Amira Halperin is an Assistant Professor in Mobile Studies, and Associate Director of Institute for Mobile Studies. She is an expert in migration and refugees and media technologies.
Dr. Halperin earned PhD in Communication and Media from University of Westminster. She conducted pioneering research on the impact of new media on the Palestinian community in the UK. Her first book, ‘The Use of New Media by the Palestinian Diaspora in the United Kingdom’ (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), was published in 2018. The book has been reviewed as a breakthrough research.
Her research is a community-based research, and focuses on the impact of new media technologies on marginalized communities, and the ways to leverage media, information and communication technologies to support refugees (most importantly during COVID-19 and beyond).
Dr. Halperin is currently working on two book projects: ‘Digital Technology and Migration in the 21st Century’, which will be published by McGill-Queen's University Press, and a co-edited book entitled, ‘Mapping, Measuring and Modelling Mobility: A Global Comparison’. The aim of the book is to shed light on mobility, international and internal migration and mobile technology, from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Amira worked as a Lecturer and Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia, Canada, where she also served as UBC media expert on media studies, diversity and migration.
Before embarking on her PhD journey, Amira worked as an Investigative Journalist and Television Correspondent. The highlight of her journalistic work was her role as an Investigative Journalist for BBC’s 'Panorama’ programme.
Relating to Russia-Ukraine war, Amira can cover the following issues:
- United Kingdom refugee policy and the Ukrainian refugees
- Overview – the global refugee crisis (including the local and global risks in the COVID-19 era)
- Comparison between the Middle Eastern refugee crisis to the Ukrainian refugees’ crisis.
- The use of social media and technology to support the Ukrainian refugees
- The War Online – propaganda; misinformation
- The media coverage of the war in China.
More widely Amira can comment on: media manipulation; war, conflict, and social media; Middle Eastern media and refugees; refugee integration and policy in Europe and Canada; radicalization; The Israeli -Palestinian Conflict; Israeli politics.