August 19, 2020
Tuija Parikka, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Division of Mass Communication, conducts research that connects the investigation of globalization, global communication, gender, and digital media. Her interest in globalization focuses on the intricacies of globalization and gender, manifested through global media imagery, and builds upon the role gender plays in advancing or resolving conflicts embedded in globalization processes and discourses.
In her latest projects, she attempts to shed more light on human displacement and migrant “selves” in becoming in the West, as set forth by such media technologies as virtual reality (VR). At the time of subjecting Western media to criticism by many humanitarian media and communication scholars, especially when reporting on human displacement at times of wars and various other conflicts, questions such as how media technologies (e.g., virtual reality) contribute to rendering experiences of displacement intelligible become relevant. How to turn to another in the virtual realm for an understanding of being displaced is one of the key concerns in her work on migration. As the digital transforms traditional Western ways of rendering experiences of vulnerable groups of people intelligible, and brings the viewing “self” affectively close to the perception of another, it—at the same time—subtly compromises means for fully turning to the plight of another in this realm. The political aspects of VR, in this context, intersect with inequalities that remain unaddressed as such.