Assoc.-Prof. Dr. Oleksandra Romaniuk (Department of English and American Studies) has been awarded an FWF Elise Richter Grant for her research project “Love on Screen: DH Analysis of Mate Selection Criteria” (Grant DOI: 10.55776/RIC8523924). The four-year project (2025–2029) is funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
Romaniuk’s interdisciplinary study brings together Media and Communication Studies, Applied Linguistics, and Digital Humanities to investigate how romantic media shape young people’s perceptions of love, beauty, and desirability. Using eye-tracking technology and sentiment analysis, her team will explore how visual attention, media exposure, and cultural context influence romantic first impressions and mate selection criteria.
The project addresses pressing questions about the social impact of media portrayals of love, from stereotyped gender roles to diversity representation in popular culture. By combining empirical eye-tracking data with discourse analysis, Love on Screen aims to uncover how mediated romantic scripts guide both implicit and explicit perceptions of attraction.
Ultimately, the project seeks to strengthen media literacy and critical awareness among young audiences, offering educators, policymakers, and media producers new tools to promote inclusive and realistic portrayals of relationships.
Oleksandra Romaniuk holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics (South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University, 2015; nostrified at the University of Vienna, 2024). Her research focuses on media influence, romantic discourse, and visual attention in courtship communication. She has published widely on cross-cultural representations of romance and leads several international collaborations examining how media shapes social and emotional cognition.
