Aki Koivula
akjeko@utu.fi +358 29 450 2093 +358 40 769 7798 Assistentinkatu 7 Turku Office: 488 ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8453-0863 |
Political trust, Political attitudes, Political Participation, Political Parties, Digital interaction and participation; Social networks; Social Trust; Media consumption; Longitudinal and Experimental Survey methodology
I am a Docent in Economic Sociology at the University of Turku and a Docent in Political Science at Tampere University.
I currently work at the INVEST Research Flagship in several research and leadership roles. I am a Senior Research Fellow in the project Stratification and Equality of Opportunity in the Era of Novel Technologies (PI: Jani Erola) and head the research group responsible for the development and implementation of the INVEST Longitudinal Study on Well-Being (ILSW).
I am also the Principal Investigator of two research projects: Segregated Trust and Sleeping Suburbs: Intra-Urban Inequalities in Political Efficacy and Electoral Participation (SEGREGTRUST) and The Impact of Increasing Socioeconomic Residential Segregation on the Accumulation of Educational Disadvantages and People’s Life Courses (SOSE). These projects examine how socioeconomic segregation shape political engagement, attitudes, educational opportunities, well-being, and life-course outcomes.
In addition, I lead a work package in the Finnish Infrastructure for Register-Based Research consortium, where my work focuses particularly on improving permit and data-access processes for register-based research.
From 2020 to 2024, I led the KRIME research group, which examined the social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on trust, crisis communication, and public responses to the pandemic. Before joining INVEST, I held several teaching and research positions and served for two years as Head of the Economic Sociology Unit at the University of Turku.
My research focuses on citizens' well-being and their engagement with state institutions within the context of societal change. In particular, I have studied the drivers and consequences of political trust, as well as the impact of digital technology on human behaviour and interaction. I have published extensively in leading academic journals, such as European Political Science Review, Sociology, Social Science & Medicine, and New Media & Society.
My current teaching profile centers on PhD supervision and the development of research proposals. I am responsible for INWS0018 Research Proposal Workshop. I supervise nine PhD researchers whose topics range from political attitudes to subjective well-being.
- Appearance and Social Inequalities: Physical Attractiveness as a Part of Occupation-Congruent Appearance (2024)
- Sociology
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Cognitive authorities of COVID-19 information: educational differences and outcomes of trust in health experts and social media influencers in Finland (2024)
- Information Research
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Construction of the Economic Elite Population for Finland (2024) Kuusela, Hanna; Koiranen, Ilkka; Koivula, Aki
(D4 Published development or research report or study ) - Did the Pandemic Increase Social Media–Induced Appearance Pressures? (2024)
- Lecture Notes in Computer Science
(A4 Refereed article in a conference publication ) - Digital Democracy, Digital Dangers: Tracing Cybercrime Victimization in Finnish Online Political Discourse (2024)
- Communications in Computer and Information Science
(A4 Refereed article in a conference publication ) - Digital relatedness: A longitudinal study on social resources and the use of smart technology (2024)
- New Media and Society
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Examining extra-parliamentary engagement: the impact of online and offline activities on in-party commitment amongst political party members in Finland (2024)
- International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Framing, emotions, and morality: Understanding media influence on moral attitudes towards the unvaccinated during COVID-19 (2024)
- Social Science Journal
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - How do social class position and party preference influence support for fossil fuel taxation in Nordic countries? (2024)
- Social Science Journal
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Media framing and trust: A randomized survey experiment on attitudes towards the unvaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic (2024)
- Social sciences & humanities open
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal)



