University of Gothenburg
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Maarit Jaakkola

Deputy Director

Nordicom
Telephone
+46 31-786 12 20
+46 766-18 12 20
Mail
maarit.jaakkola@gu.se
Visiting address
Seminariegatan 1 b
41313 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 713
40530 Göteborg

About Maarit Jaakkola

Maarit Jaakkola is a Doctor of Social Sciences (Journalism) working as Co-Director at the Centre for Nordic Media Research Nordicom at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She is also an Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication (JMG) at the University of Gothenburg and an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences (ITC) at Tampere University in Finland.

Jaakkola's research is located at the intersection between media, culture and learning. In her research, Jaakkola is searching for connections between professional and non-professional media production, public and informal pedagogies, as well as cultural-studies approaches, preferring comparative studies in the Nordic region.

Further information:

Background

Maarit Jaakkola defended her doctoral thesis The Contested Autonomy of Arts and Journalism: Change and Continuity in the Dual Professionalism of Cultural Journalism at the University of Tampere in 2015. She holds a Licentiate's and a Master's degree in Social Sciences and a Master's degree in Philosophy. She is also a trained journalist and teacher and has a professional diploma in educational management.

Previously, Jaakkola worked 15 years as a lecturer in journalism at Tampere University, Finland. She has also worked as a journalist for the national daily Helsingin Sanomat and Finnish Press and Photo Agency STT. She has also worked as a teacher and head of the media programme at Finnish upper secondary schools specialised in media and communication. Furthermore, Jaakkola has professional experience as a press officer and teachers' educator.

Research interests

Jaakkola's research is focused on different aspects of specialised journalism such as cultural journalism, as well as journalistic professionalism, cultural intermediation, cultural produsage and digital pedagogies. Further areas of research include the signature pedagogies of journalism education, media and information literacy and e-learning.

Recently, Jaakkola has been studying the Nordic journalism education from a comparative perspective and cultural journalism in the Nordic countries, as well as vernacular cultural production or reviewing as user-generated content on social networking platforms. Her newest scientific monographies Reviewing Culture Online: Post-Institutional Cultural Critique across Platforms (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and Pedagogical Opportunities of the Review Genre: Living in Cultures of Evaluation (Routledge, 2024) address vernacular reviewing on social networking platforms, discussing the phenomenon of cultural prosumption (production and consumption) online.

New publications

Jaakkola, M. (ed.) (2023). Reporting on Artificial Intelligence: A Handbook for Journalism Educators. UNESCO.

Jaakkola, M. (2023). Community-first Criticism: Reviewing of Art and Culture in Local Newspapers. Journalism Studies, 24(9), 1214–1236.

Jaakkola, M. (2022). Joining the Scholarly Conversation: The Basics of Writing an Academic Book Review. NordMedia Network Online Educational Resources. Nordicom.

Jaakkola, M. (2022). Reviewing Culture Online: Post-Institutional Cultural Critique across Platforms. Palgrave Macmillan.

For more new publications, see below under the title "Publications".

Forthcoming publications

Jaakkola, M. (2023). Capturing the Contours of the Field of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Research: A Systematic Literature Review of Studies Conducted at Swedish Universities in 2021. In: Jaakkola, M., Durán-Becerra, T., & Onyancha, O. B. (eds.) Media and Information Literacy for the Public Good. UNESCO MILID Yearbook 2023. Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios UNIMINUTO.

Jaakkola, M., Durán-Becerra, T., & Onyancha, O. B. (eds.) (2023). Media and Information Literacy for the Public Good. UNESCO MILID Yearbook 2023. Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios UNIMINUTO.

Gurdal, S., Jaakkola, M., & Andersson, L. (eds.) (2024). The Digital Life of Young People in the Nordics. A special issue for the journal Nordisk tidsskrift for ungdomsforskning 2/2024.

Wiik, J., & Jaakkola, M. (2024). AI-journalistik: Artificiell intelligens och algoritmer på redaktionen. [AI Journalism: Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms in the Newsroom.] Studentlitteratur.

Jaakkola, M. (2024). Pedagogical Opportunities of the Review Genre: Living in Cultures of Evaluation. Routledge.

Jaakkola, M. (2024). Journalists as Media Educators: Pedagogies of Journalistic Production. Lexington Books.

Other activities

Currently, Jaakkola is the editor-in-chief of NordMedia Network, a digital platform for Nordic media researchers. Jaakkola is also the book reviews editor of the international scientific peer-reviewed journal in media and communication research, Nordicom Review. In 2016–2018, Jaakkola was the editor of Nordicom Information, a multilingual academic journal of media and communication research published in 1979–2018 in Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) and English.

Jaakkola is also the editor-in-chief of the Finnish peer-reviewed journal Kulttuurintutkimus – Kulturstudier and an associate editor of the international peer-reviewed journal Journal of Creative Communications by Sage. Moreover, she is a member of the editorial boards of the journals Journal of Media Literacy Education (JMLE), Information & Media (I&M), The Arts in Society Journal Collection, Kairos: Media & Communications Review and Contributions to the Humanities.

Jaakkola has been a peer reviewer, among other things, for the journals Central European Journal of Communication, Communication, Culture & Critique, Current Psychology, Environmental Communication, Higher Education Pedagogies, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Science Communication, Journalism, Journalism and Media, Journalism Practice, Journalism Studies, Kasvatus, Media and Communication, Media & viestintä, Music & Science, New Media & Society, The National Biography in Finland, Networking Knowledge, Nordicom Review, Poetics, Recherches en Communication, Social Sciences, Television and New Media, as well as for Routledge and Sage, and a number of conferences.

Jaakkola is involved, among other things, in the following project, network and group activities:

  • The Nordic Collaboration Committee for Journalism Education, chair (2019–2022)
  • World Journalism Education Council (WJEC), member, representative of the Nordic countries
  • MILID University Network (Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue University Network), UNESCO-UNAOC-UNITWIN, co-lead (2020–2022)
  • UNESCO MIL Alliance Regional Chapter for North America and Europe, member (2023–)
  • The International Organizing Committee (IOC) of the Global Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Week 2022, member
  • ECREA Temporary Working Group (TWG) Media Literacies and Communication Competencies (MLCC), Chair (2023–)
  • NordMedia Conference: member of the Nordic planning committee, chair of the media literacy and media education division
  • Shine On, Critique! Research contribution to the development project by the Finnish Critics' Association SARV (2021–2022)
  • Journalistic Roles, Values and Qualifications in the 21st century: How Journalism Educators across the Globe View the Future of a Profession in Transition, coordinator for the Nordic countries survey study (2021)
  • Academic Forum for MIL Research, a national researcher network connected to the Network MIL Sweden led by the Swedish Media Council, founder and coordinator
  • Social Media Resilience Toolkit – SMaRT-EU, member of the advisory board
  • EU Kids Online network, Swedish team coordinator and member
  • Children Online: Research and Evidence (CO:RE), Swedish coordinator (2021)
  • The Media & Learning Association, board member (2020–2022)
  • UNESCO's Media and Information Literacy Expansion (MILx) Research and Development Consortium, member
  • Member of the editorial board of the peer-reviewed scientific journals Kulttuurintutkimus (Cultural Studies), Journal of Creative Communications, Journal of Media Literacy Education, The Arts in Society Journal Collection (Arts Education; Arts Theory and History; New Media, Technology, and the Arts; Social, Political, and Community Agendas in the Arts), Information & Media, and Contributions to the Humanities
  • ECREA Temporary Working Group (TWG) Journalism and Communication Education, vice-chair (2022)
  • The Swedish Film Institute, member of the Council of Film Pedagogy
  • Visual media literacy research group VIMIK at the Centre for Collaborative Visual Research (GPS400) at the University of Gothenburg, member
  • Member of the research group Children's Culture Studies (BiG) at the University of Gothenburg
  • Member of the Swedish research group NatMin-nätverket for the study of national-minority languages and cultures
  • Member of the multistakeholder network Möten med MIK (MMM) for regional media and information literacy organizations
  • Member of the multistakeholder network Local Journalism for All Network for national organizations
  • Educator and supervisor in the educational programme for Swedish and Finnish journalism students at the cultural centre Hanaholmen, on themes fact-checking (2018), EU elections (2019) environmental journalism (2022) and energy journalism (2023)
  • Member of the advisory board of the Finnish Language Centre at the Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore (Isof) (2022–2025)
  • Co-founder and coordinator of the Sweden-Finnish Research Network
  • Co-founder of the network Media and Informal Language Learning (MILL)
  • The media literacy blog MIKologi at the pedagogical portal Lärtorget at the City of Gothenburg
  • The National Library of Sweden, member of the group of legal deposit and strategic collections within the Forum of national library cooperation and development (–2020)