Dr Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova is a Reader in Global Journalism and Media, and Co-Director of DigiPol: The Centre for Digital Politics, Media and Society at the University of Liverpool. She was also Associate Dean Global Engagement in the School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool. Vera’s expertise is in global journalism with a focus on journalists’ safety and journalism in Central and Eastern Europe, online political talk and post-deliberative public spheres, and young people, politics and the media. She is the Vice Chair of the Worlds of Journalism Study – the most extensive international comparative study in communication, which regularly assesses the state of journalism around the world through representative surveys with journalists in 75 countries. She is Regional Co-Ordinator for Central and Eastern Europe in the study and Principal Investigator for Bulgaria and Ukraine. Vera is also Regional Co-Lead for Central and Eastern Europe in the Journalism Safety Research Network.
She also leads a one-stop platform on journalists’ safety in co-operation with UNESCO and the Worlds of Journalism Study – https://safetyofjournalists.org. The platform hosts over 250 resources on journalists’ safety and has been joined to date by more than 100 academics and 25 civil society organisations and networks working to improve journalists’ safety worldwide. The platform also hosts a global index on journalists’ safety, ranking 73 countries on four dimensions of safety – physical, psychological, digital and financial. The index is based on a novel conceptualisation of safety Vera developed with a team from the Worlds of Journalism Study. In 2024 the journal article the team published on the topic won the prestigious Journalism Studies Division Wolfgang Donsbach Outstanding Journal Article of the Year Award, awarded by the International Communication Association.
Vera’s collaboration with UNESCO started in 2016 when she first attended World Press Freedom Day and started working with the Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists Section. She co-organises the academic conferences as part of World Press Freedom Day.
Vera is also the Book Series Editor of Routledge Studies in Global Journalism, Book Review Editor of the European Journal of Communication, Editorial Board Member of Digital Journalism and a member of the Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College. She leads a platform on Safer Politics – https://saferpolitics.org in co-operation with the Jo Cox Foundation and the Local Government Association, providing training for politicians, political candidates and their communication staff.
Vera joined the University of Liverpool in September 2017 after having worked at the University of Chester and the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. Her undergraduate degree is in Journalism and Mass Communication from the American University in Bulgaria and her MA is in the European Union: Media, Politics and Society from the University of East Anglia. She completed her PhD studies in the Social Sciences at Loughborough University in 2011 where she also taught on the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Communication and Media Studies.
Vera is also a former journalist. She worked as European editor at 24 Chasa (24 Hours) – a Bulgarian national daily newspaper, second in circulation in the country.
