WORKSHOP
Queering Social Media
Research – Engaging with Gender, Sexual, and Relational Diversity
International Conference on Web and Social Media
Montréal, Canada
May 15, 2017
The deadline for
submission is March 4th,
2017, 8 pm PST.
Scope of the Workshop
There is currently an
undeniable interest in gender, sexual, and relational diversity among Internet
and social media scholars. In 2016, Shaw and Sender (2016: 1) have edited a
special issue of the journal Critical
Studies in Media Communication entitled “Queer technologies: affordances,
affect, ambivalence” that addresses “queer media ontologies and practices” and unpacks
how LGBTQ representations are “shaped by technological affordances and
constraints”. In the same year, Burgess et
al. (2016: 1) have put together a special issue of the journal Social Media + Society entitled “Making digital cultures of gender and sexuality with
social media” that addresses “cultures of gender and sexuality that
emerge from and intersect with digital materiality, governance, and practices”.
Indeed, researchers are more sensitive than ever to the ubiquitous cis/heteronormative
configuration of Western culture (Berlant and Warner, 1998) that must be
considered in the social, political, cultural, and economic analysis of social media
platforms.
By exploring the act of
“queering” social media research within the context of the ICWSM, this workshop
seeks to elaborate a comprehensive, transdisciplinary,
and encompassing research agenda that questions, rather than take for granted,
dominant assumptions about gender, sexuality, and relational diversity. To
do so, we invite members from industry, civil society, and academia from
various fields (communication, media studies, computer sciences, sociology,
political sciences, information sciences, anthropology, science and technology,
sexology, criminology, social informatics, urban studies, etc.) and theoretical
backgrounds (feminist studies, gender studies, queer studies, decolonial
studies, sociotechnical approaches, critical theory, cultural studies, etc.) to
participate to this one-day research-building exercise.
Topics and Themes
This workshop will
address two main topics. Its first topic
will focus on the study of queer subjects. Here, participants are invited
to collectively establish a current (although inevitably non-exhaustive) “state
of knowledge” on the intersection between social media research and: 1) gender
diversity, such as trans*, genderfuck, genderqueer, and other non-normative
identities; 2) sexual diversity, in
terms of sexual orientation and practices; and 3) relational diversity, such as polyamory, casual dating, non-monogamous
relationships, etc. In an emancipatory logic, this workshop will be used as an
opportunity to identify how research has so far documented the role of social
media platforms in the development or reconfiguration of queer visibilities (Duguay, 2016), publics (Berlant and Warner, 1995), spaces (Bell and Binnie, 2004; Dunn,
2011), and methods (Browne and Nash,
2010; King and Cronin, 2010). Conversely, it will also address how social media
platforms participate in reproducing and promoting dominant cis/heteronormative
identities (Bivens, 2015; Bivens and Haimson, 2016). Thus, how has social media
research been addressing gender, sexual, and relational diversity so far and what
future avenues need to be explored?
The workshop’s second
topic will focus on reflecting on our
own assumptions (as activists, designers, and/or researchers) about gender,
sexuality, and relational diversity. Here, participants are invited to share
and/or challenge their own sets of practices, methods, and ethics (as well as
the ones of the institutions they represent), and to collectively define what
constitute queer/ed epistemological and axiological postures for social media
research. Thus, how can we explore and uncover the norms, values, and/or ideologies that
are embedded within our theoretical frameworks, methods, and academic
institutions? How can queer, decolonial,
feminist, and intersectional epistemology (among others) can contribute to a
more equitable research agenda?
Possible topics may
include, but are not limited to:
- The role of social media platforms in enabling/oppressing queer identities, relations, and social practices;
- The use of social media in queer advocacy campaigns;
- How forms of discrimination are “built into” machine learning algorithms;
- Regimes of in/visibility and surveillance;
- The emergence of new algorithmic gender and/or sexual identities and publics;
- The well-being and security of queer subjects;
- The identities of individuals who get to design social media and their relation to the development of gender, sexual, and relational categories;
- Digital methods and their potential for deconstructing/reproducing cis/heteronormativity;
- The politics and ethics of the data economy and their possible dehumanizing effects;
- The potentialities and limits of the term queering itself for social media research and the tensions that its use generates in the development of research and political agendas.
Workshop format
This full-day workshop
will be organized to foster participant interactions through the conduction of
group activities, such as individual presentations of papers, brainstorming
sessions, and mind-mapping exercises. Please note that the activities will take
place in English.
Call for papers
We will accept two
types of submissions for participation in this workshop, longer position papers
and short statements of interest. Submissions will be reviewed by the workshop
organizers, with external reviewers tapped as necessary depending on submission
numbers.
Position papers should be no more than 5 pages and should be submitted in AAAI format
(see author guidelines for ICWSM). These papers if accepted will be included in
the ICWSM workshop proceedings. These papers should be on the intersection between social media research and gender, sexual, and relational diversity (both theoretical and empirical works are welcomed).
Statements of interest should be no more than two pages and can be submitted in any format. These
documents will not be included in the workshop proceedings, but if accepted
will be shared on the workshop website. Topics can be similar to position
papers or can simply explain the potential participants’ interest in the
subject matter and why they wish to participate in the workshop.
We invite proposals
from researchers from academia, civil society, and industry, and would welcome
a wide range of theoretical approaches and disciplinary perspectives.
Attending
Note that the author of
a submission, if accepted, will be expected to attend the workshop on May 15,
2017 in Montreal, Canada as part of ICWSM. The default will be for one author
per submission to attend. However, if you would like to request space for
another author, please note so in your email and it may be possible, space
permitting.
Fees
Although we encourage
all workshop participants to register for the entire ICWSM conference, it is
possible to register only for the workshop. While the rates for this year’s
attendance have yet to be disclosed by the ICWSM organizers, last year’s rates
(that are shown here for reference only) were: 75$ for students and 100$ for
regular participants (in US dollars).
How to submit
The deadline is March 4,
2017, 8pm PST. Please email a PDF of your position paper or statement of
interest (in English only) to qsmr2017@gmail.com. You may also contact the organizers with any
questions at that address.
Chairs
Mélanie
Millette, Professor, Département de communication sociale et
publique, Université du Québec à Montréal;
David
Myles, PhD candidate, Département de communication,
Université de Montréal; Lecturer, Département de communication sociale et
publique, Université du Québec à Montréal;
Anna
Lauren Hoffmann, Post-doctoral fellow, School of Information, University of California,
Berkeley.
Acknowledgement
This workshop is
organized as part of the activities of the Research Chair on Digital Technology Uses and
Changes in Communication (UQAM, Montréal) and of the Laboratoire de communication médiatisée par ordinateur (LabCMO, Montréal). For more information (in French), please visit:
www.chaireusagesnumeriques.uqam.ca
www.cmo.uqam.ca
www.chaireusagesnumeriques.uqam.ca
www.cmo.uqam.ca
References
Bell, D., & Binnie, J. (2004).
Authenticating queer space: citizenship, urbanism and governance. Urban studies, 41(9), 1807-1820.
Berlant, L., & Warner, M. (1995).
Guest column: What does queer theory teach us about x?. Publications of the Modern Language Association
of America, 343-349.
Berlant, L., & Warner, M. (1998).
Sex in public. Critical inquiry, 24(2), 547-566.
Bivens, R. (2015). The gender binary
will not be deprogrammed: Ten years of coding gender on Facebook. New Media & Society, 1461444815621527.
Bivens, R., & Haimson, O. L.
(2016). Baking Gender Into Social Media Design: How Platforms Shape Categories
for Users and Advertisers. Social
Media+ Society, 2(4),
2056305116672486.
Browne, K., & Nash, C. (2010).
Queer methods and methodologies. The
Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Burgess, J., Cassidy, E., Duguay, S.,
& Light, B. (2016). Making digital cultures of gender and sexuality with
social media. Social Media+ Society, 2(4), 2056305116672487.
Duguay, S. (2016). Lesbian, gay,
bisexual, trans, and queer visibility through selfies: Comparing platform
mediators across Ruby Rose’s Instagram and Vine presence. Social Media+ Society, 2(2), 2056305116641975.
Dunn, T. R. (2011). Remembering “a
great fag”: Visualizing public memory and the construction of queer space. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 97(4), 435-460.
King, A., & Cronin, A. (2010).
Queer methods and queer practices: Re-examining the identities of older
lesbian, gay, bisexual adults.
Shaw, A., & Sender, K. (2016). Queer
technologies: affordances, affect, ambivalence. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 33(1), 1-5.