Dr. Miira Hill
Research Associate
Vita
Miira Hill is a postdoctoral researcher at ZeMKI and has been affiliated with the Chair of Communication and Media Studies with a focus on Digital Communication since 2020. She is a member of the “Digital Communication and Diversity of Information” lab, led by Prof. Cornelius Puschmann. From 2018 to 2020, she led the interdisciplinary module “Science Uses Methods” at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Hill studied Sociology, Technical Environmental Protection, and Psychology in Stuttgart, Bielefeld, San Francisco, and Berlin. Her Ph.D. in General Sociology from the Technical University of Berlin focused on contemporary communication and legitimation practices in transdisciplinary science communication (Hill, M.B. (2022). The New Art of Old Public Science Communication: The Science Slam. Milton Park: Routledge). Her research is grounded in the sociology of knowledge, feminist approaches to Science and Technology Studies, and innovation research. After completing her doctorate, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the interdisciplinary research training group “Innovation Society Today” at TU Berlin.
Her teaching focuses on imparting qualitative methods, analyzing the transformation of the public sphere in digital contexts, exploring human-technology relationships, and critically engaging with power and dominance structures. Her research examines societal digitalization, emphasizing media as social phenomena. Integrating qualitative and computational methods, she combines perspectives from sociology, communication and media studies, and science and technology studies.
Research Focus
- digital society
- power and domination
- public sphere theories
- postcolonial and feminist perspectives
- qualitative research methods
- digital methods in social science
- knowledge/ non-knowledge
Memberships
- International Communication Association (ICA)
- Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)
- Interdisciplinary Network for Studies Investigating Science and Technology (INSIST)
- European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST)
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS) / DGS-Sektion Wissenssoziologie
Most recent publications (Source: ORCID)
- Hill, M (2026). The role of unspoken rules in shaping public discourse: The communicative constructions on TikTok and Facebook. Communicative Constructivism and the Empirical Study of Social Reality Contributions to A New Theory. 249-263
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-105032589660&partnerID=MN8TOARS - The Disappearance of the Social? A Conceptual Critique of the Para- and Post-Social Media Debate
https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/8cv7j_v3 - The data interview. Reflexive integration of large language models in qualitaive content analysis. Understanding Science with Large Language Models?
https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7994-6 - The role of unspoken rules in shaping public discourse
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003600619-23 - Communicatively constructing lines between publics and science
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003279259-15 - Hill, M. & Puschmann, C. (2025): Nostalgic for a better democracy?. How German right-wing social media commentators (mis)remember the past. Publizistik
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11616-025-00891-w - Hill, Miira (2023). Science Slam. Eine kommunikative Gattung im Zeichen der Digitalisierung. Kommunikative Gattungen und Events. 193--218. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-658-41941-7_9 - Hill, Miira (2023). Innovation und Kommunikation: Über die Entstehung einer kommunikativen Gattung. Innovationsgesellschaft heute. 231--258. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-658-39743-2_8 - The Difficulty of Communicating Science to the Public
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003172635-1 - Hill, Miira B (2022). The New Art of Old Public Science Communication. The Science Slam. Routledge. Routledge
https://www.routledge.com/The-New-Art-of-Old-Public-Science-Communication-The-Science-Slam/Hill/p/book/9781032000800?srsltid=AfmBOoqH6AUcszvXbhFNe5b8qtn8e-5VId2iMpMIg4iySbxc3yqVl-Nr
