Dr Maria Rikitianskaia

Dr Maria Rikitianskaia is a Course Leader for BA Media & Communications and a Lecturer in Media and Communications at Regent's University London.

In 2022-23, Maria was a Byrne-Bussey Marconi Fellow in the History of Science and Communication at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Prior to that, she worked in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and at USI Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland.

She received a PhD degree in Communication Sciences (summa cum laude) in 2018 from USI Lugano and BA and MA degrees in Cultural Studies (with the highest distinction) from the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. Her research focuses on the global history of wireless communication, from wireless telegraphy during World War I to the wireless and mobile networks of the present day. Her works are at the intersection of media history, the political economy of communication, and science and technology studies.

• PhD in Communication Sciences, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland, 2018, European Radiotelegraphy and World War I: a transnational perspective, 1912 – 1927 (summa cum laude)
• Visiting PhD student, Loughborough University, 2017
• MA in Cultural Management, Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow, Russia (highest distinction), 2013
• BA in Cultural Studies, Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow, Russia (highest distinction), 2011

• Lecturer in Media and Communications. Regent’s University London, London, UK. September 2021 - now
• Postdoctoral Researcher / Visiting Fellow. Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK. December 2019 – September 2021
• Postdoctoral Researcher. Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland.
• October 2018 – November 2019
• Research Assistant. Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland.
• October 2014 – October 2018
• Teaching Associate and Researcher. Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow, Russia.
• September 2010 – June 2014

External Examiner of PhD degree candidates

• Saint-Petersburg State University (SPbU), Saint-Petersburg, Russia. 2022
• Second Marker
• London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK. 2021.
• Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland. 2014 – 2019.

Visiting positions

• Visiting Researcher. Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, UK. Scheduled for September 2022 and May 2023.
• Visiting Fellow. Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK. December 2019 – September 2021
• Visiting PhD student in Communication and Media Studies, Loughborough University, UK. February – September 2017.

Peer-reviewed books/monographs 

1. Rikitianskaia, M. (under contract). The Global Wireless: Transnational Radiotelegraphy and Its Disruption in World War I. De Gruyter.
2. Rikitianskaia, M. (2018). European radiotelegraphy and World War I: a transnational perspective, 1912 – 1927 (PhD thesis). Università della Svizzera italiana.
3. Cardano, G. (2012). The book of my life (in Russian). (J. Zareckij, G. Avanjan, & M. Vagyna, Eds.). Moscow: NRU HSE.
4. Levchenko, Y., & Vagyna, M. (Eds.). (2011). Relevant issues in media research (in Russian). Moscow: State University-Higher School of Economics.

Publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals

1. Rikitianskaia, M. (2022). Media and audiences in historical and sociological perspective. Sociology, 2022, vol. 15, issue 3, pp. 285–298. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu12.2022.307 (In Russian) 
2. Rikitianskaia, M. (2022).“The Real Ethernet”: the Social Construction of Global Wi-Fi Connectivity. New Media & Society, Online First, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/146144482211035
3. Rikitianskaia, M., & Balbi, G. (2021). What Time is it? History and Typology of Time Signals From the Telegraph to the Digital. The International Journal of Communication, 15, 1-18.
4. Rikitianskaia, M., & Balbi, G. (2020). Radio studies beyond broadcasting: Towards an intermedia radio history. Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, 18(2), 159-173.
5. Rikitianskaia, M., & Bory, P. (2020). Images of global communication: revealing maps of telecommunications infrastructure [Obrazy global’noj kommunikacii: raskryvaem karty telekommunikacionnyh infrastruktur] (in Russian). NZ, 130(2), 40–54.
6. Rikitianskaia, M., Balbi, G., & Lobinger, K. (2018). The mediatisation of the air. Wireless telegraphy and the origins of a transnational space of communication, 1900-1910s. Journal of Communication, 68, 758–779. https://doi.org//10.1093/joc/jqy030
7. Rikitianskaia, M. (2017). How children learned to listen: the formation of radio clubs in the Soviet Union (in Russian). Logos, 27(5), 141–162.
8. Vagyna, M. (2012). Rough drafting. Presentation of Karl Kantor’s book (in Russian). Problems of philosophy [Voprosy filosofii], 12, 25–28.

Selected chapters in edited volumes

1. Rikitianskaia, M. (2020). The International Radiotelegraph Union facing World War I, 1912–1927. In A. Fickers & G. Balbi (Eds.), ITU as Actor, Arena, and Antenna of longue durée Techno-Diplomacy (pp. 191–214). Berlin: De Gruyter.
2. Rikitianskaia, M. (2019). Synchronising the Nation: Media Networks and Russian Time Reforms of the 1920s and 2010s. In M. Hartmann, E. Prommer, K. Deckner, & S. O. Görland (Eds.), Mediated Time: Perspectives on Time in a Digital Age (pp. 257–272). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24950-2_13
3. Rikitianskaia, M. (2018). A transnational approach to radio amateurism in the 1910s. In G. Föllmer & A. Badenoch (Eds.), Transnationalizing radio research: new approaches to an old medium (pp. 133–140). Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
4. Rikitianskaia, M. (2018). Listening to “Concert of Europe”: pioneering radio amateurs during World War I. In C. Hart (Ed.), World War I: Media, Entertainments & Popular Culture (pp. 122–142). Chester: Lulu Press.
5. Vagyna, M. (2013). 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow as an urban success (in Russian). In I. Glushhenko & V. Kurennoj (Eds.), Time, forward! Cultural Policy in the USSR (pp. 243–259). Moscow: NRU HSE.
6. Vagyna, M. (2012). Soviet sport and politics of record (in Russian). In I. Glushhenko, B. Kagarlickij, & V. Kurennoj (Eds.), USSR: life after (pp. 119–136). Moscow: NRU HSE.
7. Avanjan, G., Vagyna, M., & Zareckij, J. (2012). Introduction. Girolamo Cardano and his autobiography (in Russian). In The Book of my life (pp. 11–25). Moscow: NRU HSE.
    

• Byrne-Bussey Marconi Fellowship in the History of Science and Communication. 2022/2023. Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, UK.
• Mobility fellowship for a postdoctoral research project The World Wide Wireless: The Origins and Global Spread of Wi-Fi Networks, 1985-2003, at Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. December 2019 – September 2021. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. CHF 116,400.
• The Turriano Prize 2019 for Books on the history of technology, sponsored by the Juanelo Turriano Foundation and awarded by the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC). € 3,000.
• Travel grant for the presentation at the conference Mediatization of Time, Zentrum für Medien-, Kommunikations- und Informationsforschung (ZeMKI), University of Bremen. December 2017.  € 150.
• Mobility grant in the project "Inventing European Wireless. A cultural history of wireless from point-to-point telegraphy to one-to-many broadcasting, 1903-1927" (dir. Prof. Gabriele Balbi) as a visiting PhD student at Loughborough University, Swiss National Science Foundation. February 2017 – September 2017. CHF 15'630.
• State academic scholarship for outstanding academic results. Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. September 2012 –  June 2013. RUB 30,000.
• Scholarship of Oxford Russia Fund. September 2011 –  May 2012. RUB 100,000.
• Special State Grant of Russian President. September 2011 –  May 2012 RUB 50,000.
• Winner of NRU HSE Research projects competition. 2010
• Laureate of Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities program. 2010.

• Media history
• Wireless communication
• Transnational and global communication
• Science and technology studies

Maria has supervised a number of BA and MA dissertations and creative projects.

• Tensions of Europe network, core member
• Entangled Media Histories Network (EMHIS), member
• International Communication Association (ICA) Communication History Division, member
• European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), Communication History Section, member
• Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), member

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Course Leader of BA Media & Communications. Regent’s University London, London, UK. January 2023 - now