Katharina Lobinger

Katharina Lobinger is Associate Professor for online communication at the Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication (ITDxC) at Università della Svizzera italiana. Her main research interests include networked photography, online communication, digital (visual) culture, ethics for the digital age, creative and visual research methods and open data practices in visual research. 

Katharina Lobinger obtained her Ph.D. in Journalism and Communication at the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna in 2010. Her thesis on Visual Communication Research was awarded the Doctoral Dissertation Award “Media-Culture-Communication”.

Before joining USI she was Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna (2007-2011), Post-doctoral Researcher at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen (2011-2016) and Associated Junior Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies (HWK), Delmenhorst (2014-2016).

Katharina Lobinger is president of the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research (SGKM, SSCM, SACM), member of the German Communication Association (DGPuK), the International Communication Association (ICA) and the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). From 2013 to 2019 she was vice-chair and then chair of the visual communication division of the German Communication Association. Currently she is editorial board member of SComS - Studies in Communication Sciences, an international open-access journal jointly edited by the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Studies (SGKM) and the Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society at USI.

She is editor of the “Handbuch Visuelle Kommunikationsforschung” [Handbook of Visual Communication Research]. 

Katharina Lobinger has led various research projects, such as “Visualisierte Beziehungen – Funktionen und Problemfelder” [Visualized relationships – functions and problems], or the dissemination project "Doppio sguardo: Riflessioni visive". (see "funded projects") Currently, she is conducting research in the project “From pixels to peace: the role of visual communication in conflict transformation” funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF).