Disrupting the Digital Humanities

All too often, defining a discipline becomes more an exercise of exclusion than inclusion. Disrupting the Digital Humanities seeks to rethink how we map disciplinary terrain by directly confronting the gatekeeping impulse of many other so-called field-defining collections. What is most beautiful about the work of the Digital Humanities is exactly the fact that it can’t be tidily anthologized. In fact, the desire to neatly define the Digital Humanities (to filter the DH-y from the DH) is a way of excluding the radically diverse work that actually constitutes the field. This collection, then, works to push and prod at the edges of the Digital Humanities — to open the Digital Humanities rather than close it down. Ultimately, it’s exactly the fringes, the outliers, that make the Digital Humanities both heterogeneous and rigorous. This collection does not constitute yet another reservoir for the new Digital Humanities canon. Rather, its aim is less about assembling content as it is about creating new conversations. Building a truly communal space for the digital humanities requires that we all approach that space with a commitment to: 1) creating open and non-hierarchical dialogues; 2) championing non-traditional work that might not otherwise be recognized through conventional scholarly channels; 3) amplifying marginalized voices; 4) advocating for students and learners; and 5) sharing generously and openly to support the work of our peers

Culture and Social Media

博士(文学)神戸市外国語大

Computational Methods in the Study of Political Behavior

In this thesis, I explore how individual-level actions contribute to aggregate political outcomes. In each chapter, I aim to understand an observed political behavior using data or methodologies previously unused in their contexts. The subject matter ranges from protest activity and vote choice to theoretical opinion models and re-examining how socioeconomic class is understood in quantitative work. In the first two chapters I employ novel datasets to understand phenomena where popular theories differ from empirical observations. In Chapter 1 I examine protest behavior, which is not the equilibrium prediction of models of collective action. I investigate what aspects of published language can predict protest participation and how these change leading up to and following protests. Specifically, I collect and, using natural language processing methods, analyze 4 million tweets of individuals who participated in the Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020. Using geographical and temporal variation to isolate results, I find evidence that interest in the subject, measured as percentage of online time discussing the matter, is correlated with protest behavior. However, I also find that collective identity, measured through pronoun use, does not have a strong relationship with protest behavior. Next, in Chapter 2, I use a survey---which I helped to develop and field---to understand the 2020 midterm elections' surprising results. While most accepted models of midterm elections predicted massive Democratic losses (averaging around 40 seats in the House), these predictions were not met. In fact, the Democratic party did well---they did not lose a single state legislature, expanded some majorities, and lost only 9 seats in the House of Representatives. Testing various models of midterm elections, I show that the 2020 midterms were issue-based elections, where views on abortion had a large impact on vote choice. In the second half of the thesis I focus on methodologies. Specifically, in Chapter 3, I expanded on mathematical models of consensus building to better mimic reality. Bounded confidence models have historically been used to explain convergence of opinions. In this chapter I add a repulsive element, modeling the inclination to differentiate oneself from someone who otherwise has similar beliefs. With this added component, convergence is no longer assumed. I explore both analytical and simulated numerical results to understand the dynamics of opinions in this new context. Finally, in Chapter 4, I introduce a method for operationalizing socioeconomic class as a latent variable in regression models. While there has been a plethora of research which shows that class affects opinions, views, and actions, the definition of class is nebulous. I argue that this is a result of the nature of class, which is context dependent. Therefore, rather than explicitly determining class, I present using class within a mixture model framework. This allows for the exact definition of class to change within the context being analyzed and enables researchers to use class within their work. Following the theoretical arguments, I present the efficacy of the approach using the American National Election Studies survey from 2020 to show how class differs when related to views of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and the Black Lives Matter movement.</p

A Student Primer on Intersectionality: Not Just A Buzzword

This book: ● lays out the objectives of WS 166, Gender, Race, and Class, taught in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department, Pace University, New York City campus; ● provides a structure for any course addressing intersectionality, feminism, and oppression; ● describes the framework of intersectionality, which examines societal issues by analyzing the interlocking systems of oppression that shape people’s lives; ● argues for a transnational application of intersectionality that also centers U.S. Black feminists’ contributions to understanding oppression; ● includes journal articles, TED Talks, and class exercises that are generally accessible for most students or interested readers without previous exposure to these topics. We designed this book to illustrate that intersectionality is a powerful tool for learning about and addressing injustice and inequity. When we analyze the world using an intersectionality framework, we learn about people’s lives and experiences in ways that we may never have considered, or wanted to consider. And the mere act of examining multiple systems of oppression is not enough, either, as the point of understanding oppression is to end it in all forms. As you read, be thankful for the discomfort, anger, and compassion that may arise; learning about oppression is never easy, but it is a worthwhile and meaningful task

Social Media Memorialising and the Public Death Event

PhDThis thesis explores how participatory online rituals of mourning serve to mediate public death events that are collectively experienced as forms of social injustice, and the modes of collectivity they engender. I introduce the term Social Media Memorialising (SMM) to describe this phenomenon. The mediated deaths of SMM are experienced as a transgression of the sacred, and in the process reveal societies’ constant negotiation with death, virtuality and memorialising online. SMM entails appropriating the processes of public mourning such that the means of symbolic production shifts away from media and political gatekeepers and towards networked publics. In analysing SMM on YouTube, this thesis employs a mixed-methods research design premised upon a multimodal approach to discourse, system-network mapping, and thematic analysis. I present two case studies for comparative analysis: those of Neda Agha-Soltan in Tehran in 2009, and that of Lee Rigby in London in 2013. Both constitute emblematic examples of ‘public death events’: the death of individuals considered to be exceptional, morally significant, traumatic and worthy of public mourning and grief. This framework captures the complex forces involved in the mediation of death online, and the modalities and mechanisms of virtual space as ritual space. SMM manifests through innovative, strategic and performative forms of grieving that hybridise online and offline practices, highlighting the conditions of the death event as integral to the modes of grieving that follow. What emerges is a platform-specific vernacular that reflects the form, function and terms of engagement for online grieving. SMM coalesces the commemorative with the performative, shaping both the social significance of the death event and the attitudes regarding the death and its causes.Media and Arts Technology programme, EPSRC Doctoral Training Centre EP/G03723X/1

Disinformation and Fact-Checking in Contemporary Society

Funded by the European Media and Information Fund and research project PID2022-142755OB-I00