaction and in institutional contexts. She teaches Norwegian linguistics and discourse analysis at the department of Nordic and Media studies. She serves as chair for the language policy committee at the University of Agder and leader of the research group Language and Power. Currently she is co-coordinator in the research network Managing multilingualism in Nordic healthcare (DFF 2025-2028) and researcher at The Center for Norwegian Professional Language Fagspråksenteret (NFR 2025-2033).

Åse Marie Søisdal is a PhD Research Fellow in Linguistics and has a background as a practitioner in agriculture. Her research interests lie at the intersection of environmental humanities and communication studies. Her PhD project is a multimodal critical discourse analysis of communication in the Norwegian agricultural sector, focusing on the sector’s ecoliteracy related to pollinating insects.

Projects

Ongoing externally funded projects involving our members

  • How do young people understand artificial intelligence? A qualitative interview study about young people’s (13–16 years) experiences with and understanding of artificial intelligence. Partly funded by the Ministry of Children and Families. 2024–2026.
  • Police Interviews in Norwegian as a Second Language – Communicative Challenges and Solutions. Funded by the Research Council of Norway, 2025–2029.
  • UPSCALE (https://www.projectupscale.eu/) is a project that examines various factors influencing the implementation of health and welfare technology in public healthcare services. One of these factors is communication. Funded by the EU and the Research Council of Norway.

Completed projects

Publications

2026

• Hoxha, A. (2026). ReMeD deliverable D6.1 indicators and mechanisms of threats to democracy. ReMeD. https://resilientmedia.eu/?p=1830

• Hoxha, A., & Laterza, V. (2026). ReMeD Policy Brief No 3: Strengthening communication and building social legitimacy. https://resilientmedia.eu/?p=2039

• Laterza, V., Hoxha, A., Tales, T., & Amaxopoulou, M. (2026). ReMeD Policy Brief No 2: Increasing the Social Legitimacy of the EU Digital Services Act. Retrieved 19 March 2026, from https://resilientmedia.eu/?p=1402

• Staksrud, E., Mascheroni, G., Milosevic, T., Ní Bhroin, N., Ólafsson, K., Şengül-İnal, G., & Stoilova, M. (2026). European children's use and understanding of generative AI. EU Kids Online V.

2025

• Andresen, K., & Hoxha, A. (2025). Reports – WJS3: (2021-2025) – Worlds of Journalism [Country report]. Worlds of Journalism Study. https://www.worldsofjournalism.org/reports-wjs3/

• Bøhnisch, S, Gjelsvik, A & Lindøe, S.H. (2025): Recent Norwegian World War II Film, Television and Theater Productions I G. Gudmundsdóttir & U. Savolainen, U. (Red.), Memory Studies in the Nordic Countries: A Handbook (s. 275-300). Brill.

• Emanuelsen, R. & Hodøl, H.-O. (2025). Journalism, education and AI: How Norwegian news media are adapting to AI and the implications for journalism educators. Journalism Education, 14(1), 16–30. https://journalism-education.org/issue-14-1/

• Hodøl, H.-O., Kjærgård, P. I. & Økland, Ø. (2025). From Access to Ability: Educator’s Perspectives on AI and New Digital Divides in Higher Education. Digital Society, 4(3), 78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44206-025-00237-z

• Hoxha, A. (2025). Dealing with troubled history: How journalists in history newsbeat reconstruct the past in media productions today. In E. Siapera, A. Fiedler, & K. Andresen (Eds.), Media and past conflict in Europe: Dynamics of mediation and power. Routledge.

• Hoxha, A.; Andresen, K.; Paschalidis, P. & Fiedler, A. (2025). Producing indefinite drafts of history: Journalists’ roles in historic revisionism in Europe and beyond. Journalism 26(2), pp. 387-405.

• Lindøe, S. (22.mai 2025) 80-årsfeiring på lavbudsjett. Vårt Land. https://www.vl.no/meninger/80-arsfeiring-pa-lavbudsjett/9624252

• Siapera, E., Fiedler, A. & Andresen, K. (Eds.) (2025). Media and Past Conflict in Europe. London: Routledge.

• Siapera, E., Fiedler, A. & Andresen, K. (2025). Mediation of Memories of Past Conflict. In Siapera, E., Fiedler, A. & Andresen, K. (Eds.) (2025) Media and Past Conflict in Europe. London: Routledge, pp. 1-13.

• Slavtcheva-Petkova, V., Ramaprasad, J., et al. (2025). Safety and work-related risks. In Journalism under duress. Worlds of Journalism Study.

• Staksrud, E., Ní Bhroin, N., B Englund, N. J., & Krutzinna, J. (2025). Ethical inclusion of children in sensitive research: A four-dimensional model. New Media & Society, 27(5), 2473-2491. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251333736

• Steensig, J., Jørgensen, M., Lindström, J. K., Mikkelsen, N., Suomalainen, K., & Sørensen, S. S. (Red.). (2025). Grammar in Action: Building comprehensive grammars of talk-in-interaction. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.37

• Svennevig, J. (2025). Getting acquainted. In M. Stevanovic (Ed.), Research handbook on social interaction (pp. 356-370). Edward Elgar Publishing.

• Svennevig, J., & Hasund, K. (2025). Pragmatic functions of the interjection hello. Journal of Pragmatics, 250, 85-98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2025.10.009

• Sørensen, S. S. (2025a). Copula variation in Danish and the intertwined nature of grammar. I J. Steensig, M. Jørgensen, J. K. Lindström, N. Mikkelsen, K. Suomalainen, & S. S. Sørensen (Red.), Grammar in Action: Building comprehensive grammars of talk-in-interaction (s. 301–331). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/slsi.37.10sor

• Sørensen, S. S. (2025b). Fuck syntax and fucking syntax in the borrowing of swearwords for assessments in Danish. Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 48(2), 164–188. https://doi.org/10.1017/S033258652510053X

•  Pájaro, V. (2025). Negras villeras y marronas: emerging feminist subjectivities haunting Argentina’s invisibilized racial heritage. In M. R. Garrido Sardà & M. Pérez-Milans (Eds.), Re-imagining Language and Communication in Collaborative Projects: Ethnographic Perspectives on the Future (pp. 157-187). Routledge.

• Terzis, G., & Hoxha, A. (2025). Journalism safety interventions: Ethical perspectives and possible impacts amongst women journalists covering conflict. Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, 14, 299–319. https://doi.org/10.1386/ajms_00192_1

• Wiik, A. og Engebretsen, M. (2025) Are journalistic line graphs still Shibboleths? Two dilemmas in contemporary journalistc data visualization. For the Learning of Mathematics 45(2). in police investigative interviews. International Journal of Speech Language and The Law.  doi:https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.20349.

• Svennevig, Jan & Hamilton, Heidi (2021). Fostering Storytelling by Persons with Dementia in Multiparty Conversation. In Røyneland, Unn & Blackwood, Robert (Ed.), Multilingualism across the Lifespan. Routledge. p. 169–188. doi: 10.4324/9781003125815.

• Svennevig, Jan (2021). How to do things with signs. The formulation of directives on signs in public spaces, Journal of Pragmatics, 175, 165-183. 
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.01.016

• Svennevig, Jan 2020 Språklig samhandling. Innføring i kommunikasjonsteori og diskursanalyse. Oslo: Cappelen Akademisk Forlag

Contact us!

For questions regarding the research group, please contact the head of the research group Niamh Ní Bhroin

 

 

Participants

Projects

Tags: Media and communication, Social sciences, Linguistics and literature
Published Apr. 26, 2024 3:11 PM - Last modified May 27, 2026 8:22 AM