Dr Vaclav Stetka

Václav received his PhD in sociology from Masaryk University in Brno, the Czech Republic, where he then worked as Assistant Professor at the Department of Media Studies and Journalism, Faculty of Social Studies. Between 2009 and 2013 he was Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, working on an ERC-funded project Media and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. Václav moved to Prague in 2013, having been appointed a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism, Charles University. There, he established the Political Communication Research Group which focuses on the role of social media in political communication and civic participation. In 2016 he joined the Communication and Media subject area at Loughborough University, becoming Lecturer and member of the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture. In 2020 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies.

His research interests encompass political communication and the role of new media, media systems in Central and Eastern Europe, media ownership and journalistic autonomy.

Václav was a member of the Executive Board of ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Association) between 2015-2016, and since 2016 he is Vice-Chair of the Political Communication Section of ECREA.

Since 2018 he is member of the Network of European Political Communication Scholars (NEPOCS).

Apart from the Oxford-based MDCEE project (2009-2013), Václav has participated in a number of international research projects and networks, including EU Kids Online (2006-2009), COST A30 “East of West: Setting a New Central Eastern European Media Research Agenda” (2005-2009) or COST IS 1308 “Populist Political Communication in Europe: Comprehending the Challenge of Mediated Political Populism for Democratic Politics” (2014-2018).  In 2013 he was awarded a research grant by the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) as Principal Investigator of the project “The role of social media in political communication and civic participation in the Czech Republic” (2014-2016), which received the GACR President’s Award for outstanding research results. Since 2015 he has been participating in the project Media Pluralism Monitor (European University Institute, Florence) and contributing to the Digital News Report (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford). Since 2019 he is Principal Investigator of the project “The Illiberal Turn? News consumption, polarization and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe” (2019-2021), funded by the ESRC (£800,000).

Václav’s teaching profile has included courses on media globalization, political communication and new media, as well as classes on communication research methods, particularly on content analysis.

• Numerato D, Vochocova L, Stetka V and Mackova A (Forthcoming in 2019) The vaccination debate in the "post-truth" era: social media as sites of multi-layered reflexivity. Sociology of Health and Illness (accepted for publication).
• Stetka V, Surowiec P and and Mazak J (2019) Facebook as an instrument of election campaigning and voters’ engagement: comparing Czechia and Poland. European Journal of Communication 34(2) 121-141.
• Maier J, Faas T, Rittberger B, …, Stetka V, … and Zavecz G (2018) This time it’s different? Effects of the Eurovision Debate on young citizens’ and its consequence for EU democracy – evidence from a quasi-experiment in 24 countries. Journal of European Public Policy, 25(4) 606-629.
• Surowiec P and Stetka V (eds.) (2017) Social Media and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge. 207p.
• Hladik R and Stetka V (2017) The Powers that Tweet. Journalism Studies, 18(2) 154-174.
• Vochocova L, Stetka V and Mazak J (2016) Good girls don’t comment on politics? Gendered character of online political participation in the Czech Republic. Information, Communication & Society, 19(10) 1321-1339.
• Cisar O and Stetka V (2016) Czech Republic: The Rise of Populism from the Fringes to the Mainstream. In Aalberg T et al. (eds.) Populist Political Communication in Europe. Routledge.
• Stetka V (2015) The Rise of Oligarchs as Media Owners. In Zielonka, J. (ed.) Media and Politics in New Democracies. Europe in a Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 85-98.