dr. A.A.C.G. van der Graaf (Shenja)

Shenja van der Graaf is a digital society scholar at the Department of Communication Science at the technical University of Twente. If there is one common thread joining her research activities together, it is an interest in moments of transition and the dynamics that accompany them arising from innovations associated with information and communication technologies. Interests and expertise focus on production and consumption cultures; media (histories) and everyday life; media infrastructures; media / ICT (responsible) innovation and regulation in the public interest; and, alternative economic and governance systems.

Van der Graaf has held several research, advisory and management positions, in particular in the Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Japan, and USA. In various positions she has served as a PI on major grants and consulted with public and private entities, such as OECD, European Commission, UN, Turner Networks, and Microsoft. Her expertise has also been shown and translated into various lectureships, (board) memberships and publications. In this capacity, she has been committed to exploring how greater understanding of media systems can inform and assist citizens, scholars and policymakers in Europe and abroad to advance campaigns for technological literacy, creative expression, social justice, and human rights.

Before joining the BMS faculty, van der Graaf was Principal Researcher at imec-SMIT, VUB leading the Unit ‘Data Governance & Communities’ (former ‘Smart Cities’), where she also served as a Board member.

Van der Graaf is a graduate of Utrecht University (MA, 1999), Leiden University (Postgrad, 2000) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (PhD, 2009). She has been an honorary fellow at MIT Media Lab (ID3 Hub), a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society (Harvard) and the Research Center for Information Law (University of St. Gallen), a consulting researcher at Convergence Culture Consortium (MIT), an alumna of the Oxford Internet Institute (Oxford), and worked as consultant for Hakuhodo Inc. in Tokyo.

Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences (BMS), Communication Science (CS)

If there is one common thread joining my research activities together, it is an interest in moments of transition and the dynamics that accompany them.

Amidst social, technological and economic challenges, I have been particularly intrigued by the governance of new technologies and digital culture, and organizational and micro-level change, especially, at the intersection of commerce and the community.

Currently, I am developing a research track in the ways the web, mobile devices, virtual and augmented reality seem to rescript our nervous system, and change the structure of our brain and challenge functions for empathy and decision-making. I am interested in developing new models of contemporary human online culture. For this purpose, I am working at the intersection of digital culture and neuroscience.

Themes:

Digital, cumulative culture & evolution
(Transmedia) storytelling
Media (histories) and everyday life
Media infrastructures (political economy of internet in space)
Alternative economic and governance systems

Some keywords to investigate these themes:

Social life development (in individuals, over generations, communities); Digital polarization; Narrativity; Co-creation; (More-than-human) Ecosystems; Predictive modeling; Niche construction; Active inference; Media studies; User innovation; ...

I welcome PhD + Postdoc enquiries from candidates wishing to pursue projects in the above subject areas.

Grasa, E., Seppälä, J., Alonso-Solis, A., Haapea, M., Isohanni, M., Miettunen, J., Mendivelso, J. C., Almazan, C., Rubinstein, K., Caspi, A., Unoka, Z., Farkas, K., Usall, J., Ochoa, S. , van der Graaf, S., Jewell, C., Triantafillou, A., Stevens, M., Reixach, E., ... Corripio, I. (2023). m-RESIST, a Mobile Therapeutic Intervention for Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia: Feasibility, Acceptability, and Usability Study. JMIR Formative Research, 7, [e46179]. https://doi.org/10.2196/46179

Long, L. A. N. , Graaf, S. V. D. , & Votsis, A. (2023). “Governing the urban commons”: DLT, institutions, and citizens in perspective. Big Data & Society, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231182391

Montakhabi, M. , van der Graaf, S., & Mustafa, M. A. (2023). Valuing the value: An affordances perspective on new models in the electricity market. Energy research & social science, 96, [102902]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102902

Ibrus, I. , Van Der Graaf, S., & Nieborg, D. B. (2022). Introduction: Welcome to the Metaverse! (again?). Baltic Screen Media Review, 10(2), 198-200. https://doi.org/10.2478/bsmr-2022-0014

van der Graaf, S. , Nguyen Long, L. A., & Vinci, I. (2022). Editorial: Interrogating the design of smart, sustainable, and socially just urban spaces: A look at institutions, places, and values. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 4, [1088610]. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2022.1088610

Montakhabi, M. , van der Graaf, S., Madhusudan, A., Sarenche, R., & Mustafa, M. A. (2021). Fostering Energy Transition in Smart Cities: DLTs for Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading. In 2021 17th International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems (DCOSS) (International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems (DCOSS); Vol. 2021, No. 17). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/DCOSS52077.2021.00078

Huybrechts, L. , van der Graaf, S., D'Hauwers, R., & Pierson, J. (2021). Belgium: adoption of the sharing economy. In A. Klimczuk, V. Cesnuityte, & G. Avram (Eds.), The Collaborative Economy in Action: European Perspectives (pp. 52-66). University of Limerick. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5546596

van der Graaf, S. , Long, L. A. N., & Veeckman, C. (2021). Co-creation and Smart Cities: Looking Beyond Technology. Emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/9781800436022

Montakhabi, M., Zobiri, F. , van der Graaf, S., Deconinck, G., Orlando, D., Ballon, P., & Mustafa, M. A. (2021). An Ecosystem View of Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading: Scenario Building by Business Model Matrix to Identify New Roles. Energies, 14(15), [4438]. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14154438

Montakhabi, M. , van der Graaf, S., Ballon, P., Walravens, N., & Vanhaverbeke, W. (2021). Defining the Business Ecosystem of Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading. In M. Hoveskog, & F. Halila (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on New Business Models: New Business Models in a Decade of Action: Sustainable, Evidence-based, Impactful: Halmstad, Sweden, 9-11 June 2021 Halmstad University Press. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-44872

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Bachelor

Communication Science

Master

Communication Science

Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.

Digital Polarisation (Dutch Search Experience, partnership with Queensland University of Technology and AWS) (2022 - present). Grants: UT (2022), SIDN (2023-2025)

Prometheus (with Dr. Sjoerd de Vries) (2021): Grant: EIT-HEI Initiative (EC)

PhD projects

Citizen Science (VUB-UT; with Prof.dr.ing. Alexander van Deursen; co-promotor PhD) (2023 - present)

Digital inclusion and poverty (with Prof.dr.ing. Alexander van Deursen; co-promotor PhD) (2022 - present)

Snippet (imec-smit, Vrije Universiteit Brussels; with Prof.dr. Pieter Ballon; co-promotor PhD) (2019 - present)

Finished

Sense-Data-Reflect (Vrije Universiteit Brussels; Global Minds, with University of the Western Cape) (2020 - 2022)

2023