Hanna Sistek

I'm a political scientist and Postdoctoral Fellow at Purdue University's Center for American Political History, Media, and Technology (CAPT) and the Governance and Responsible AI Lab (GRAIL). I research behavioral incentives created by emerging technologies, and how those incentives play out in different country-level institutional contexts across Western democracies. In my dissertation, I developed a reputational cost theory of disinformation, linking the increased use of false and biased information by politicians to digitalization, increases in affective polarization and fragmentation of media landscapes, using a reputational cost lens. To study this, I use mixed methods, including survey experiments, in-depth interviews, analyses of longitudinal data, and text analysis.

Beyond this, I pursue projects aimed at promoting mindful media use and more constructive political dialogue.

Prior to academia, I worked as an international journalist, reporting from 19 countries across five continents. My reporting has appeared in international outlets like Al Jazeera, Swedish newspapers such as Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten, and magazines like Amnesty Press and Agenda Magasin. I was an Innovation Journalism Fellow at Stanford University in 2008.

I hold a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Political Science from Purdue University, a Journalism degree from Gothenburg University, and a B.S. in Physical Therapy from Lund University. I was born in Czechoslovakia and grew up in Sweden.