Professor Sarikakis is an expert in media governance in international and European contexts. Her work explores the role of policy principles and human rights in policymaking. Currently she is working on the intersection of three major areas: freedom of information, copyright and privacy and is leading an extensive project on crisis and its impact on civil rights and communication across six European countries. One major aspect of this project is the status of public service media in the memorandum countries, as a matter of freedom of expression and press freedom governance. This work is feeding into a documentary she is preparing.

Her publications include the books Globalisation and Media Policy (2006) Feminist Interventions in International Communication (2008)Powers in Media Policy (2004). She has published widely on policy, regulation and governance in over 60 journal articles and chapters and in seven edited or authored books.

She is the founding editor of the International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics and is the elected Vice-Chair of the Communication Law and Policy Division of the International Communication Association. She has also served as Chair of the COmmunication Law and Policy section of the European Communication Research Education Association for six years and is now serving on its Executive Board, again on an elected position. She has served on the International Council and the Executive Board of the International Association of Media and Communication Researchers and was the youngest ever Vice President of the Association (2000-2004). She has held visiting positions at the Universities McGill (Canada) and Karlstad (Sweden) and is a life Honorary University Fellow at Hainan University (China).

She has consulted with various international intergovernmental and other organizations and the media on media policy and rights issues.

In 2011, Prof. Sarikakis joined the University of Vienna after having spent twenty years in the UK, twelve of which as a tenured academic. Her previous academic post in the UK was at the University of Leeds from 2004 - 2011. At the University of Vienna she is a Vice Director of the PhD Programmes of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Her website is www.sarikakis.info and tweets under @grrlsrock