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Oana Brin­dusa Albu

Associate Professor

Subjects
Organisation Artificial intelligence Technology Communication Non-profit Human rights

Primary research areas

Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence, Com­mu­nic­a­tion, and Civil So­ci­ety Or­gan­iz­ing
I have ex­pert­ise in in­vest­ig­at­ing how di­git­al me­dia and gen­er­at­ive ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence are re­shap­ing the ways in which so­cial move­ments and non-profit or­gan­iz­a­tions work in the Souths.
Di­git­al Tech­no­lo­gies, Po­lar­iz­a­tion, and the Con­nec­tion vs. Di­vi­sion Para­dox
I ex­am­ine the mech­an­isms through which emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies are both mit­ig­at­ing and amp­li­fy­ing po­lar­iz­a­tion in a wide range of for profit and non-profit or­gan­iz­a­tions.
De­co­lo­ni­al ap­proaches for hu­man­it­ari­an or­gan­iz­a­tions
I draw on de­co­lo­ni­al per­spect­ives to look at how hu­man rights non-profit or­gan­iz­a­tions in the Souths re­spond to pres­sures of trans­par­ency made by in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­it­ari­an act­ors.

I look at how emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies change who gets seen and who takes part in or­gan­iz­ing, and how such com­mu­nic­a­tion im­pacts or­gan­iz­a­tions, so­cial move­ments, and non­profits.

My research helps: 
- Activists, social movements and civil society organizations navigate challenges of participation and transparency 
- Non-profit and for-profit organizations to develop transparency and visibility strategies 
- Companies to develop public relations and political communication strategies 

Recent research projects

So­cial Move­ments, Plat­forms, And In/Vis­ib­il­ity (VIS­IMOVE)

This pro­ject aims to un­der­stand in/vis­ib­il­ity tra­ject­or­ies of so­cial move­ments that res­ult from the in­ter­play between act­iv­ists’ prac­tices and plat­forms’ ag­greg­a­tion and fil­ter­ing prop­er­ties. Fun­ded by the Aus­tri­an Sci­ence Fund (FWF).

Mar­ket­ing­Bot: A Top­ic-spe­cif­ic RAG (Re­triev­al Aug­men­ted Gen­er­a­tion)- based Stu­dent As­sist­ant

This ped­ago­gic­al pro­ject lever­ages Gen AI and builds a top­ic-spe­cif­ic RAG (Re­triev­al Aug­men­ted Gen­er­a­tion) based Stu­dent As­sist­ant. Fun­ded by CBS.

As­sem­bling the vis­ible: How vis­ib­il­ity as­semblages shape agile in­nov­a­tion work

This pro­ject is based on in­ter­na­tion­al col­lab­or­a­tion and ex­am­ines how emer­ging di­git­al tech­no­lo­gies (EDTs) such as ma­chine learn­ing or di­git­al plat­forms are in­dis­pens­able for tech­no­logy-in­tens­ive or­gan­iz­a­tions that in­creas­ingly work in Agile ways. The pro­ject con­trib­utes to re­search at the in­ter­sec­tion of di­git­al tech­no­lo­gies and vis­ib­il­ity by fore­ground­ing the gen­er­at­ive ten­sions and polit­ics of so­ci­o­ma­ter­i­al vis­ib­il­ity in in­nov­a­tion work.

Outside activities

Associate Editor – Management Communication Quarterly, 2023–2026

In the past years I have been serving, cur­rently a second term, as As­so­ci­ate Ed­it­or at the flag­ship journ­al in the Or­gan­iz­a­tion­al Com­mu­nic­a­tion field: Man­age­ment Com­mu­nic­a­tion Quarterly.
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Vice Chair and Chair of Organizational Communication Division, International Communication Association, 2024–2028

As Vice-Chair and Chair of the Or­gan­iz­a­tion­al Com­mu­nic­a­tion Di­vi­sion I en­sure that mem­bers' achieve­ments are re­cog­nized through a vari­ety of awards such as: top pa­per, top stu­dent pa­per, dis­ser­ta­tion, out­stand­ing mem­ber, and best in­ter­act­ive dis­play awards. I en­sure that the Di­vi­sion ad­vances schol­ar­ship through doc­tor­al con­sor­tia, pre­con­fer­ences fo­cused on spe­cif­ic is­sues, and spot­light pan­els with di­verse schol­ars.
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Research Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies, Nordic Fellowship Programme, 2025–2025

While at SCAS I worked on a pro­ject that ad­vances re­search at the in­ter­sec­tion of me­dia and com­mu­nic­a­tion stud­ies and con­trib­ut­ing to our un­der­stand­ing of how cli­mate move­ments can nav­ig­ate the conun­drums of in/vis­ib­il­ity cre­ated by al­gorithmic af­ford­ances of vari­ous di­git­al plat­forms.
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