About me

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Latest anual update: 28th of February 2022

Radu Meza is part of the faculty at the Journalism and Digital Media Department since 2008. He graduated Computer Science and Journalism and holds a Ph.D. in Sociology with a thesis on the structure and dynamics of popular online networking systems. His research interests include media analysis, new digital media and computational methods in social sciences. In 2016 he became the coordinator of the first Digital Media Bachelor program in Romania.

What I'm focusing on now

online information disorders & disinformation

narratives, ritual and emotionality in news and social media,

computational methods and machine learning in social science

Research

Most recent conferences

2019

Radu MEZA, Andreea MOGOȘ, Hanna-Orsolya VINCZE, Fickle crowds. Discursive Patterns of Media, Public Figures and Citizens on Social Media in Romania and Hungary

ECREA'S POLITICAL COMMUNICATION SECTION INTERIM CONFERENCE POLCOMM, Poznan, Poland, September 2019.

2019

Radu MEZA, Andreea MOGOȘ, Hanna-Orsolya VINCZE, Networked Antagonisms in Central and Eastern Europe. Hate Speech in Comments to News Media Facebook Posts in Romania and Hungary

5th World Journalism Education Congress, Paris, France, July 2019

2019

Radu MEZA, Andreea MOGOȘ, Hanna-Orsolya VINCZE, Taking Names. Patterns of Meaning and Stereotyping of Social Categories in Antagonistic Discourses on Social Media in Romania and Hungary, abstract

Abstract Book 14th ESA Conference | Europe and Beyond: Boundaries, Barriers and Belonging | 20-23 August 2019 | Manchester, ISBN 978-2-9569087-0-8, p. 445

2018

Radu MEZA, Hanna-Orsolya VINCZE, Andreea MOGOȘ - A Digital Social Science Approach to Studying Hate Speech on Facebook in Romania and Hungary

Communicative Space - Political Space: CEECOM - http://ceecom2018.hu/ - - 11th Central and Eastern European Communication and Media Conference, Szeged, Hungary May 30-June 1 2018

Most recent publications - articles, books etc.

2021

Vincze, H.O., Meza, R. and Balaban, D.C., 2021. Frame Variation in the News Coverage of the Refugee Crisis: The Romanian Perspective

East European Politics and Societies, 35(1), pp.113-135.

2018

Meza, R.M., Vincze, H.O. and Mogos, A., 2018. Targets of Online Hate Speech in Context: A Comparative Digital Social Science Analysis of Comments on Public Facebook Pages from Romania and Hungary. Intersections.

East European Journal of Society and Politics, 4(4).

2020

Meza, R.M., Analiza media. De la gândirea critică la gândirea computațională (Media Analysis. From Critical Thinking to Computational Thinking)

Editura Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2020.

2015

Meza, R.M., Structura și dinamica sistemelor online de networking social de succes (The Structure and Dynamics of Popular Online Social Networking Systems)

Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2015.

Interests

computer mediated communication
media representations
narrative, ritual and emotionality
news and social media
online information disorders
online hate speech
media and information literacy
digital competence
political communication

online popular culture
online celebrity
internet memes
fans, fandoms and participatory culture
formal concept analysis
semantic networks
digital data analysis
computational linguistics
machine learning methods

Courses

Bachelor degree

Course

New Media Theory (Journalism/Digital Media - RO & EN)

Purpose

The purpose of the course is understanding the development of new media and associated phenomena from the technological, politico-economic and social perspectives.

Key concepts

Biases of communication, medium theory, media ecology, second media age, diffusion of innovation, centralization/decentralization, vertical/horizontal integration, computer mediated communication, language of new media, remix, remediation, networked publics, popular content, online celebrity, internet memes and virality.

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Course

Media Analysis (Journalism/Digital Media - RO & EN)

Purpose

This critical thinking course aims to enable students to use media analysis techniques to deconstruct media texts, to discuss and reflect on meaning in relation to cultural context and the audience’s expectations, to identify and explain ideological elements and bias in media representation.

Key concepts

Critical thinking, media institutions, roles and values of journalists and public communicators, media representation, framing, stereotypes in the media, news and emotion, clickbait, popular culture and ideology, semiotic analysis, narrative analysis, metahistory, myth, computer mediated discourse analysis, hate speech, computational methods.

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Course

Web Content Management Systems (Digital media - RO)

Purpose

The course is meant to familiarize students with dynamic web sites, online content management, business models, templating and some of the most widely used open source Web Content Management Systems: Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Concrete, MediaWiki etc.

Key concepts

Content, editorial process, roles in content management, content model, editorial workflow, permissions, version and history, publishing and output management, multichannel publishing, coupled/decoupled WCMS, content strategy.

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Course

Digital Data Analysis (Digital Media - RO)

Purpose

This course is focused on public data collection and social media data analysis methods in the context of internet research, data journalism, online market research, online communication research and media analysis.

Key concepts

Web data extraction, web wrapping/scraping, web crawling, data clean-up, types of data sources, public data, open data, open source intelligence, public APIs, SQL basics, network analysis, semantic networks, natural language processing methods, computational linguistics, machine learning, data visualisation.

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Course

Film Studies (Journalism - EN)

Purpose

The course aims to provide students with sets of concepts used in both short non-fiction/documentary film preproduction and film analysis and reviewing.

Key concepts

Texts, industry and audiences, elements of film language, types of editing, film and truth, film and emotion, film and ideology, film and ritual, national film cultures, cross-cultural remakes, fiction and non-fiction, mockumentary, documentary styles, short film, synopsis, treatment, film reviews and previews.

Masters degree

Course

New Media Culture (Media Communication, Digital Media and Game Studies, Applied Media Studies - EN)

Purpose

This research-oriented course is focused on the understanding of the theoretical frameworks, methodology and collection/analysis tools that can be used to research new digital media communication and computer mediated discourse analysis. Students learn to use online data collection software - Web scraping and API interrogation, and also automated analysis software - natural language / semantic networks analysis.

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Course

Web Design (Media Communication, Digital Media and Game Studies, Media Production, Applied Media Studies - EN)

Purpose

The course is meant to familiarize students with the basics of HTML and CSS, static website builders, dynamic web sites, online content management, business models, functionality design and functional specification writing, templating and implementation using open source Web Content Management Systems.

Doctorate degree