In Meet the Team series we introduce our audience to the brilliant people working at MediaFutures. Get to know us better by discovering who we are and what we do.

This week we are interviewing Erik Knudsen, Researcher in Work Package 1- Understanding Media Experiences. 

Can you give an introduction of yourself and your scientific background? 

I am a Researcher in Work Package 1 at MediaFutures and PI of the project «NEWSREC – The Double-edged Sword of News Recommenders’ Impact on Democracy» (awarded by Research projects for young talents by the Research Council of Norway). I did my postdoc at the Digital Social Science Core Facility (DIGSSCORE) and hold a PhD from the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen. Much of my research involve methodological innovations and experiments on the effects of news and political communication.

I am born and raised in Bergen, have a fiancée and a son, and live in a cozy old typical wooden Bergen house just outside the city center of Bergen.

Tell us about your research at MediaFutures and your role in Work Package 1.

In my project I ask the question: How can we study and understand how new technology shapes future complex processes of news use, fragmentation, and polarization in online news environments? The project aims at developing a more precise understanding of media use and audience behavior across platforms, and to better understand how news use and fragmentation of media use is influenced by new technology. To do that, I contribute innovations in methodological approaches that aim to help both academic partners and industry partners to gain a better understanding of audience behavior and news use online.

Things about MediaFutures you appreciate the most? 

MediaFutures provides a one-of-a-kind opportunity to not only build close networks with industry partners, but also to cooperate closely with industry partners through research that is more likely to be useful for people and industries outside academia. The centre also enables networking across academic disciplines, which I believe is important for learning other perspectives, methods, and solutions. Last but not least, MediaFutures is also a physical hub for innovation that push us scholars towards not only doing ground-breaking research, but also ground-breaking research that is perceived as useful by relevant industry partners.