Snir Levi is a Strategy and Research Analyst in media, communications and culture with extensive background in media and communication studies, social and cultural theory, market and audience research, policy analysis and development. He holds an M.Sc. in Culture and Society from the London School of Economics and Political Science (with Honors) and a BA in Communication from the University of Southern California (Summa Cum Laude). 

Levi has a proven track-record for translating social and digital insights into effective, data-driven strategy for governments, organizations and corporations. His research examines the ways in which digital media platforms, their social networks and political-economic contexts shape public attitudes, inform policy, and generate economic growth in fields including:

• Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy

• Political Communication

• Public Health & Health Advocacy

• Urban Development

• Cultural and Creative Industries

RESEARCH INTERESTS

LEVI'S ACADEMIC BACKGROUND AND EXPERTISE IN SOCIAL & CULTURAL RESEARCH AND STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS LIES IN THE INTERSECTION OF NEW MEDIA, CULTURE AND SOCIETY. THAT IS, IN THE WAYS IN WHICH THE DIGITALIZATION, OR "MEDIATION", OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY -- FROM SOCIAL MEDIA TO APPS -- PRESENTS TRANSFORMATIVE OPPORTUNITIES IN VARIOUS SOCIAL AND CULTURAL FIELDS: FROM POLITICAL/SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS, TO WELL-INFORMED POLICY DEVELOPMENT, TO SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH. AS A RESEARCHER AND PRACTITIONER OF MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES WITHIN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, LEVI'S WORK FOCUSES ON TWO SUBSETS OF THIS REALITY:

I. MEDIATION/DIGITALIZATION OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY

- In which ways is the mediation or digitalization of society transforming various cultural and societal fields? (Some of the fields Levi researches in this context include: urbanism; creative and cultural industries; health advocacy movements)

II. NEW MEDIA AUDIENCES

A) PARTICIPATORY CULTURE V. POLITICAL ECONOMY

- Who are the audiences/users of new media platforms? How does the democratizing nature of 2-way communications enable a new media audience to contest traditional modes of media consumption, specifically through their practices of representation and cultural production ('prod-usage')? How do differing ICTs (information communication technologies) enable different modes of 'prod-usage' for new media audiences? 

- How, and to what extent, does a new media audience resist -- and inform -- industry? How does political economy limit the democratizing promises of new media technologies for the new media audience? Where in this tension between political economy and a new media audience's 'participatory culture' does social, political and technological progress ensue? What are the changes entailed, whom do they serve and how?

(For example: How do subcultures and minority movements leverage their political aims through their digital representational work/cultural productions? How do these resist, inform or transform power structures in industry/politics?)

B) CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF LOCALITIES IN A GLOBALIZED AGE

- How do new media platforms and ICTs in and of themselves yield globally standardized cultural forms?  How do new media audience practices of representation and cultural production resist these forces by reiterating and/or redefining localities (local cultures/space & place, i.e. the nation-state) as 'distinctive' amidst an increasingly globalized age? 

- How do these practices of 'produsage' by a new media audience contest, inform and/or transform traditional symbolic economies of cities/localities? 

(For example: Levi's MSc research study at the London School of Economics explored the new media ecology-related phenomenon of 'creative cities' (Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, Berlin to name a few). Specifically, it examined how the mediation or digitalization of Tel Aviv's local Indie subculture enables creative 'produsers' (artists, bloggers, creative young professionals) to represent their city through their own aesthetic and political lenses. The research study sought to explore the ways in which these cultural representations, as enabled by a new media platform (the 'blog-magazine'), both contested and informed the city's long-established symbolic economy.)

WHY SOCIAL RESEARCH?

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RESEARCH IS A MOST POWERFUL MAGNIFYING GLASS INTO THE SPECIFIC AUDIENCES OR CULTURES YOU WISH TO BETTER UNDERSTAND IN THINKING ABOUT YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL AIMS, WHETHER THEY BE FOR-PROFIT OR NON-FOR-PROFIT. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RESEARCH OF MEDIA AUDIENCES AND TARGET MARKETS ALLOWS FOR A THOROUGH UNDERSTANDING OF THE SAMPLE'S BELIEFS AND PRACTICES; THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXTS IN WHICH THEY OPERATE; AS WELL AS THE OVERALL CULTURAL ZEITGEIST AT ANY GIVEN POINT IN TIME.

WHEN THE TIME COMES FOR AN ORGANIZATION TO DEVELOP SOCIAL OR CULTURAL-RELATED STRATEGY (THE CLASSIC CASE: A COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN), CHOOSING THE RESEARCH ROUTE CAN EITHER MAKE OR BREAK ITS PERFORMANCE. INDEED, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RESEARCH CAN YIELD AN ORGANIZATION THE BUILDING BLOCKS FOR WELL-INFORMED COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES. AS LEVI LIKES TO SAY, "THERE IS NO DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT RESEARCH."

A PROFESSIONALLY CONDUCTED SOCIAL/CULTURAL RESEARCH STUDY -- THAT IS, ONE THAT NOT ONLY FOLLOWS THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS, BUT TAKES INTO CONSIDERATION (1) RELEVANT ACADEMIC STUDIES AND THEORY, (2) SOCIAL/ECONOMIC/POLITICAL CONTEXTS, AND (3) CONSISTENTLY KEEPS THE ORGANIZATION'S RESEARCH QUESTIONS IN MIND -- CAN YIELD VALUABLE INSIGHTS THAT WILL GUIDE THAT ORGANIZATION'S STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS.