Farida Vis

Farida Vis is a Professor of Digital Media at Manchester Metropolitan University and Director of the Visual Social Media Lab, where she leads interdisciplinary research on social media images at the intersection of academia and industry. She has studied social media since 2005, with high-profile projects on information flows during the 2011 UK riots and viral images of the refugee crisis in Europe. Her work focuses on developing methods to analyze social media and understanding the issues arising from widespread data use and associated technologies, particularly their impact on journalism.

Previously, Vis was a Faculty Research Fellow for five years at the Information School, University of Sheffield. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Big Boulder Initiative, which promotes the sustainable future of the social data industry, and is a founding member of Open Data Manchester, a thriving open data community in Northern England. The Visual Social Media Lab is also part of the First Draft News Academic Partner Network, collaborating on approaches to address the challenges of online misinformation and disinformation. Current projects include studying the role of images in spreading false information, especially during elections.

Vis contributed as a key witness to the House of Lords Select Committee inquiry on political polling and digital media, whose findings were published in April 2018. She holds a PhD in Media and Communication from the Manchester School of Art and is a regular public speaker. Outside of academia, she grows her own food and has been training to become a horse whisperer for the past decade.