Mari Lehto
PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Centre for Parliamentary Studies mari.t.lehto@utu.fi ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1696-2063 |
digital culture; social media; critical ADHD studies; affect; ethnography
Networked Neurodivergence – ADHD Experience in Digital Media Culture (NeuroNet)
I work as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies (TIAS), University of Turku. My project, running from 2025 to 2028, explores how adult ADHD is experienced in relation to social media and platformed exchanges.
My research has been published in journals such as Feminist Media Studies, European Journal of Cultural Studies, European Journal of Cultural Studies and Convergence. I have also co-edited special issues, including the Social Media + Society special issue on Affective Body Politics of Social Media.
My doctoral dissertation explored the affective power of social media parenting culture in Finland during the 2010s. After completing my PhD in 2021, I worked on the projects Communication across Borders: Shifting Boundaries of Politics, Science, and Public Relations and Intimacy in Data Driven Culture, where my research focused on social media influencer work and the politicization of Instagram.
My research project Networked Neurodivergence – ADHD Experience in Digital Media Culture (NeuroNet) explores how ADHD is experienced in relation to digital media and platformed exchanges. It brings together three bodies of work–media studies, critical neurodiversity studies, and cultural theorizations of affect–to develop an interdisciplinary framework centred on its novel key concept, networked neurodivergence. Thinking through networked neurodivergence opens up new ways to understand embodied ADHD knowledges and identities, alongside the affective ambiguities of mental health in an era of constant connectivity.
To generate empirical knowledge about lived ADHD experiences in digitally saturated social contexts, NeuroNet builds on ethnographic methods such as digital and sensory ethnography, in-depth interviews, and digital media diaries. These approaches are positioned at the intersection of feminist scholarship, which emphasises an active, situated stance, and the neurodiversity perspective rooted in self-advocacy and online networks. By developing a participatory methodological approaches, the project also advances broader and more inclusive ways of studying networked lived experiences.
I have taught courses on social media and media studies methods, and supervised the Bachelor's seminar in Media Studies.
- Alustoitunut tunnetyö somevaikuttajien arjessa (2023) Vaikuttava viestintä Lehto Mari
(A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book) - Ambivalent influencers: Feeling rules and the affective practice of anxiety in social media influencer work (2022)
- European Journal of Cultural Studies
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Huomiotaloudessa enemmän on enemmän (2022)
- Kulttuurintutkimus
(B1 Non-refereed article in a scientific journal) - ‘People tell me quite intimate things’: The circulation of feelings and vague intimacy on politicised Instagram (2022)
- Convergence
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Sosiaalisen median vanhemmuussisällöt raivostuttavat, ilahduttavat ja pitkästyttävät (2022)
- Media ja viestintä
(B1 Non-refereed article in a scientific journal) - Vaikuttava tutkimus (2022)
- Kulttuurintutkimus
(C2 Editorial work for a scientific compilation book) - Affective Power of Social Media (2021) Lehto Mari
(G5 Article dissertation ) - Affective Power of Social Media – Engagements with Networked Parenting Culture (2021) Lehto Mari
(G5 Article dissertation ) - Äitien somekokemusten ydin on ristiriitaisuuden tunne (2021)
- Ilmiö - sosiologinen media kaikille
(E1 Popularised article) - ‘I feel the irritation and frustration all over the body’ Affective ambiguities in networked parenting culture (2021)
- International Journal of Cultural Studies
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal)



