Maxim Alyukov is a postdoctoral fellow at King's Russia Institute, King's College London. He is also a researcher with an independent research group Public Sociology Laboratory. Maxim holds a PhD in social sciences from the University of Helsinki and an MA in sociology from the European University at Saint-Petersburg. Maxim's research focuses on media, political communication, and political cognition in autocracies with a particular focus on Russia. He relies on qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how citizens make sense of the political world in authoritarian environments and in new hybrid media systems. Maxim's research has been published in a variety of disciplinary and area studies journals, including Political Communication, Nature Human Behaviour, Politics, Qualitative Psychology, and Europe-Asia Studies. He also contributes to the public discussion by writing for non-academic media, such as The Moscow Times, Open Democracy, Riddle Russia, and making appearances on TV and radio, including BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, Voice of America, CBC. His commentary and research have featured in outlets including Al Jazeera, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Time Magazine, The Times, The Economist, Newsweek, France 24, The Moscow Times, Open Democracy, Coda Story, and many others.