Portfolio

"ON MY HEAD ABOUT IT": COLLEGE ASPIRATIONS, SOCIAL MEDIA PARTICIPATION, AND COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH

Abstract: Given the widespread use of social media among adolescents, online interactions that facilitate high school students’ college knowledge acquisition could have a transformative impact on college access patterns, especially for underrepresented students. Our study uses interview data collected from Black high school students in Detroit (N=24) to examine their experiences and perceptions as they prepare for the transition to post-secondary education. In contrast to traditional social capital perspectives that tend to dominate social media scholarship, we instead employ a Community Cultural Wealth framework to reveal how students access distinctive forms of cultural resources via online and offline interactions. Our findings suggest students used social media to access cultural wealth as they (1) developed post-secondary educational aspirations, (2) planned to navigate the post-secondary admissions process, (3) resisted stereotypes about youth from Detroit, and (4) engaged in platform-switching to cultivate their college information networks online.

SCHOLARSHIP ON WELL-BEING & SOCIAL MEDIA: A SOCIOTECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract: Evaluating the well-being implications of social media use is challenging for many reasons, including finding appropriate theoretical and methodological approaches that do not exclusively center either the technology (and its structural features) or the user (and their motivations, psychological disposition, etc.). We argue that many research questions would benefit from a more integrated approach that fully acknowledges both these elements and their mutually constitutive relationship to one another. This essay highlights the possibilities presented by one intellectual tradition that acknowledges how the materiality of an artifact intertwines with social factors and allows us to better understand how technology and people mutually shape one another: the sociotechnical perspective. We describe three broad domains—self-presentation, social capital, and social support—that are relevant to one's well-being and are especially well-aligned with this approach.

LGBTQ PERSONS’ PREGNANCY LOSS DISCLOSURES TO KNOWN TIES ON SOCIAL MEDIA: DISCLOSURE DECISIONS & IDEAL DISCLOSURE ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract: Pregnancy loss is a common yet stigmatized experience. We investigate (non)disclosure of pregnancy loss among LGBTQ people to known ties on identified social media as well as what constitutes ideal socio-technical disclosure environments. LGBTQ persons experiencing loss face intersectional stigma for holding a marginalized sexual and/or gender identity and experiencing pregnancy loss. We interviewed 17 LGBTQ people in the U.S. who used social media and had recently experienced pregnancy loss. We demonstrate how the Disclosure Decision-Making (DDM) framework explains LGBTQ pregnancy loss (non)disclosure decisions, thereby asserting the framework's ability to explain (non)disclosure decisions for those facing intersectional stigma. We illustrate how one's LGBTQ identity shapes (non)disclosure decisions of loss. We argue that social media platforms can better facilitate disclosures about silenced topics by enabling selective disclosure, enabling proxy content moderation, providing education about silenced experiences, and prioritizing such disclosures in news feeds. CAUTION: This paper includes quotes about pregnancy loss.

FIRST-GENERATION, LOW-INCOME STUDENTS AS DATA SUBJECTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION PROFILING AND PREDICTION AI/ML APPLICATIONS

Abstract: Artificial intelligence and machine learning applications span myriad contexts ranging from policing to disease diagnostics. While scholars have demonstrated and condemned both potential and extant harms brought about by these technologies, arguably less critical attention has been paid to the ways in which institutions of higher education are leveraging these technological capabilities in ways that may implicate low-resourced college students. We argue that existing AI/ML research articles in the higher education domain sometimes claim to support first-generation, lowincome students, but do so without a robust consideration of how their developments may be deployed at the expense of these students’ self-concept and agency. Furthermore, we assert that these applications produce stigmatizing data bodies around first-generation, low-income students that these students, as data subjects, have little control over.

COLLEGE STUDENTS' USE OF FACEBOOK: EXAMINING COLLEGE GENERATIONAL STATUS, SOCIAL CAPITAL, AND ACADEMIC IMPLICATIONS

Honors Thesis submitted to the UCSB Department of Communication

ANIMATION AND THE QUEERING OF THE BODY GENRE IN BIG MOUTH

Accepted to the Visions Film Festival & Conference in Wilmington, North Carolina

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Published in UCSB Focus Media Journal

AUTEUR THEORY IN RELATION TO BLACK WOMEN FILMMAKERS

Published in UCSB Focus Media Journal