PRESENT PROJECTS

Algorithms and “elderqueers”: An exploration of intergenerational exchanges about sexual identity on TikTok

This project involves an exploration of older LGBTQ TikTokers and intergenerational exchanges. Its objectives include: 1) Understanding how LGBTQ individuals over thirty use the platform; 2) Examining how the platform’s technical interface, governance structure, and business model shape the content and experiences of these “elder” TikTokers; and 3) Analyzing the messages shared to young LGBTQ individuals and the responses they garner.

SOCIAL MEDIA, APPS, AND MONTREAL’S QUEER WOMEN

This SSHRC-funded project explores how social media and apps are shaping queer women’s social connections, organizing and communities in Montreal.

dating apps in canadian context: examining digital harms, intimate intrusions and equitable relationship-building through mobile technologies

This project examines how are dating apps, such as Tinder, Bumble and OkCupid, designed, envisioned by stakeholders, and experienced by Canadians to understand how they feature in equitable uses–those fostering positive outcomes across diverse users–and how to address and prevent their use for inequitable, violent ends.

Queering Algorithmic Governance: An Inquiry into Automation and Its Social Implications for Canada’s LGBTQ+ Communities

This research leverages the expertise of key LGBTQ+ stakeholders (community representatives, developers, researchers, and policymakers) to identify and analyze the implications that platform algorithms raise for Canada’s LGBTQ+ communities, especially in terms of social justice and equity. By doing so, we seek to further highlight how digital technologies are never neutral but encoded with values that enact important power dynamics disproportionally affecting marginalized communities