Research areas

Gitte Stald, Associate Professor, ph.d., Digital Society and Participation, IT University of Copenhagen.

Link to full CV

Gitte Stald’s research areas are digital media and communication with a dual focus on the impact of digitization and digital media on transformations in digital society respectively young people and their digital environments, digital practices, and digital citizenship. This comprehends studies on processes of change related to digital media and democratic aspects of digital cultures, digital media and empowerment, media literacy, informed citizenship, and participation. Stald applies a particular interest in groups and individuals who experience challenges regarding management of everyday life and of citizenship in digital society.

She participated in the European comparative project Children and Their Changing Media Environment 1995-1998; in the research program Global Media Cultures 1999-2001; in research and development projects on mobile content for young Danes 2004-6; on mobile solutions for dyslexics 2006-7; in The MacArthur Foundation’s series on Youth, Digital Media and Learning; in the project Mobity on user driven mobile media communities 2008-9. She was the Danish local project manager in the two European networks/projects EU Kids Online 2006-2014 and in Net Children Go Mobile 2012-2014, and in Children Online: Research and Evidence (CO:RE) 2021. From 2014-2019 she headed the research network Democracy & Citizenship in Digital Society (DECIDIS).

She has published articles on subjects such as media and cultural globalisation, adolescents’ digital media cultures, and mobile media and communication. She is co-editor of Global Encounters: Media and Cultural Transformation (2002) and of Digital Aesthetics and Communication, Northern Lights vol 5, 2007. From 1994 to 2007 she worked at Film & Media Studies, Institute for Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen.

Stald has substantial experience with research management, and she is a certified Research Leader. Over the past decades, she has also served as Head of a master program, and as Section Head, and has led strategic research initiatives and research groups. She is a member of ITU’s Research Ethics Committee and serves as an expert on EUs Horizon 2020/ Horizon Europe ethics expert panel.