Václav Štětka is Professor of Digital Political Communication at ENS. He studied History and Sociology (MA in 2000) and did his PhD in Sociology (2005) at Masaryk University in Brno, where he also started his academic career as Assistant Professor at the Department of Media and Journalism. Between 2009-2013 he worked as Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. Following that, he was Head of the Political Communication Research Group at Charles University in Prague (2013-2015), and between 2016-2026 he was based at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University in the UK, where he was promoted to Professor Media and Political Communication in 2025. In 2025, he was Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences, Vienna.

In his research, Václav examines the relationship between media and communication technologies and the contemporary rise of illiberalism and the erosion of democracy, focusing particularly on the role of digital platforms and the region of Central and Eastern Europe. He is also interested in the state and challenges to media freedom and pluralism, as well as in the alternative communication ecosystems and proliferation and impact of disinformation. His research projects have been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), the Transatlantic Research Partnership (TRR), or the Czech Science Foundation. He is currently involved in several international research projects and networks, including Media Pluralism Monitor (European University Institute, Florence), Digital News Report (Reuters Institute, University of Oxford) or the European Network of Political Communication Scholars (NEPOCS).

Václav’s publication record encompasses over one hundred academic articles, book chapters and research reports, as well as the edited volume “Social Media and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe” (Routledge, 2018) and the monograph “The Illiberal Public Sphere: Media in Polarized Societies” (Palgrave, 2024, with S.Mihelj), which won the 2025 Best Book Award by the American Political Science Association (APSA, Information Technology & Politics Section). He is member of the editorial board of The International Journal of Press/Politics, and between 2022-2026 he served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Information Technology and Politics. Since 2018 he has also been member of the Committee for Editorial Independence of the Czech publishing house Economia.