Elena Pilipets is a Digital Media and Methods research fellow at the Collaborative Research Center "Media of Cooperation", University of Siegen (PhD in Media Studies, University of Klagenfurt). Drawing on critical media and cultural studies, her research explores networked expressive formations, affective environments, and circulatory dynamics of contemporary platform cultures. Her empirical work combines context-sensitive data design and visualisation with qualitative and computational methods for analysing multimodal online exchanges across platforms. This includes online-grounded explorations of Instagram bots, Twitter comments, TikTok gestures, Tumblr memes, participatory propaganda, sonic social media, cross-platform image circulation, and synthetic imaginaries of genAI. Alongside media theory, her workshops integrate qualitative, digital, and AI-based methods. These methods are collaboratively explored with participants and developed through video tutorials and student projects or during international Summer, Autumn, and Winter Schools.

Academic Functions

• Since 2023 Member of NFDI4Culture Steering Board
• Since 2021 Vice Chair ECREA Digital Culture and Communication Section
• Since 2021 Editorial Researcher and E-Special Coordinator Theory, Culture & Society (SAGE)

Collaborations/Projects

Screening European Populisms (2008-2020): Audiovisual Fiction, Social Media, and Political Affect/CAT Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study 

Pilipets, E, Geboers, M (2025) Synthetic Imaginaries of “sensitive” AI: On Ambient Amplification and jail(break)ing as method. Platforms & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624251378110.

Pilipets, E, Chao, J. (2025)  Noise in Sonic Social Media. Memetic Soundscapes of Deep TikTok. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251358752.

Pilipets, E. (2025) Netflix Bingen: Plattformisierter Serienkonsum in einer affektiven Datenökonomie. In: Grampp, S., Moskatova, O. (eds) Handbuch Televisuelle Serialität. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35305-6_37-1   

Pilipets, E, Paasonen, S (2024) Memetic commenting: Armenian curses and the Twitter theater of Trump’s deselection. International Journal of Cultural Studies 27(3):302-322. https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231220397. 

Pilipets, E, Caldeira, S, Flores AM (2024) ’24/7 horny&training’: Porn Bots, Authenticity, and Social Automation on Instagram. Porn Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2024.2362166..

Pilipets, E (2024) Vernetzte Bilder als Datenpraktiken: Analyse plattformbasierter Bildzirkulation. In: Stollfuß, S., Niebling, L., Raczkowski, F. (eds) Handbuch Digitale Medien und Methoden. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-36629-2_31-1..

Pilipets, E. (2024). Vernetzte Bilder als Datenpraktiken: Analyse plattformbasierter Bildzirkulation. In: Stollfuß, S., Niebling, L., Raczkowski, F. (eds) Handbuch Digitale Medien und Methoden. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-36629-2_31-1.

Pilipets, E., Paasonen, S. (2024). Memetic commenting: Armenian curses and the Twitter theater of Trump’s deselection. International Journal of Cultural Studies 27(3): 302-322. https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231220397.

Geboers, M., Pilipets E. (2024). Networked masterplots: Music, pro-Russian sentiment, and participatory propaganda on TikTok. Journal of Digital Social Research, 6(1), 90-103. https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v6i1.201.  

Pilipets, E. (2023). Hashtagging, Duetting, Sound-linking: TikTok Gestures and Methods of (In)distinction. MAST The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory4(1): 109-135. https://doi.org/10.59547/26911566.4.1.07.

Pilipets, . E. ., Geboers, M., Divon, T., Bösch, M., Delavar-Kasmai, D., Tuters, M., Rogers, R. Zhang, X. (2023). WARTOK: NETWORKED SOUNDSCAPES OF MEMETIC WARFARE. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2023i0.13532.