Tuula Nygård
PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher
Education
History, Culture and Communication Studies
Faculty of Humanities
I work as a post-doctoral researcher in the Artificial intelligence mediating the everyday information practices of young people (AIM) project, funded by Kone Foundation. The project will generate knowledge on the impact of AI systems on young people's daily lives and changing information practices. By using co-research methods, we explore how AI shape young peoples' information environments, practices, agency, and identities.
In my doctoral research, I examined the challenges of promoting students' information seeking and evaluation from the perspective of multiliteracy in health education, and how teachers guided their students to acquire information, to critically evaluate information sources and to make choices between them. My research was part of the larger Cognitive Authorities in Everyday Health Information Environments of Young People (CogAHealth) project, funded by the Research Council of Finland in 2016-2020. In this interdisciplinary research, I used the perspectives of educational sciences and information studies for health communication and teaching. My doctoral study was funded by Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.
After completing my dissertation, I worked at the Tampere University (Faculty of Social Sciences, Unit of Health Sciences) from January 1, 2023 to May 31, 2025 on the YouTubers as Peer Mental Health Educators in Adolescent's Social Environments (TUBEDU) project, which investigates how young people interpret and use popular YouTubers' vlogs on mental well-being as possible peer support. The project is funded by the Research Council of Finland and it is implemented in cooperation with the Universities of Turku, Tampere, and Helsinki. In the TUBEDU project, I have examined the ways in which popular Finnish YouTubers talk about mental health-related themes, utilizing, among other things, multimodal analysis.
My research interests include literacies (multiliteracy), young people and their agency, health-related topics, social media, artificial intelligence, teachers and teacher identity, and educational equality. Methodologically, I am particularly interested in qualitative research, Nexus Analysis, multimodal methods, and co-research.
Research interests
- Artificial Intelligence
- Co-research
- Nexus Analysis
- Agency
- Identity
- Information practices
- Critical thinking
- Literacies
- Health and well-being
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