ASIMINA MICHAILIDOU - POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW Dr Asimina Michailidou is Post-doctoral Fellow at the ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway. Prior to joining ARENA, she held the position of post-doctoral researcher EurPolCom, where she worked on the 'CONSTITUTION' project. Her research compared the EU's official rhetoric on the role of civil society in the democratisation and legitimation of the EU decision-making process with the views of elite policy actors in the EU institutions and advisory bodies. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Communication from Loughborough University, UK, where the subject of her doctoral dissertation was "The role of the Internet in the European Union's public communication strategy and the emerging European public sphere". Her main fields of academic interest are new media and their impact on politics, particularly in regards to the European Union; globalisation and political activism; and theoretical considerations on the concept of the public sphere. Her current research at ARENA concerns 'The virtual reality of the European public sphere: Actors, norms and representations'. This is a two-year project within the "Communicative and socio-cultural dynamics of European integration" subfield of the EuroTrans project. The project compares the communicative efforts of Commission Representations in Greece, Sweden and the UK and their engagement in the online public sphere. Under the same EuroTrans subfield, she is also currently participating in an ARENA-coordinated cross-national survey on Euroscepticism in online debates in relation to the June 2009 European Parliament elections. This survey is coordidated by Research Professor Hans-Joerg Trenz and involves researchers in ARENA (Michailidou, de Wilde) and partner institutions from the trans-national RECON project. Recent publications Books and chapters " Michailidou, A., 2009. 'Vertical Europeanisation of the online public dialogue: EU public communication policy and online implementation'. In: Bee, C., Bozzini, E. (eds), Mapping the European Public Sphere: institutions, media and civil society. Ashgate Publishers (in print). " Michailidou, A., 2008. The European Union online. Berlin: VDM-Verlag Dr Müller. Articles and working papers " Michailidou, A., 2008a. 'Democracy and new media in the European Union: Communication or participation deficit?'. Journal of Contemporary European Research, Special Issue, Vol.4, Issue 4, http://www.jcer.net/ojs/index.php/jcer/issue/view/11. " Michailidou, A., 2008b. 'EU public communication in the Web 2.0 era: rhetoric and reality'. Communication Director, 3/2008, pp.58-61. " Michailidou, A., 2008c. Constitutionalisation of the European public sphere- EU public communication, institutional culture and civil society. EurPolCom Working Paper Series, 16/08, <http://www.eurpolcom.eu/exhibits/paper_16.pdf>. Webpage at ARENA: http://www.arena.uio.no/about/staff/michailidou.xml Webpage at LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/amichailidou Email: asimina.michailidou[at]arena.uio.no