Professor Cristian Vaccari
Job Title
Chair in Future Governance, Public Policy, and Technology
Photo
Email
cvaccari@ed.ac.uk
Personal website
Personal website
LinkedIn username
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristianvaccari/
Room number
2.13CBuilding (Address)
Chrystal Macmillan BuildingStreet (Address)
15a George SquareCity (Address)
EdinburghCountry (Address)
United KingdomPost code (Address)
EH8 9LDResearch interests
Research themes
Research interests
I study political communication in comparative perspective, with a particular focus on digital media. My research investigates how political parties, campaign organizations and citizens engage with one another on digital media, and how in the process they negotiate meanings, identities, resources, and, ultimately, power.
Background
Previously, I was Professor of Political Communication at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Loughborough University, where I served as the Director of the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture. I also taught at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of Bologna.
From 2018-2024, I was editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics. In 2019-2020 I was program chair and section chair of the Information Technology & Politics section of the American Political Science Association.
I have supervised eight PhDs to completion and am interested in supervising doctoral research in a wide range of topics in political communication, based on a variety of methodological approaches and disciplinary backgrounds.
Works within
Staff Hours and Guidance
Thursdays, 2-3pm in CMB 2.13C
Publications by user content
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Vaccari C, Chadwick A, Hall NA, Lawson B. Credibility as a double-edged sword: The effects of deceptive source misattribution on disinformation discernment on personal messaging. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. 2025 Jul 13;1-30. Epub 2025 Jul 13. doi: 10.1177/10776990251350563 |
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Chan M, Vaccari C, Yamamoto M. Cognitive drivers of misinformation belief and sharing on social media: A cross-national comparison. Mass Communication and Society. 2025 Jul 3. |
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Chan M, Yi J, Vaccari C, Yamamoto M. A cross-national examination of the effects of accuracy nudges and content veracity labels on belief in and sharing of misleading news. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 2025 Jul;30(4):1-13. zmaf009. Epub 2025 Jun 24. doi: 10.1093/jcmc/zmaf009 |
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Gibson R, Southern R, Vaccari C, Smyth P, Musayev J. Does digital campaigning matter, and if so, how? Testing a broadcast versus network effects model of candidates Twitter use. Journal of Information Technology and Politics. 2024 Aug 9;1-16. Epub 2024 Aug 9. doi: 10.1080/19331681.2024.2387634 |
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Chan M, Vaccari C, Yamamoto M. Examining the relationship between dispositional news literacy and discernment of real and misleading news: Cross-national evidence. International Journal of Public Opinion Research. 2024 Jun;36(2):1-6. edae020. Epub 2024 Apr 18. doi: 10.1093/ijpor/edae020 |
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Buyens W, Van Aelst P, Vaccari C. The same views, the same news? A 15-country study on news sharing on social media by European politicians. Political Communication. 2024 May 9;1-30. Epub 2024 May 9. doi: 10.1080/10584609.2024.2352795 |
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Lawson BT, Chadwick A, Hall NA, Vaccari C. The trustworthiness of peers and public discourse: Exploring how people navigate numerical dis/misinformation on personal messaging platforms. Information, Communication and Society. 2024;28(4):633-650. Epub 2024 Sept 8. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2024.2400141 |
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Vaccari C, Valeriani A. Political filter bubbles and fragmented publics. In Coleman S, Sorensen L, editors, Handbook of Digital Politics. 2 ed. Edward Elgar Publishing. 2023. p. 88-105. (Elgar Handbooks in Political Science). |
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Hall NA, Lawson BT, Vaccari C, Chadwick A. Beyond quick fixes: How users make sense of misinformation warnings on personal messaging. Online Civic Culture Centre, Loughborough University, 2023. 42 p. |
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Chadwick A, Vaccari C, Hall NA. What explains the spread of misinformation in online personal messaging networks? Exploring the role of conflict avoidance. Digital Journalism. 2023 May 10. Epub 2023 May 10. doi: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2206038 |
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Chadwick A, Hall NA, Vaccari C. Misinformation rules!? Could “group rules” reduce misinformation in online personal messaging? New Media and Society. 2023 May 9. Epub 2023 May 9. doi: 10.1177/14614448231172964 |
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Freeman D, Lambe S, Yu LM, Freeman J, Chadwick A, Vaccari C et al. Injection fears and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Psychological Medicine. 2023 Mar;53(4):1185-1195. Epub 2021 Jun 11. doi: 10.1017/s0033291721002609 |
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Vaccari C, Chadwick A, Kaiser J. The campaign disinformation divide: Believing and sharing news in the 2019 UK general election. Political Communication. 2023;40(1):4-23. Epub 2022 Sept 29. doi: 10.1080/10584609.2022.2128948 |
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Helberger N, Borchardt A, Vaccari C. How Council of Europe guidelines on managing the impact of digital technologies on freedom of expression complement the DSA. 2022. |
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Chadwick A, Vaccari C, Kaiser J. The amplification of exaggerated and false news on social media: The roles of platform use, motivations, sffect, and ideology. American Behavioral Scientist. 2022 Aug 21. Epub 2022 Aug 21. doi: 10.1177/00027642221118264 |
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Ritchie N, Wring D, Rafter K, Vaccari C. A gulf across the Irish Sea? The European election campaigns in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. In Novelli E, Johansson B, Wring D, editors, The 2019 European Electoral Campaign: In the Time of Populism and Social Media. 1st ed. Palgrave Macmillan. 2022. p. 159-178 doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-98993-4_9 |
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Chadwick A, Vaccari C, Hall NA. Covid Vaccines and Online Personal Messaging: The Challenge of Challenging Everyday Misinformation. Online Civic Culture Centre, Loughborough University, 2022. 36 p. |
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Kaiser J, Vaccari C, Chadwick A. Partisan blocking: Biased responses to shared misinformation contribute to network polarization on social media. Journal of Communication. 2022 Mar 30;72(2):214-240. doi: 10.1093/joc/jqac002 |
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Trilling D, Kulshrestha J, de Vreese C, Halagiera D, Jakubowski J, Moeller J et al. Is sharing just a function of viewing? Predictors of sharing political and non-political news on Facebook. SocArXiv. 2022 Mar 17. doi: 10.31235/osf.io/am23n |
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Vaccari C. When journalists run for office: The effects of journalist-candidates on citizens’ populist attitudes and voting intentions. International Journal of Communication. 2022 Feb 3;16:3422–3442. |
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Vaccari C. Editorial. International Journal of Press/Politics. 2022 Jan 1;27(1):6-8. Epub 2021 Nov 8. doi: 10.1177/19401612211052940 |
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Ross ARN, Vaccari C, Chadwick A. Russian meddling in U.S. elections: How news of disinformation’s impact can affect trust in electoral outcomes and satisfaction with democracy. Mass Communication and Society. 2022;25(6):786-811. Epub 2022 Nov 7. doi: 10.1080/15205436.2022.2119871 |
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Vaccari C. The international and post-disciplinary journey of political communication: Reflections on “media-centric and politics-centric views of media and democracy: A longitudinal analysis of political communication and the international journal of press/politics” . Political Communication. 2022;39(2):286-290. Epub 2021 Aug 25. doi: 10.1080/10584609.2021.1966599 |
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Ross ARN, Chadwick A, Vaccari C. Digital media and the proliferation of public opinion cues online: Biases and vulnerabilities in the new attention economy. In Morrison J, Birks J, Berry M, editors, The Routledge Companion to Political Journalism. 1st ed. Routledge. 2021. (Routledge Media and Cultural Studies Companions). doi: 10.4324/9780429284571-22 |
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Vaccari C, Valeriani A. Outside the Bubble: Social Media and Political Participation in Western Democracies. Oxford University Press, 2021. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780190858476.001.0001 |
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Chadwick A, Kaiser J, Vaccari C, Freeman D, Lambe S, Loe BS et al. Online social endorsement and Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United Kingdom. Social Media + Society (SM+S). 2021 Jun;7(2):1-17. Epub 2021 Apr 5. doi: 10.1177/20563051211008817 |
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Freeman D, Loe BS, Yu LM, Freeman J, Chadwick A, Vaccari C et al. Effects of different types of written vaccination information on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the UK (OCEANS-III): A single-blind, parallel-group, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Public Health. 2021 Jun;6(6):E416-E427. Epub 2021 May 13. doi: 10.1016/s2468-2667(21)00096-7 |
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Armitage R, Vaccari C. Misinformation and disinformation. In Tumber H, Waisbord S, editors, The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism. 1st ed. Routledge. 2021. p. 38-48. (Routledge Media and Cultural Studies Companions). doi: 10.4324/9781003004431-5 |
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Ceccobelli D, Vaccari C. A virus in the hybrid media system: How the Conte government communicated the coronavirus crisis. Contemporary Italian Politics. 2021;13(2):259-274. Epub 2021 Apr 13. doi: 10.1080/23248823.2021.1906529 |
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