Susanna Paasonen is Professor of Media Studies at University of Turku, Finland. With an interest in studies of sexuality, networked media and affect, she is the PI of the Academy of Finland research project, Sexuality and Play in Media Culture (2017–2021) and the Strategic Research Council consortium, Intimacy in Data-Driven Culture (2019–2022). Her book-length projects include Who’s Laughing Now? Feminist Tactics in Social Media (with Jenny Sundén, MITP forthcoming), NSFW: Sex, Humor and Risk in Social Media (with Kylie Jarrett and Ben Light. MITP 2019, Many Splendored Things: Thinking Sex and Play (Goldsmiths Press 2018), Networked Affect (MITP 2015, co-edited with Ken Hillis and Michael Petit), and Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography (MITP 2011).
Susanna´s conference will take place at Keynote Speaker Session 1 – Resistance at September 03rd , 11h30 am (BRT) at Zoom.
That’s absurd! Humor and feminist tactics in social media
Humor is possibly not the first tactic to be associated with feminist activism, online or off, given the persistent figure of the “feminist killjoy”—the one who disrupts other people’s sense of happiness and refuses to laugh when expected to do so—within the cultural imaginary. Scholarly investigations into online feminist resistance and activism have largely focused on the affective dynamics of anger, rage, and frustration, as exemplified by the high visibility of the #MeToo movement. And there is, of course, little to laugh about in the ubiquity of online hate, sexism, and misogyny.Meanwhile, humor plays a key role in how and where attention clusters on social media as it provides platforms for activist mobilization and critique. Zooming in on feminist social media tactics, this talk makes an argument for absurd humor as a means of not merely turning things around, or inside out, but for disrupting and eschewing the logic on offer. By turning things preposterous, ludicrous, and inappropriate, absurd laughter ends up somewhere different. Hence it makes for a good place to start.
Patricia Rossini (Ph.D, Federal University of Minas Gerais) is a Derby Fellow in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool, UK. She was previously a postdoctoral researcher in the iSchool at Syracuse University, USA. Her research focuses on online political talk, uncivil discourse, digital campaigns, computational methods, and deliberation. She is the lead investigator of a research project funded by WhatsApp to study misinformation in Brazil, co-principal investigator in a project to devise metrics to assess conversational health, funded by Twitter, and co-PI of a comparative research project funded by Facebook to study visual misinformation on social media and mobile messaging apps in eight countries across five continents. Her work has been published by Social Media+Society, Political Studies, the International Journal of Communication, the Journal of Information, Technology & Politics, and the Journal of Public Deliberation.
Patricia´s conference will take place at Keynote Speaker Session 2 – Manipulation and Polarization at September 04th , 10 am (BRT) at Zoom.
Losing Friends Over Politics: The Relationship Between Dysfunctional Online Activities and Social Sanctions on WhatsApp and Facebook. This talk sheds light on how dysfunctional online behaviors may affect
relationships by investigating social sanctions —actively blocking, unfriending, and quitting social media because of politics. There is limited research investigating how people’s online experiences may lead to social sanctions. Taking a comparative approach, I also examine the extent to which the dynamics around social sanctions are sensitive to different platform affordances, comparing Facebook and WhatsApp.
Fernanda Carrera is Professor at the School of Communication of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Professor of the Graduate Program in Communication at the Universidade Federal Fluminense(UFF) and the Graduate Program in Media Studies (PPgEM/UFRN). Leader of LIDD – Laboratory of Digital Identities and Diversity (UFRJ). PhD in Communication from Fluminense Federal University (UFF). Researches race, gender and representation in the digital environment, as well as cyber advertising, consumption and sociability in social networking sites.
Fernanda´s conference will take place at Keynote Speaker Session 2 – “Manipulation and Polarization” at September 04th , 10 am (BRT) at Zoom.
Algorithms and Intersectional Biases
Questioning the myth of algorithmic neutrality, my work focuses on digital image banks and biases of gender and race. Fundamental devices for the maintenance of the media and communication universe, these banks help guide and build the social imaginary about what it means to be a woman and to be black through subtle modes of erasure or overexposure in certain search results. Keywords are analyzed in the domains of affectivity, aesthetics and financial/professional life, highlighting the technological opacity that permeates the productive field of these apparatuses and the algorithmization of gender and race inequalities.
Simone Pereira de Sá is Professor at Federal Fluminense University (UFF/Brazil). She holds a PhD in Communication and Culture Studies from Federal do Rio de Janeiro University (UFRJ/Brazil). She is Coordinator of LabCult – the Research Lab on Urban Culture and Communication Technologies; and has been a visiting researcher at McGill University, Montreal (2008) and King’s College, UK (2015/2016), sponsored by CAPES scholarship.Her research interests include pop culture in local and global contexts, Brazilian music and fandom activism on social media and platforms, mediations, and materialities of the music culture. She is the author of articles, chapters, and books such as Baiana Internacional – As mediações Culturais de Carmen Miranda (MIS Ed; 2002); and O Samba em Rede – comunidades virtuais, dinâmicas identitárias e Carnaval Carioca (E-Papers – 2015); and co-editor of Cultura Pop (EdUFBA; 2015); Música, Som e Cultura Digital – Perspectivas comunicacionais brasileiras E-Papers, 2016), among others.
Simone´s conference will take place at Keynote Speaker Session 1 – Resistance at September 03rd , 11h30 am (BRT) at Zoom.
Audiovisualities, controversies and pop activism on Anitta’s digital networks
My work focuses on the links between musical audiovisualities, activism and digital culture. Proposing that video clips should not be apprehended as isolated units, since they are linked to different socio-technical networks that are redefining their narratives and meanings, I aim to analyze the controversies surrounding Brazilian singer Anitta’s video clips, posts and Instagram lives, in order to contribute to the discussion on the forms of “pop activism” in the context of the “platform culture”.
AoIR Flashpoint Symposium 