My interdisciplinary research is rooted in feminist media studies and attends to: (a) the ways in which actors and groups communicate and share information to construct cultures and publics; (b) how socio-technical systems and tactical engagement with media content are used by illiberal actors to spread alternative belief systems and identity propaganda that disproportionately harms already marginalized people; (c) how journalism and the media can either diminish or promote equitable access to information and engaged democracy by reflecting and reinforcing, in the first instance, or pushing back against, in the second, structural oppressions; and, (d) what can be done about it. While I am methodologically agnostic, my work leans toward critical computational methods— a combination of quantitative computational and qualitative techniques conducted with normative commitments toward engaged democracy and equity— to explore and critique harmful online content (e.g., hate speech, supremacism and violent extremist communication), “risky research” and research-related trauma, far-right media and politics (including coercive populist surveillance and tactical engagement), and mis/disinformation and conspiracism in their sociotechnical contexts.

This research so far has resulted in nine refereed journal articles, five peer-reviewed chapters in edited volumes, and a handful of smaller publications. I currently have four co-authored articles under various stages of journal review and a number of single and co-authored works in progress. Three of these single-authored studies stem from my dissertation research, which explored media coverage and online activity of a community of men— incels (short for involuntary celibates)— surrounding an inability to find sexual partners. These studies include: a hyperlink network analysis to map incel geographies online and their connections with other supremacist and extremist groups; a computational analysis (topic modeling, network analysis and community detection) to identify discursive frames used by incels on the largest online incel forum; and, a computational framing analysis of incels in U.S. news media coverage. Taken together, these studies shed light on the discourse by and around the community, its social network structure, and its deployment of masculinity and racialized/gendered discourses for political ends.

My future research agenda reflects my normative commitments and aims to answer the four-part questions outlined above via mixed-methods projects.

You can see a full list of publications here and conference presentations here. If you'd like my full research statement, which includes additional details and projects, please drop me a line on the Contact page.