Institute of Communication and Media Studies (icmb)

Team from A-Z

Victoria Vziatysheva

PhD Student

Institute of Communication and Media Studies

E-Mail
victoria.vziatysheva@unibe.ch
Office
A 129
Postal Address
University Bern
Institute of Communication and Media Studies
Fabrikstrasse 8
3012 Bern
Switzerland

Since September 2023, Victoria Vziatysheva is a PhD student at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Bern. She is working on the project focusing on the use of search engines and web search bias in the context of federal popular votes in Switzerland.
 
Victoria graduated from the joint MA program in Global Communication and International Journalism (Freie Universität Berlin & St. Petersburg State University) in 2016. Before coming to Bern, she worked as a doctoral researcher in the group "Platform Algorithms and Digital Propaganda" at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin.

Her research interests include misinformation, propaganda, alternative news, as well as factors affecting trust in this content. She is experienced in quantitative and qualitative methods such as surveys, online experiments and content analysis. Prior to her academic career, Victoria worked as a journalist.

Publications

Publication Year Type

Conferences

  • Vziatysheva, V., Makhortykh, M., Sydorova, M., & Jumle, V. (2024, September 24-27). Google, how should I vote? How Swiss citizens use search engines to find political information in the context of popular votes. 10th European Communication Conference (ECREA). Ljubljana, Slovenia.
  • Vziatysheva, V., Makhortykh, M., Sydorova, M., & Jumle, V. (2024, September 3-4). Vote for or against? How Swiss users formulate search queries to find political information on search engines. Democracy and Digital Citizenship Conference. September 3-4. Odense, Denmark.
  • Makhortykh, M., Sydorova, M., Vziatysheva, V., & Jumle, V. (2024, September 3-4). Finders, keepers: A systematic investigation of algorithmic bias in politics-related web searches in Switzerland. Democracy and Digital Citizenship Conference. Odense, Denmark.
  • Vziatysheva, V., Makhortykh, M., Sydorova, M., & Jumle, V. (2024, July 16-19). Auditing political transformation: how Swiss citizens use AI to find information about federal-level popular votes. EASST-4S. Amsterdam, Netherlands.
  • Vziatysheva, V., Makhortykh, M., Sydorova, M., & Jumle, V. (2024, April 18-19). How Swiss Citizens Use Search Engines to Find Information about Federal-Level Popular Votes. Survey on the Algorithm-Driven Information-Seeking Political Behavior. The 24th Annual Conference of the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research (SACM). Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
  • Makhortykh, M., Vziatysheva, V., & Sydorova, M. (2023). Memory Warriors or Memory Peacemakers? How Generative AIs Deal with Memories about the Holocaust in Ukraine. Post-Socialist Memory Cultures in Transition conference. September 20-23 2023. Tallinn, Estonia.
  • Vziatysheva, V. (2022). Pseudo fact-checking as a disinformation strategy: how Russia frames its war against Ukraine. Summer Academy "Geopolitics of Disinformation", August 29-September 1, 2022. Bonn, Germany.
  • Vziatysheva, V., Kliegl., R., Terpilowski, M., Koltsova, O. (2022). Hot topics - confirmation bias in fake news recognition. Workshop "Social Media Impact on International Affairs". May 23-25, 2022. Bonn, Germany.
  • Vziatysheva, V., Sinyavskaya, Y., Porshnev, A., Terpilovskii, M., Koltcov, S., & Bryanov, K. (2021). Testing Users’ Ability to Recognize Fake News in Three Countries. An Experimental Perspective. Human-Computer Interaction. July 24-29, 2021. Washington, USA (virtual).
  • Koltsova, O., Vziatysheva, V., Sinyavskaya, Y., Terpilowski, M. (2021). Designing Web-based Experiments: Sampling, Recruitment, and Data Collection in Social Media and other Digital Environments. ACM Web Science Conference. June 21-25, 2021. Southampton, UK (virtual). 

Research

Research interests

  • Mis- and disinformation 
  • Digital propaganda and conspiracies
  • Alternative media
  • Biases in news consumption
  • Algorithmic curation of information
  • Surveys and online experiments