Dr Veronica Barassi

Dr Veronica Barassi
BA and MRes (Gold) PhD (Gold)

Postdoctoral Research Assistant

Phone +44 207 487 7509
Email: barassiv@regents.ac.uk

Career

Institute of Contemporary European Studies, EBSL, Regent's College 2009-ongoing

2010-2012 Postdoctoral Research Assistant
2009 -2010 Research Associate

Goldsmiths College, University of London 2006 -2009

2006- 2009 PhD Candidate in Anthropology/Media and Communications
Thesis Title: Mediated Resistance: Alternative Media, Imagination and Political Action in Britain.
2008 -2010 Visiting Tutor in the Anthropology Department and in the Media and Communications Department
2009 Research Assistant, project on the cultural politics of social networking sites (SNS), Goldsmiths Media and Communications Department
2008 Casual Research Assistant in the Spaces of News of the Goldsmiths Media Research Programme. The project was funded by the Leverhulme Trust

Awards and Prizes

2010 Small Research Grant, British Academy (BA)
Doctoral Award, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Anthropology Departmental Bursary, Goldsmiths University of London

Papers and Conferences

8 May, 2010 – Northampton University, Youth, New Media and Social Change Conference Old Politics and New Media technologies: Conflict of Generations and Internet Discourses in the Labour Movement in Britain.

26 March, 2010 – Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Thinking Network Politics Conference Networks, Technologies and Political Action: An Ethnographic Critique of the Network Approach.

3, February, 2010 – Goldsmiths College London, Department of Anthropology Research Seminars Networks, Connections and Technologies: Ethnographic Reflections on the New Spaces of Political Movements

12^th June, 2009 - University College London, Anthropology in London Conference Paper Presented: Conflicts of Generations, Internet Technologies and Identity in the Labour Movement in Britain.

7^th November, 2008 - Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona. EASA Media Anthropology Conference: Paper presented: Mediating Political Action? Internet Related Beliefs and Anxieties among International Solidarity Campaigns in Britain.

2^nd July 2008 Department of Media and Film, University of Sussex, Brighton UK. ‘MeCCSA PGN Conference’. Paper’ presented: Digital vs. Material: The Everyday Construction of Mediated Political Action.

10^th of May, 2008 Department of Media and Film, SOAS, University of London Mending the Gaps: Reflections on Media Theory and Practice Symposium’ Introductory Session: Introducing the Gaps and Our Reflections on the Reasons whythey need to be Mended.

Publications

Barassi, Veronica (2010) ‘Possibilities and Ambivalences: the Discursive Power of Online Technologies and their Impact on Political Action in Britain’ – in the Anthropology Review: Dissent and Cultural Politics (Trias i Valls, A., Ed.)Vol. 1, No. 1, May 2010; ISSN 2041-1405

Barassi, Veronica (2009) ‘Mediating Political Action? Internet Related Beliefs and Anxieties among International Solidarity Campaigns in Britain’ in Digithum: Humanities in the Digital Age UOC Issue 11 (2009) ISSN 1575-2275

Barassi, Veronica (2009) ‘Oppositional Media and Internet Technologies’ in Contemporary Europe: iCES Annual Review 08/09 ISSN 2040-6487

Barassi, Veronica (2009) Digital vs. Material: The Everyday Construction of Mediated Political Action in Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA PGN Network Vol. 2 no 1 (2009) ISSN 1755-9944

Further Academic Experience and Memberships

2009 – 2010 Student Representative in the Media Subject Centre Reference Group. Arts, Design and Media Higher Education Academy (ADM- HEA)

2008 – 2009 Executive Committee Member, Media and Communications and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) Postgraduate Network

2007 -2008 Organising Committee of the Mending the Gap: Re-Thinking Media Theory and Practice Symposium held at the Centre for Media and Film Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

Research Interests

New Media and democracy in Europe; social movements and alternative media; identity and collective representations; digital networks and new forms of politics; Web 2.0 platforms and social networking sites; Web 3.0 or the Semantic Internet; anthropology of media and representation; media rituals; ethnography of media.

Research Projects

Veronica’s doctoral research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and explored the connection between political imaginations, media technologies and social movements in Britain, by looking at the ethnographic context of international campaigning organisations and the trade unions. The relationship between media and dominant ideologies is a central issue of academic debate, but the role of alternative media in the construction of oppositional political discourses is largely under-investigated. Her project analysed this relationship by relying on the theories and methodologies of both anthropology and media studies to provide an original and cross-disciplinary reflection on alternative media and political identity; on digital technologies and new forms of political imaginations; and on the possibilities and challenges people encounter in the everyday construction of mediated political action.

Her research is concerned with a central issue of our times: the complex relationship between digital technologies and the democratic process in Europe. She is particularly interested in uncovering the cultural politics of social networking sites, and the way in the transformations between Web 2.0 and the Web 3.0 is affecting people’s experience and understandings. Her current research at iCES has been awarded the small grant research grant by the British academy and explores the relationship between alternative and social media in cross-cultural perspective by looking at social movements in Britain, Italy and Spain. Veronica is committed to ethnographic methodologies, and in contrast to techno-deterministic assumptions on the empowering effects of new media, her goal is to highlight the human understandings, beliefs and anxieties involved in the everyday mediation of collective action. This approach, she believes is fundamental, in order to shed some light on the social complexities involved in the techno historical developments of the last fifteen years.