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Dr Dan Mercea

Reader in Media and Communication

School of Arts and Social Sciences Department of Sociology

Contact details

Address

Dr Dan Mercea D608, Rhind Building
City, University of London
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB
United Kingdom

Personal links

About

Overview

Dan received his PhD in communication studies from the Department of Sociology, University of York. Before the completion of his doctorate he became Teaching Fellow in Political Sociology at York. From September 2011 to September 2013 he was Senior Lecturer in Politics at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. During that time, he was also Visiting Lecturer in Political Communication at the Catholic University of Lille, France.

In 2015 he was visiting scientist at the University of Sassari, Italy. In 2016, he was an Advanced Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania and in 2018 he was a visiting professor in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, Italy.

From March 2018, he is associate editor of the journal Information, Communication & Society.

Dan is currently Co-Principal Investigator on the ProDem project, 'Protests and Democracy: How Movement Parties, Social Movements and Active Citizens are Reshaping Europe', which is funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung.

Qualifications

  1. PhD, University of York, United Kingdom
  2. MA, Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania
  3. MA, Central European University, Hungary
  4. BA, Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania
  5. BA (Hons), Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom

Memberships of professional organisations

  1. Member, European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA)
  2. Member, International Communication Association

Award

  1. International Communication Association (2019) Best Paper Award of the Activism, Communication and Social Justice Interest Group

Research

Research Interests

Dr Mercea has a lasting interest in the implications of new media usage, the adoption and repurposing of Internet technologies in various domains of social and political activity as captured by multiple analytical perspectives including those in social movement, political behaviour, political and social psychology, science and technology studies. More specifically, his theoretical preoccupations have converged on cultural aspects of mobilization into collective action and informal civic learning; media theory with an emphasis on (new) media practices; democratic theory chiefly with reference to deliberative and participatory models of political engagement and finally sociological theory probing the interplay between technological innovation and social transformation.

His empirical research has concentrated on participation in contentious politics. In his recent studies, he has focused on the impact of networked communication on individual involvement in physical protest; on notions of shared collective identities among networked participants and finally, on organizational changes among digitally connected activist groups.

PhD supervision

Dr Mercea is happy to supervise postgraduate work that touches on his areas of interest.

Publications

Publications by category

Books (4)

  1. Walker, S., Mercea, D. and Bastos, M. (2021). Disinformation and Data Lockdown on Social Platforms. Walker, S., Mercea, D. and Bastos, M. (Eds.), London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-03-207447-4.
  2. Mercea, D. (2016). Civic Participation in Contentious Politics. Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 978-1-137-50868-3.
  3. Nixon, P., Rawal, R. and Mercea, D. (Eds.), (2013). Politics and the Internet in Comparative Context: Views from the Cloud. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-79833-1.
  4. Loader, B. and Mercea, D. (Eds.), (2012). Social Media and Democracy: Innovations in Participatory Politics. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-81293-2.

Chapters (6)

  1. Bastos, M. and Mercea, D. (2020). Parametrizing Brexit: mapping Twitter political space to parliamentary constituencies. In Maren, B. (Ed.), Digital Media, Political Polarization and Challenges to Democracy (pp. 7–25). Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-53414-0.
  2. Mercea, D. and Levy, H. (2019). The Activist Chroniclers of Occupy Gezi: Counterposing Visibility to Injustice. In McGarry, A., Erhart, I., Eslen-Ziya, H., Jenzen, O. and Korkut, U. (Eds.), The Aesthetics of Global Protest Visual Culture and Communication Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 978-94-6372-491-3.
  3. Mercea, D. (2017). Building Contention Word-by-Word: Social Media Usage in the European Stop ACTA Movement. Social Media and European Politics (pp. 105–122). Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 978-1-137-59889-9.
  4. Mercea, D., Nixon, P. and Funk, A. (2013). "Unaffiliated Socialization and Social Media Recruitment: Reflections from Occupy the Netherlands". In Nixon, P., Rawal, R. and Mercea, D. (Eds.), Politics and the Internet in Comparative Context: Views from the Cloud (pp. 232–247). London: Routledge.
  5. Mercea, D., Lekakis, E. and Nixon, P. (2013). "Taking stock: a meta-analysis of the virtual public sphere in communication journals". In Nixon, P., Rawal, R. and Mercea, D. (Eds.), Politics and the Internet in Comparative Context: Views from the Cloud (pp. 10–25). London: Routledge.
  6. Loader, B.D. and Mercea, D. (2012). Networking democracy? Social media innovations in participatory politics. Social Media and Democracy: Innovations in Participatory Politics (pp. 1–10). London: Routledge.

Internet publications (4)

  1. Mercea, D. and Bastos, M. (2019). Brexit tweets and the polarised terrain of dis/misinformation. Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.
  2. Bastos, M. and Mercea, D. (2018). Brexit tweets suggest nationalism and austerity. LSE Blog.
  3. Bastos, M.T. and Mercea, D. (2016). Online activists support uprisings around the world. Here’s what we know about them. Washington Post Monkey Cage.
  4. Bastos, M.T., Charpentier, A. and Mercea, D. (2015). How social media usage does and does not predict protests. Washington Post Monkey Cage.

Journal articles (28)

  1. Mercea, D. (2020). Tying Transnational Activism to National Protest: Facebook Event Pages in the 2017 Romanian #rezist Demonstrations. New Media and Society. doi:10.1177/1461444820975725.
  2. Mercea, D., Burean, T. and Proteasa, V. (2020). Student Participation and Public Facebook Communication: Exploring the Demand and Supply of Political Information in the Romanian #rezist Demonstrations. International Journal of Communication, 14, pp. 4136–4159.
  3. Mercea, D. and Levy, H. (2019). Cuing Collective Outcomes on Twitter: A Qualitative Reading of Movement Social Learning. International Journal of Communication pp. 5629–5651.
  4. Walker, S., Mercea, D. and Bastos, M. (2019). The disinformation landscape and the lockdown of social platforms. Information, Communication & Society, 22(11), pp. 1531–1543. doi:10.1080/1369118x.2019.1648536.
  5. Bastos, M.T. and Mercea, D. (2019). The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News. Social Science Computer Review, 37(1), pp. 38–54. doi:10.1177/0894439317734157.
  6. Bastos, M., Mercea, D. and Baronchelli, A. (2018). The geographic embedding of online echo chambers: Evidence from the Brexit campaign. PLOS ONE, 13(11). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0206841.
  7. Mercea, D., Karatas, D. and Bastos, M.T. (2018). Persistent Activist Communication in Occupy Gezi. Sociology. doi:10.1177/0038038517695061.
  8. Mercea, D. (2018). Transnational Activism in Support of National Protest: Questions of Identity and Organization. Global Networks, 18(4), pp. 543–563. doi:10.1111/glob.12179.
  9. Bastos, M. and Mercea, D. (2018). The public accountability of social platforms: lessons from a study on bots and trolls in the Brexit campaign. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 376(2128), pp. 20180003–20180003. doi:10.1098/rsta.2018.0003.
  10. Bastos, M. and Mercea, D. (2018). Parametrizing Brexit: mapping Twitter political space to parliamentary constituencies. Information, Communication & Society, 21(7), pp. 921–939. doi:10.1080/1369118x.2018.1433224.
  11. Mercea, D. and Yilmaz, K.E. (2018). Movement social learning on Twitter: The case of the People’s Assembly. The Sociological Review, 66(1), pp. 20–40. doi:10.1177/0038026117710536.
  12. Bastos, M.T. and Mercea, D. (2016). Serial activists: Political Twitter beyond influentials and the twittertariat. New Media and Society, 18(10), pp. 2359–2378. doi:10.1177/1461444815584764.
  13. Mercea, D. and Iannelli, L. (2016). Media, Participation, and Social Change: Introduction to the Special Section. Social Media + Society, 2(3), pp. 205630511666239–205630511666239. doi:10.1177/2056305116662398.
  14. Mercea, D. and Funk, A. (2016). The social media overture of the pan-European Stop-ACTA protest: An empirical examination of participatory coordination in connective action. Convergence, 22(3), pp. 287–312. doi:10.1177/1354856514563663.
  15. Mercea, D. and Bastos, M.T. (2016). Being a Serial Transnational Activist. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 21(2), pp. 140–155. doi:10.1111/jcc4.12150.
  16. Mercea, D., Iannelli, L. and Loader, B.D. (2016). Protest communication ecologies. Information, Communication and Society, 19(3), pp. 279–289. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2015.1109701.
  17. Mercea, D. (2015). Cultures of Democracy in Serbia and Bulgaria. By James Dawson. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2014. 224p. $119.95. -
    After the Revolution: Youth, Democracy, and the Politics of Disappointment in Serbia. By Jessica Greenberg. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2014. 248p. $90.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.     Perspectives on Politics, 13(3), pp. 887–889. doi:10.1017/s1537592715001917.
  18. Mercea, D. (2015). Making sense of democratic institutions intertextually: Communication on social media as a civic literacy event preceding collective action. The Communication Review, 18(3), pp. 189–211. doi:10.1080/10714421.2015.1058102.
  19. Bastos, M., Mercea, D. and Charpentier, A. (2015). Tents, tweets, and events: The interplay between ongoing protests and social media. Journal of Communication, 65(2), pp. 320–350. doi:10.1111/jcom.12145.
  20. Mercea, D. (2014). Towards a conceptualization of casual protest participation: Parsing a case from the Save Roşia Montană campaign. East European Politics and Societies, 28(2), pp. 386–410. doi:10.1177/0888325413519672.
  21. Mercea, D. (2013). Probing the implications of Facebook use for the organizational form of social movement organizations. Information, Communication and Society, 16(8), pp. 1306–1327. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2013.770050.
  22. Mercea, D. (2012). Digital prefigurative participation: the entwinement of online communication and offline participation in protest events. New Media and Society, 14(1), pp. 153–169. doi:10.1177/1461444811429103.
  23. Loader, B.D. and Mercea, D. (2011). Networking democracy? Social media innovations in participatory politics”. Information, Communication and Society, 14(6), pp. 757–769. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2011.592648.
  24. Mercea, D. and Stoica, A.C. (2007). In partnerships we trust: NGO-donor relationships. A case study of Romanian civil society support and development NGOs. Studia Universitas Babeş-Bolyai Politica, 8(1), pp. 73–105.
  25. Mercea, D. (2006). Exploding iconography: The Mindbomb project. Eastbound, 1(1), pp. 245–283.
  26. Levy, H. and Mercea, D. Exploring narrative linearity between Twitter and the news: Echoes of the Arab Spring in Brazil. Discourse and Society.
  27. Bastos, M., Mercea, D. and Goveia, F. Guy Next Door and Implausibly Attractive Young Women: The Visual Frames of Social Media Propaganda. New Media and Society.
  28. Mercea, D. and Mosca, L. Understanding Movement Parties Through Their Communication. Information, Communication and Society, 24(10). doi:10.1080/1369118X.2021.1942514.

Professional activities

Editorial activity

  1. Information, Communication & Society, Associate Editor, Mar 2018 – present.

Event/conference

  1. Parliamentary & Scientific Committee Meeting on ‘Fake News and The Science Behind It’. UK Parliament (2019).
    Paper: Polarisation, Echo-chambers and Bots on Twitter During the Brexit Referendum Campaign

Keynote lectures/speeches (5)

  1. Priming Collective Action on Social Media: An Examination of Movement Social Learning in the UK People’s Assembly. Johns Hopkins University SAIS Europe, Bologna, Italy (2017). Invited lecture in the series “Politics Beyond the State: Politics in the Internet Era Seminar Series”.
  2. Fake News, Filter Bubbles and Echo Chambers. Royal Society, London, UK (2017). Invited speaker on expert panel at the 2017 Summer Science Exhibition of the Royal Society.
  3. Between Activism and Apathy –Discussing Future Pathways of Political Participation. University of Vienna, Austria (2016). Public Talk
  4. Posting Protest, Tweeting Turmoil. Probing the Social Media Overture of the pan-European anti-ACTA Protest. Mannheim, Germany: Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, University of Mannheim (2013). Invited talk in the Centre's public lecture series.
  5. Digital (Re) presentations of Social Action: Mapping out the Corporate and Social Movement Territories of Political Participation (with Eleftheria Lekakis). Stockholm, Sweden: Södertörn University (2011). Invited talk at the Higher Seminar Series of the Media and Communications Department.