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Dr Cristina Miguel

Associate Professor of Communication / Visiting Research Fellow

Cristina Miguel

Specialisms

Dr Cristina Miguel is an Associate Professor of Digital Communication. She is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading. Cristina is a multidisciplinary Internet researcher. Her research interests include digital culture (social media, mediated/artificial intimacy, and online privacy) and the digital economy (the sharing economy, influencer marketing, AAL technologies and older consumers, and digital nomads).

Cristina holds a PhD in Media & Communication (2016) from the University of Leeds, UK. She also holds a MSc in Interactive Digital Communication (2010) from the University of Vic, Spain; and a BA (Hons) in Advertising and Public Relations (2002) from the university of the Basque Country, Spain. In 2017 she completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from Leeds Beckett University, UK and became a Higher Education Academy Fellow in 2018. Cristina was awarded with the Docent Diploma (Associate Professor) in Communication from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2022. In 2024 she also obtained the Research Accreditation (Associate Professor) from AQU (Catalan Agency for University Quality).

She has published her research in high-ranked peer-reviewed academic journals such as Technology in Society; New Media & Society; Social Media + Society, Marketing Management; the International Journal of Hospitality Management; Information, Communication & Society; and Convergence, among others. Cristina has also published two books. The monograph “Personal relationships and intimacy in the age of social media” (2018); and the academic collection “The Sharing Economy in Europe: Developments, practices, and contradictions” (2022), where she was a co-editor and a co-author of five book chapters.

Dr. Miguel was the P.I. of the EU-funded Erasmus+ project COLECO: Higher Education Curricula Development on the Collaborative Economy in Europe from September 2019 to September 2021. The project had a total value of €216,742 and included 18 participants from the six partner countries. The main objective of COLECO Project was to examine the workings and impacts of the collaborative economy in Europe, focusing on peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation platforms.

Cristina’s professional experience is in account management and digital marketing in the internet industry. She has worked for multinationals such as Telefonica (for the online directory of the Yellow Pages); the real estate portal Idealista.com; and AutoScout24, an online platform for buying and selling new and used cars.