Drawing upon interviews, participant observation, and my own experiences as a volunteer community moderator on Reddit, I propose that a significant portion of work performed by volunteer moderators is social and communicative in nature.
Seizing the Memes of Production: Political Memes in Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican Diaspora
“This thesis seeks to understand how different groups of people in Puerto Rico and the diaspora deploy internet memes for political critique. In this work, I analyze three case studies focused on how Puerto Rican groups and individuals use internet memes to express political discontent, make calls to action, engage in catharsis, and seek political change.”
Critical Breaking
Utilizing critical and feminist science and technology studies methods, this thesis offers a new framework, called critical breaking, to allow for reflective and critical examination and analysis of instances of error, breakdown, and failure in digital systems.
The Allure of Choice: Agency and Worldbuilding in Branching-Path Transmedia Universes
Agency is often taken as a given in branching-path stories because they, almost by definition, allow for enhanced user involvement. But this truism hasn’t changed as the structure of the worlds that these branching texts exist within have.
From Trump Tower to the White House, in 140 Characters: The Hyper-Mediated Election of a Paranoid Populist President
Trump’s political communications reached a wider audience, on a sturdier basis, than earlier figures who had similarly adopted a “paranoid populist” philosophy.
Technology Against Technocracy: Toward Design Strategies for Critical Community Technology
This thesis develops an intersectional, critical analysis of the field of practice known as Civic Tech and highlights other relevant community-organizing and activist practices that utilize technology as a central component.
Everything is Awful: Snark as Ritualized Social Practice in Online Discourse
Snark can adopt a pro-social role in online environments whose architecture tends to reward vapid or deceptive content.
