Dominik Balažka

I'm currently a member of the spsTREND laboratory, at the University of Milan. My primary research interests include non-religion studies, sociology of religion, cultural sociology, data ethics, Natural Language Processing, survey methods, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data.
I have a PhD in Social Sciences awarded by KU Leuven (Belgium), and a joint PhD in Sociology and Methodology of Social Research awarded by the University of Milan (Italy) and the University of Turin (Italy). My PhD project employed a text mining approach to analyze the public discourse of militant non-religious organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom between 1881 and 2019. The study aimed to investigate the impact of secularization on the historical evolution of organized non-religious language.
I'm a member of several scientific societies, including Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR), and International Society for Historians of Atheism, Secularism, and Humanism (ISHASH). I previously worked as a researcher at Bruno Kessler Foundation with a double affiliation to the Center for Information and Communication Technology and to the Center for Religious Studies. Formerly, I worked on the European Values Study 2017 at Tilburg University and collaborated with the Department of Sociology and Social Research and with the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Trento.

Articles:

• Balazka, D. (2025). Religious Nones. Forthcoming in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.1213

• Balazka, D., Houtman, D., & Lepri, B. (2021). How Can Big Data Shape the Field of Non-Religion Studies? And Why Does It Matter? Patterns 2(6): 1-12. DOI: 10.1016/j.patter.2021.100263

• Balazka, D., & Rodighiero, D. (2020). Big Data and the Little Big Bang: An Epistemological (R)evolution. Frontiers in Big Data 3, 31: 1-13. DOI: 10.3389/fdata.2020.00031

Book chapters, monographs, and dissertations:

• Fattorini, E., & Balazka, D. (2025). Is Religion Bad for You? Vaccine Hesitancy and Religiosity in the Pandemic Context. In Giansoldati, M. (ed.), Pandemia e vaccinazioni: Aspetti economici, sociali e politici. Edizioni Università di Trieste.

• Balazka, D. (2025). Non-Religious Discourses and the Secularization of the Secular: A Computational Study of Organized Non-Religion in the United States and the United Kingdom (1881-2019). [Doctoral dissertation, University of Milan/University of Turin/KU Leuven]. AIR/IRIS.

Code and data visualizations:

• Balazka, D. (2024). Semantic Network of Organized Non-Religious Discourses. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.13737530

• Balazka, D., & Rodighiero, D. (2021). Cartography of Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4495456

Conferences, workshops and webinars:

• Balazka, D. (2025, September 8-10). Secularization in Motion: Historical Shifts in the Discourse of Non-Religious Movements (1881-2019). Nonreligion and Secularity at Cultural Crossroads, Bratislava, Slovakia.

• Balazka, D. (2025, June 30-July 4). Historicizing Non-Religion: Discursive Shifts and Identity Formation in the US and the UK (1881–2019). 38th Biennial ISSR Conference: Religion, Migration, and Conflicts in Polarized Societies, Kaunas, Lithuania.

• Balazka, D. (2025, January 15-18). Secularization of Language: An NLP Approach to the Changing Perception of Religious Others in British and American Non-Religious Organizations (1881-2019). CS2ITALY2025: 1st Conference on Computational Social Science, Trento, Italy.

• Turkovic, A., & Balazka, D. (2022, September 29-30). In God we trust: Inter-religious othering, religiosity, and political orientation in Italy. Third Italian Conference of EVS/WVS Data Users, Bergamo, Italy.

• Balazka, D. (2022, July 4-6). (Non-)Religion and the Tales from the Borderlands: The Potential of Text Mining and Open-Ended Questions in Survey Research. SocRel Annual Conference 2022: Disruption, Crisis and Continuity in Religion, Online.

• Fattorini, E., & Balazka, D. (2022, June 13). Vaccine Uptake and Mandatory Vaccination in the Italian Context of COVID-19: The Role of Religion, Risk Perception, and Trust in Science. ResPOnsE COVID-19 Workshop, Milano, Italy.

• Balazka, D. (2021, October 28). Archives of Power and Power of Archives. Data and computation cyberdiversity: Pluralismo e Intelligenza Artificiale. Nuove pratiche per l’analisi e lo studio delle tecnologie: Per un archivio dei rituali del nuovo abitare, Trento, Italy.

• Balazka, D., & Rodighiero, D. (2021, June 16-18). Mapping Scholarly Affinities in the Academic Study of Non-Religion and Secularity. Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network 2021, Online.

• Balazka, D., & Rodighiero, D. (2021, February 24). Was Blumer Right? Religious Values and Quantified Self in the Petabyte Age. Artificial Intelligence and Religion 2020/21, Online.

Reports and popular press:

• Balazka, D. (2022, January 17). (Non-)Religion, Big Data and AI Ethics: Is Bigger Necessarily Better? FBK Magazine.

• FBK-ISR (2021). Shaping the AI Transformation: The Agency of Religious or Belief Actors. Policy paper, Prot. 2 / 09-2021, Fondazione Bruno Kessler.

• Balazka, D. (2021, September 27). Mapping Affinities: Towards an Ethical Approach to Network Visualization. FBK Magazine.

• Balazka, D. (2020, September 21). Big Data, Big Faith? About Beliefs and Biases in Algorithmic Decision-Making. FBK Magazine.

• Balazka, D. (2020, September 1). La non-religione nel mondo. FBK Magazine.

• Balazka, D. (2020). Mapping Religious Nones in 112 Countries: An Overview of European Values Study and World Values Survey Data (1981-2020). Technical report, Prot. 8 / 07-2020, Fondazione Bruno Kessler.

Invited talks:

• Balazka, D. (2021, November 11). Verso una sociologia della (non-)religione? Sfide e opportunità. Religione e Comunicazione (Strategie e Tecniche della Comunicazione), Università degli Studi di Siena.

• Balazka, D. (2021, October 19). An Introduction to "Nones" in Sociology of Religion. Global Law, Politics and Religion (Public and Cultural Diplomacy), Università degli Studi di Siena.