Francesca Waegemans

Biography

Francesca Waegemans earned a master’s degree in Conflict and Development in 2023 and a master’s degree in communication sciences, specialising in journalism, in 2024. Both master's theses focused on what role media plays in protest communication. She remains particularly interested in how digital media shapes perceptions and values.

During her master’s degree in journalism, she completed a three-month internship at Scivil, working on the project NieuwsWijsNeuzen, where she produced online fact-checks on TikTok for children. During this internship, she developed a newfound interest in how children use media to make sense of the world surrounding them.

After working as a qualitative researcher at a market research agency for just over a year, she began her PhD on the KIDFLUENCER project in September 2026. As part of this project, she conducts a longitudinal ethnographic study. She aims to explore the role of digital media and kidfluencing content in young children’s lives and how these media shape them as consumers.