Lisa Chernenko is a DPhil candidate in Social Data Science at the Oxford Internet Institute, Associate Researcher and a Project Lead in the Portulans Institute, where she works as part of the Ukraine Case Studies team. Her doctoral research is generously funded by the OII Shirley Scholarship and the Dieter Schwarz Foundation stipend. Lisa’s research explores strategies to counteract dehumanisation in hostile intergroup dynamics. Specifically, it is focused on the phenomenon of re-humanisation in online communication.
In the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Lisa closely examines the linguistic facets of outgroup dehumanisation and the mechanics of re-humanisation in interactions between Ukrainians and Russians across digital platforms. While the focus on the Russian war in Ukraine is motivated by its time relevance and importance, the analytical framework developed in the study aims to diagnose tensions between opposing groups of all sorts (e.g. political factions, refugees and locals, or feuding ethnicities and religions). The scalable strategies from this study aim to foster balanced dialogue between historically hostile groups, mitigating triggers for intergroup aggression through facilitation of re-humanisation dynamics. Additionally, Lisa delves into factors influencing effectiveness of re-humanisation.
Lisa’s previous work addressed network factors in organisational conflict and the potential of digital platforms for conflict optimisation. She has extensive experience in organisational consulting and teaching Data Science and Social Network Analysis.
