Mgr. Marie Heřmanová, Ph.D.

Marie Heřmanová is a social anthropologist with a focus on digital anthropology and anthropology of social media. She graduated in social and cultural anthropology at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University. Since 2025 she works as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Deparment of Anthropology at University College London, where she is the principal investigator of the project "Content Creators on TikTok and the War in Ukraine: Authenticity and Authority in Online Communication", Between 2019 and 2025, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences, where she implemented an individual research project "(Re)production of gender stereotypes within the phenomenon of influencers in the Czech virtual space" (2020 – 2022) and worked as a junior researcher within the SYRI project (research group Communication, Risk and Uncertainty, 2022 - 2025). In 2021 she was a visiting researcher at the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture, Loughborough University, UK. In 2024, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for a residency at the Center for Information Technologies and Public Life, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, USA. She has a long-standing interest in social media content creators, their role in political communication, authenticity and authority in online environments, and gender stereotypes in internet culture.

Monographs

Chapters in monographs

• Heřmanová M. (2023). ‘I’m Always Telling You My Honest Opinion’: Influencers and Gendered Authenticity Strategies on Instagram. Cultures of Authenticity (pp. 231-245).

Articles

• Kuřík B., Heřmanová M., & Charvát J. (2024). Living hated: Everyday experiences of hate speech across online and offline contexts. Communications, 49(3), 378-399. UT-WOS link
• Hroch M., Carpentier N., Heřmanová M., Malečková D., Janoščík V., & Tremčinský M. (2024). Roundtable discussion: Perspectives on the Futures of Platforms and Democracy. Central European Journal of Communication, 17(1), 125-140.

Contributions in the conference proceedings

2025: Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship award - European fellowship, University College London

2024: Fultbright Masaryk fellowship award, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Anthropology of Social Media, Digitalized Societies 

2025 – 2027: Content Creators on TikTok and the War in Ukraine: Authenticity and Authority in Online Communication, HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships, University College London

2025 – 2028 Gender aspects of disinformation dissemination and reception from the perspective of the theory of social media performativity and identity theory, Czech Science Foundation grant, co-investigator

2022 – 2025 Systemic Risk Institute, no LX22NPO5101, funded by European Union -  Next Generation EU (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, NPO: EXCELES), junior researcher, member of research group 1 (Crisis, risk, and communication) and 9 (Social Impact of the Pandemic)

2020 – 2022  Gender stereotyping and the notion of authenticity among female influencers on Instagram, Support of perspective human resources programme, Czech Academy of Sciences, sole investigator/ postdoctoral researcher¨

2019 - 2021  Cultural Capital: Legitimation Mechanisms and the Reproduction of Cultural Hierarchies (Czech Science Foundation grant), co-investigator

anthropology of social media, influencer cultures, political communication, authenticity and authority in online communication, gender inequalities, digital ethnography