About
I am a researcher, digital sociologist, and strategic communication advisor working at the intersection of technology, culture, and society.
Bio
Viki Askounis Conner (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in communication studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Viki brings to her research agenda more than two decades of experience in industry, academia, and policy as a strategic communication advisor. Currently, she works for Dr. Zizi Papacharissi as the editorial assistant for the top-ranked, open access journal, Social Media + Society.
Intervening at the digital/social nexus, Viki’s dissertation—entitled “Nostalgic Neighborhoods of TikTok”—revisits sociality of nostalgia in algorithmic cultures during the present conjuncture of technological change and as the short-form video based social media platform remains an object of regulatory and geopolitical scrutiny. Her current work on the affective and temporal affordances of new media technologies—-and the role of platforms therein—extends a long-standing interest in the modalities of collective meaning-making involved in socio-technical processes of institutional change.
Drawing on a background that spans the social sciences (sociology, public policy), humanities (French literature), and professional practice (public relations), she combine cultural and historical analysis with digital methods to map/trace the evolution of social formations and how collective meanings emerge within them. Current and past projects span substantive topics of nostalgia, misinformation and propaganda, and the professional knowledge cultures of public relations and public policy.
Before beginning her doctoral studies, Viki served as the Senior Associate Dean of Communications and Public Affairs at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. In this capacity, she oversaw the communications and events functions for the school during a period of rapid growth in enrollment and fundraising. Viki also spent 13 years with the global public relations agency, Edelman, where she served as Senior Vice President of Corporate and Public Affairs with experience spanning the agency’s Chicago, New York, and London offices.
In addition to pursuing a Ph.D., Viki holds an M.A. in the social sciences with a concentration in sociology from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in public policy and French from Duke University. Raised in the city, she resides in Chicago with her husband and two daughters.
CV
EDUCATION
University of Illinois-Chicago, Ph.D. (ABD), Communication Studies, August 2021 - August 2027 (expected graduation)
Dissertation: “Nostalgic Neighborhoods of TikTok: Mapping the Meaning of the Nostalgia Wave in Algorithmic Cultures”
Committee: Zizi Papacharissi (Chair), Tim Highfield, Steve Jones, Zachary McDowell, Andrew Rojecki
University of Chicago, M.A. in Social Science, August 2020
Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences; Concentration: Sociology
Thesis title: “Myths and Markets: The Emergence of the Public Policy Program at the University of Chicago”
Advisor: Andrew Abbott; Preceptor: Cate Fugazzola
Duke University, B.A., May 2002
Double Major: Public Policy; French Studies (Literature)
Minor: Political Science
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Conner, V.A. (Forthcoming, Feb. 2027). Hacking the past: An autonetnography of digital nostalgizing in the digital habitus of the “old” internet. In K. Niemeyer (Ed.), Experiences of Nostalgia: Politics, Media, Futures. Palgrave McMillan.
Conner, V. A. (2025). Fever dreaming on TikTok: A conceptual framework for performative nostalgia. International Journal of Communication, 19, 25. Retrieved from https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22560
Rojecki, A., Conner, V. A., & Royal, P. (2024). Live free and die: How social media amplify populist vaccine resistance. Social Media + Society, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051241277293
Conner, V. (2020). Myths and markets: The emergence of the public policy program at the University of Chicago. [Master’s thesis, University of Chicago]. https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.11318
ADMINISTRATIVE LEADERSHIP
The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, 2015 – 2021
Senior Associate Dean, Communications and Public Affairs, July 2019 – present
Senior Associate Dean, Communications and Marketing, July 2018 – June 2019
Associate Dean, Communications and Marketing, April 2015 – June 2018
INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE
Edelman, 2002 – 2015
Senior Vice President, Corporate & Public Affairs, Chicago, IL, September 2013 – March 2015
Vice President, Corporate & Public Affairs, Chicago, IL • June 2010 – September 2013
Senior Account Supervisor, Corporate & Public Affairs, Chicago, IL and New York, NY • February 2008 – June 2010
Account Supervisor, Corporate & Public Affairs, New York, NY and London, England • March 2006 - February 2008
Account Supervisor, Financial Communications, New York, NY • March 2005 - March 2006
Senior Account Executive, Financial Communications, New York, NY • May 2004 - March 2005
Account Executive, Financial Communications, New York, NY • May 2003 - May 2004
Assistant Account Executive, Financial Communications, New York, NY • July 2002 - May 2003
Forbes Magazine, Summer 2001
Reporting internship, international edition, Forbes Global
Intellectual Wayfindings
What prompted my journey from the boardroom to the classroom?
I like to say that I’ve always been at academic at heart. During my time working in the PR industry and higher education administration, I found myself wanting to dig deeper to understand the paradoxes of organizational life and what makes the boundaries of the social world so messy. Mostly, I found myself questioning what I was really doing with words as J.L. Austin famously asked. Can a non-profit or corporation really start a social movement, as professionals might opine? What does it mean to “construct” a narrative? And, what role do different media technologies and knowledge cultures play in everyday ways of seeing, understanding, and (re)making the social world around us?
My research interests, like everything in the social world, have been a process, shaped in historically contingent and socially situated contexts of interaction. During my master’s studies in sociology at the University of Chicago, I cultivated a processual ontology to the study of social life that offers an heuristic for understanding my own intellectual journey. Today, this ecological and interactionist perspective influences my approach to communication studies as doctoral researcher at the University of Illinois-Chicago interested in understanding how new socio-technical environments enable and constrain possibilities for being, knowing, and belonging in a world of flux and change.