Dr Gregory Asmolov

Dr Gregory Asmolov

PhD Alumni

Department of Media and Communications

About me

Thesis: Subject, crowd and the governance of activity: The role of digital tools in emergency response (2016). Read here.

Supervisor: Professor Robin Mansell

Biography and Research

Since October 2017, Gregory works on a research project as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Russia Institute, King’s College London. His work focuses on how information technologies, specifically social media and crowdsourcing platforms, constitute the role of individual users and crowds in crisis situations. Whereas Gregory's PhD thesis examined how Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) mediate different modes of the relationship between individuals and the state in natural disasters, his present research investigates this very relationship in the context of warfare.

Gregory's current project titled “Participatory Warfare: the Role of ICTs in Modern Conflicts” explores how ICTs change the everyday lives of users who are remote from a zone of conflict, and how ICTs contribute to the participation of their users in warfare. The project seeks to contribute to understanding the role of digital mediation in the relationship between users and conflicts, and to build a detailed picture of the forms of civic engagement in modern warfare. In order to investigate whether and how social networks foster the convergence of everyday life and warfare, and how digitally mediated practices contribute to citizen engagement in conflicts, he focuses primarily on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Gregory's additional research interests include Internet regulation in Russia, the role of ICTs in areas of limited statehood, and the role of digital networks in the emergence of alternative socio-political spaces. He is particularly interested in exploring the tension between the Internet as an alternative socio-political space and the sovereignization of the online space by state actors.

View Gregory's Kings College London profile

Selected publications and talks

Journal articles

 

Book chapters

  • Asmolov, G. (2018, forthcoming). Vertical crowdsourcing (Russia) in A. Ledeneva, A. Bailey, S. Barron, C. Curro & Teague E. (Eds.),The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality:Understanding of Social & Cultural complexity”, Vol. 2, Chapter 8.13, London: UCL Press, pp. 461-465.
  • Asmolov, G. (2014). Virtual Rynda – The Atlas of Help: Mutual Aid as a Form of Social Activism: Crowdsourcing in transition from emergency to everyday life, in E. Zuckerman & L. LeJeune (Eds.), “Global Dimensions of Digital Activism.”, MIT Center For Civic Media. Available at: http://book.globaldigitalactivism.org/chapter/virtual-rynda-the-atlas-of-help-mutual-aid-as-a-form-of-social-activism/
  • Asmolov, G. (2013). Natural Disasters and Alternative Modes of Governance: the Role of Social Networks and Crowdsourcing Platforms in Russia in S. Livingston & G. Walter-Drop(Eds.), “Bits and Atoms Information and Communication Technology in Areas of Limited Statehood”, Oxford University Press. Available at: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199941599.001.0001/acprof-9780199941599-chapter-7
  • Asmolov, G. (2013). The Kremlin's Cameras and Virtual Potemkin Villages: ICT and the Construction of Statehood, in S. Livingston & G. Walter-Drop (Eds.), “Bits and Atoms Information and Communication Technology in Areas of Limited Statehood”, Oxford University Press. Available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/68003/
  • Asmolov, G. (2013). “Dynamics of innovation and the balance of power in Russia” in M. M. Hussain & P. N. Howard (Eds.), “State Power 2.0 Authoritarian Entrenchment and Political Engagement Worldwide”, Ashgate. Available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/68001/
  • Asmolov, A. and Asmolov, G. (2009). “From We-Media to I-Media: Identity Transformations in the Virtual World” in Y. Zinchenko & V. Petrenko (Eds.), Psychology in Russia. State of the Art, Scientific Yearbook, Volume 2. Available at http://psychologyinrussia.com/volumes/index.php?article=1480&sphrase_id=76345

 

Conference proceedings

  • Asmolov, G. (2014). Crowdsourcing as an Activity System: Online Platforms as Mediating Artifacts. A Conceptual Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Crowdsourcing in Emergencies, in M.  Poblet, P. Noriega & E. Plaza (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sintelnet WG5 Workshop on Crowd Intelligence: Foundations, Methods and Practices, pp. 24-43. Available at: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1148/

 

Policy papers and reports

 

Selected research blog posts and podcasts: