Moa Eriksson Krutrök

I research discourses on societal crises and the expressions of trauma, grief, and resilience on social media. I am interested in both the textual and visual elements of these discourses, and the affordances of different social media platforms, such as Twitter and TikTok.  In this work, I’ve focused on terrorist attacks specifically, and how different responses to terrorism may be centred on political motives and understandings.

In my ongoing postdoc project, I study discourses on victimhood in relation to both, terrorist attacks, and political movements. In this project, I want to understand how victims are related to and politicised during specific societal circumstances, and on different platforms.

I am also interested in ways of finding connections during personal crises, such as mourning the loss of a loved one. This work has focused on the ways individuals find connections with others on platforms that are inherently public, such as TikTok, where the algorithms allow you to find like-minded people.

I hold a PhD in Sociology from Umeå University, Sweden. I am currently both working as an Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies, and working part-time as a postdoctoral fellow, connected to the Centre for Digital Social Research at Umeå University (DIGSUM) at the Department of Sociology. I am also editor of Journal of Digital Social Research (JDSR).