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 investigate how citizens make sense of political information in authoritarian environments and in new hybrid media systems.

In his PhD dissertation, Maxim applied the conceptual apparatuses of cognitive and political psychology to understand media news reception under Russia’s authoritarian regime. The dissertation explored how political engagement affects the ways Russian citizens interpret the news about the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and evaluate credibility of the regime propaganda. In addition, it focused on how citizens interpret political information in a hybrid media system in which the regime attempts to spread similar narratives simultaneously across different types of media including television, news aggregators, online news media, and social media.

Currently, Maxim continues his work on media reception and extends his research agenda to focus on political cognition in autocracies more generally. Relying on mixed and quasi-experimental methods, he investigates the social aspects of political cognition in authoritarian environments.