Christina Dinar will lead research on youth and social media

Christina Dinar has joined the CIHR as the Deputy Director and will lead research program on youth and social media, including the Democratic Meme Factory project. She will focus on the online expression of young people in the broader context of the digital transformation of the public sphere.

Christina comes from the field of political education and has worked for several German foundations, including Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. Drawing on her practical experience of developing methods and pedagogical concepts to prevent youth from hate speech, she will now pursue interdisciplinary academic research with focus on counter speech and democracy.

“Listening to voices of young people can help us understand why social misbehavior online is so persistent and hard to challenge,” Christina says. “Little research has been done in order to measure and map the effects of political education on youth’s media literacy. I am excited to do conduct pioneer work in this emerging field” – she adds.

Christina is passionate about engaging with different online communities which deal with toxic speech and strengthen the anti-discrimination agenda. As a project manager at Wikimedia Germany, she worked to enhance diversity in the community of Wikipedia content editors. She also co-developed the concept of digital Streetwork, which is a social practice targeting youth online communities, mostly through social media.