Conduits 2025
Incommunicative: Failure, Refusal and Resistance

Abstract:

This paper proposes a new term of “apathetic violence”, taking selective inspiration from Foucault’s biopolitics, Han’s psychopolitics, and Berlant’s ‘slow death’. In the contemporary neoliberal regime that witnesses unmitigated transmission of SARS-CoV-2, we must consider the intertwining of bodily and mental processes that subjectivize oneself while consequently ‘othering’ people through the reverberations of pursuing pleasure, self-optimization and neoliberal ideologies. The ongoing pandemic as a unique catalyst event elicits responses from an intertwined subjectivized mind and body. This is not limited to the psyche alone as Han had argued (2017), as this attitude of self-maximization elicits physical consequences and material harm to others. In other words, wilfully submitting to the biopolitical illusion of a ‘post-pandemic world’ enacts an “apathetic violence” that engages not only the psyche of subjects via mental exercises of categorizing certain populations as ‘disposable’ through ‘vulnerabilization’ (Tremain, 2020), but also in the direct physical and material engagement of contributing to death and disability—including Long COVID. Neoliberal ideologies resort to ableist conceptualizations of some groups as ‘acceptable losses’ so that the majority may ‘live’—conditions that may be characterized through the subject’s pursuit of self-maximization and pain avoidance. This work combines the phenomenological with the material, and the philosophical with hard science, posing a unique contribution to literature in questioning supposed ways of being and living. I interrogate failed notions of positive biopolitical aspirations and probe how subjects can move away from fallacies like self-optimization and reflexive impotence toward more equitable praxis, recognizing our shared subjugation. 

Keywords:
biopolitics, violence, affect, neoliberalism

Presenter bio:
Kayli Jamieson (she/her) is a Master's student in Communication at Simon Fraser University writing a Thesis on biopolitics and Long COVID. She also has been a longhauler herself since being infected in Dec. '21. Through SFU's Faculty of Health Sciences, she has conducted research on Long COVID in British Columbia and facilitated community events for Knowledge Mobilization and to raise awareness of the condition. On the side, she engages in science communication and advocacy on her social media, summarizing peer-reviewed studies on COVID/ Long COVID.

Abstract:
Mexico’s feminicide crisis is marked by staggering impunity and institutional neglect. Ten women are killed every day, and 97% of these crimes remain impune. Despite this, there is no comprehensive national database that documents feminicides, obscuring the scale and patterns of gender-based violence. This communicative failure silences victims and erases systemic violence from official narratives. I argue that missing feminicide data is not simply an oversight, but a political act of willful ignorance that upholds structural violence against women. Using D’Ignazio's Data Feminism in Action as a theoretical framework, I analyse how feminist groups contest these data voids by producing counter-data, independent records, reports, and visualisations that reframe feminicide as a state crime and public issue. By focusing on lived experience, emotion, and care as epistemological tools, feminist data practices challenge traditional data science neutrality and objectivity practices. Ultimately, feminist approaches to data offer a pathway to justice and recognition for those women whose lives have been systematically erased by institutional silence. In this way, feminist groups in Mexico transform data into a site of resistance and healing. This study aligns with the CONDUITS 2025 theme on Incommunicative: Failure, Refusal, Resistance, as it examines how state power weaponizes incommunicability by excluding feminicides from state databases and statistical recognition, and how feminist resistance and alternative knowledge forms emerge in response.

Keywords:
Feminicide, Mexico, Feminist data practices, Missing data, Counter-data, Counter-memory, Affective politics

Presenter bio:
Ana Contreras (she/her) holds a BSc in Political Science with a Minor in Gender and Sexuality from the University of Amsterdam and is currently pursuing an MA in Communication Research for Social Change at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on the feminicide crisis in Mexico and the politics of women’s anger in public discourse. She critically examines how women's anger is delegitimised, pathologised, and dismissed, and how feminist resistance reclaims anger as a political and communicative force. She is currently developing The Angry Women Manifesto, a project that questions our current understanding of women’s anger, centers feminist resistance, and grassroots knowledge.

Abstract:
As of 2021, there are approximately 3.1 million migrant workers within the region of the Middle East. Out of those, 250,000 reside in Lebanon under the kafala system and are predominantly female domestic workers (Parreñas & Silvey, 2021). Since the 2019 revolution, Lebanon has experienced a severe economic and political crisis, worsening the already precarious conditions faced by female domestic migrant workers (DMWs) and leaving them even more susceptible to exploitation within the kafala system. The escalation of the ongoing crisis in Lebanon has amplified the already precarious nature of migrant labour. The economic meltdown has led to widespread poverty, rendering salaries worth only a fraction of their pre-crisis value with employers offloading the economic burden onto their workers and refusing to pay their salaries. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has cautioned that migrant workers face heightened risks of entering forced or bonded labour due the pandemic severely limiting the freedom and autonomy of domestic migrant workers in Lebanon (2020). This has left female DMWs as some of the most vulnerable groups in the country, stranded with no access to resources and more susceptible to exploitation within the kafala system (Nasrabadi, 2020). This research will discuss the impact of the ongoing crisis in Lebanon on the working conditions of female DMWs within the kafala system. Furthermore, this research will highlight how migrant workers navigate their experiences within the kafala system and the ways in which they engage in individual and collective level resistance.

Keywords:
Labour Migration, Gender, Kafala, Crisis, Collective Identity

Presenter bio:
Katya (she/her) is a second year MA student at Simon Fraser University. Katya's research interest lies at the intersection of migration and labour, specifically migrant labour and the engagement between the legislative regulations surrounding migrant workers and their deteriorating working conditions. Her thesis will explore the impact of the ongoing political and economic crisis in Lebanon on the working conditions of female domestic migrant workers within the kafala system.

Abstract:
This study investigates silence, non-engagement, and digital withdrawal as strategic responses by Kenyan women journalists to online violence, threats, and state surveillance. In a media environment where investigative reporting exposes women to heightened risks, these tactics transcend personal coping mechanisms, emerging as political acts that challenge systemic oppression. Grounded in Mohan Dutta’s (2012) framework of resistance to confront communicative inequalities, the paper analyzes how journalists negotiate professional obligations amid gendered hostility. Cases like Jane Kibira (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation) and Leah Wambui Kurema (Nation Television), who faced threats during protests, exemplify the precarious intersection of journalism and gendered violence.

Through case studies, the research reveals how withdrawal from social media or deliberate non-response functions as self-preservation in patriarchal, surveilled spaces. Silence, often misread as passivity, is reframed as defiance against normalized violence and capitalist demands for perpetual digital visibility. The study also interrogates the sustainability of incommunicative resistance, weighing its efficacy in safeguarding mental health and professional autonomy against potential erasure from public discourse.

By centering Kenyan women journalists’ experiences, this paper expands debates on media freedom, gender, and digital safety, advocating for institutional recognition of silence as a legitimate resistance strategy. It urges media organizations and policymakers to address the gendered dimensions of online violence, redefining safety and agency in hostile digital landscapes.

Keywords:
Gendered violence, Online harassment, silence as resistance, Digital withdrawal, Strategic non-engagement

Presenter bio:
Joan Letting (she/her) is an accomplished communication specialist with extensive experience in media strategy, content creation, and knowledge management. Currently pursuing a PhD in Communication at Simon Fraser University, Joan also holds a Master of Arts in Development Communication from Daystar University (distinction) and a Bachelor of Science in media science from Moi University in Kenya. Her professional journey includes roles with the United Nations Africa Renewal and Kenya Television Network. Joan is passionate about utilizing communication to drive social change and community empowerment.

Abstract:
To use the words of affect theorist Ann Cvetkovich (2003), this work engages as “an archive of feelings”. In the current landscape of the digital age, we are constantly engaging in a practice of archiving our lives through social media, and the internet writ large. This work captures ideas of a personal archive (an archive of feelings) by pairing historical ephemeral footage with nature footage, and archival family videos from my own childhood. This work asks the question, what does an archive of feelings look like? sound like? feel like? How do we contend with the enormous abundance of personal archival materials we encounter and produce in nearly every moment? 

                                       • • •

This work engages with queer, quotidian and personal archival practices in search of unearthing feeling. How can feelings leave records or be recorded? Archivist, artist and scholar Rick Prelinger, on the home video as archive, explains: “Filled with beauty, affection, chance, and error, home movies are found art, running the gamut from masterpiece to missed opportunity. And every home movie is a stake in the ground, a monument of stone, a newly planted tree; in short, a gesture of permanence: I, you, we are here” (Prelinger 2022). This audiovisual project is an excavation, a provocation, a scooping, shoveling, unearthing of an archive of feelings; an archive of the heart.

                              • • •

Works Cited:

Cvetkovich, A. (2003). An archive of feelings: Trauma, sexuality, and lesbian public cultures. Duke University Press. 

Prelinger, R. (2022, June 27). Rick Prelinger on home movies. Foyer. https://readfoyer.com/article/rick-prelinger-home-movies

Keywords:
research-creation, personal archive, queer archive, audiovisual, affect

Presenter bio:
Natalie Dusek (they/them) is a graduate student and artist based in Vancouver, BC on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. Academic and artistic interests include: research-creation, environmentally-engaged art, queer archives & more. Learn more @ nataliedusek.net.

Abstract:
My research aims to explore the intersectionality of neuroqueer practices of care performed by first-generation immigrants of colour in Vancouver. The concept of neuroqueering refers to the “embodying and expressing one’s neurodivergence in ways that also queer one’s performance of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and/or other aspects of one’s identity,” (Walker 2008). By conducting a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, I seek to examine the intersectional experiences of neurodivergent individuals of colour with first-generation immigrant parents/guardians in relation to care and access to resources. Through this, I aim to expand on the argument from my undergraduate honours thesis, which analyzed online neuroqueer practices. I argued that representation and awareness driven by the perspectives of marginalized neurodivergent communities are crucial for the community’s safety and well-being as they affirm positive neuroqueer identities. Along with this, I argued and continue to argue for research to move beyond the quantification of neurodivergent research and work towards a future of knowledge production that works in collaboration with the community in dismantling the exclusionary structures derived from exclusive knowledge production (Moon 2023). For my master’s research, I will expand the scope of my research by including an autoethnographic lens as well as an intersectional feminist analysis of ethnicity and culture to the analysis of gender and sexuality in neurodivergent communities.

Keywords:
Affect Theory, Community, Feminist Theory, Intersectionality, Neurodivergent, Neuroqueer, Practices, Queer, Queer Theory, Race

Presenter bio:
Gloria Moon (she/her) is a first year MA student in the Sociology department of SFU! She is currently working with Dr. Lindsey Freeman in looking into the intersectional experiences of racialized neurodivergent and queer individuals with immigrant parents as well as their practices of care. This MA project is an extension of her Undergraduate Honours Thesis that she completed under Dr. Freeman here at SFU in 2023, where she looked into the practices of neuroqueering on TikTok. She is currently finishing my courses for the program and will be starting my MA Thesis this summer!

Abstract:
I am my own biggest critic. This can be an overused cliché, but it rings true for scholars who feel like imposters in the space of academia. Whether it is through providing enough feedback to students so that they do not question the mark or responding to emails past midnight, I am performing extra labour in order to validate that I deserve to be called a PhD candidate. Imposter syndrome is a common term thrown around in the academic space. While some get over that gnawing feeling of being “incompetent,” others work harder in order to prove themselves. Brooke Duffy (2017) proposed that a number of scholars are consistently performing uncompensated work. Her theory on aspirational labour discusses how individuals can willingly undertake work in hopes of being paid in the future either through economic, symbolic, or cultural capital. The end goal of aspirational labour is to be recognized for the labour and to secure something permanent. I take the idea of aspirational labour one step further. I propose that a number of scholars in the space are undertaking what I call “compensation” labour where imposter syndrome and aspirational labour meet. Scholars are overcompensating for fear of not being taken seriously by the academic world. A lot more work is being performed not only because of imposter syndrome, but because graduate students are put in precarious positions where overworking might be the only way to secure a permanent position in the future. Through an autoethnography, I aim to dissect what is the difference between doing a job and doing a job that goes beyond basic expectations for fear of not being seen.

Keywords:
Aspirational labour; imposter syndrome, capitalism and academia

Presenter bio:
Liz Poliakova (she/her) is a PhD candidate in Communications and Culture at York University. She holds an MA from the same program and a BA with a major in Book and Media Studies from the University of Toronto. Her research interests include self-publishing, the history of the Canadian book trade, and gender studies.

Abstract:
While DIY (do-it-yourself) music production has become a default strategy for musicians in the digital age (Jones, 2021), the commercial imperatives of platform capitalism intensify the contradictions between the gig-economy and DIY’s emphasis on autonomy, community, and authenticity (Goshert, 2022). However, the tensions between DIY cultures and the commercial constraints of digital platforms remain understudied, ignoring how small-scale musicians, like those in Vancouver’s DIY screamo scene, navigate these digital environments. As part of a larger project on the commodification of underground music scenes, which have traditionally refused to operate within the confines of mainstream music circles, this paper examines the existing tensions between the DIY ethos and the neoliberal logic of social media platforms. Through a critical discourse analysis of the Instagram posts of four DIY screamo bands from Vancouver, BC, I examine how these bands negotiate and subvert the commercial logic of the platform to generate a sense of community. By using the collaborative posts feature and amplifying social issues on their platforms, these bands resist traditional hierarchies within the industry, blurring the lines between self-promotion and community-oriented engagement. Furthermore, their use of DIY aesthetics illustrates a refusal to perform for the algorithm, potentially rendering their practices incommunicable within the broader platformized environment. This suggests that algorithmic platforms may fail to incorporate underground music scenes. 

Keywords:
platform capitalism, DIY music, social media, resistance 

Presenter bio:
Thomas (he/him) is a musician and MA student in Communication at Simon Fraser University from so-called Abbotsford, BC. His research examines the effects of platformization on the Canadian independent music industry and underground/DIY music cultures. He holds a BA in writing and rhetoric from the University of the Fraser Valley.

Abstract:
Psychedelic mediatized entertainment slithers out of its box and into yours—eye-popping, multimedia, quadrasonic, drug-oriented conditioning of human beings by mediated entertainment. The spectacle gives us their mind. The colonization of the imagination through their third eye. The entertainment-dividual-self. 

Drawing on Deleuze’s (1992) “Societies of Control,” affect theory’s notion of “Intensity” (Massumi, 1995), and McLuhan’s (1964) understanding of technology as sensory extensions of the nervous system, this paper introduces the concept of the entertainment-dividual-self: a subject split and reshaped through continuous exposure to intensifying affective media. Entertainment is a guillotine for “being” that severs the self through consumption. Entertainment is situated under the lens of a dispositif (Foucault, 1980)—a decentralized, anesthetic machine of modulation that fragments subjectivity under capitalist conditions. As a dispositif, it functions not through centralized commands but via processes like algorithmic modulation, operating across bodies, platforms, and interfaces. Its function is anesthetic—muting the pain of alienation with recursive doses of novelty, stimulation, and mediated desire. Entertainment does not simply distract; it captures, conditions, and commodifies. In its most potent form—short-form content—it becomes the pharmakon of capital: dopaminergic hyperstimulation accelerating through cybernetic feedback, neural circuits stripped and rerouted into libidinal economies. The paper tracks how alienation becomes aesthetic, subjectivity becomes fragmented, and repressed desire itself becomes productive, not of freedom but of further subjugation. Entertainment is no longer just the opiate of the masses but the very interface of the real, the soft skin of control. Alternatives to capitalism recede into an unreachable horizon as entertainment renders resistance incommunicable, a language devoid of revolutionary potential.

Keywords:
Entertainment, Dispositif, Affect Theory, Societies of Control, Alienation, Desire Repression

Presenter bio:
Alan Röpke (he/him) is a Communication MA Thesis student interested in theoretically analyzing the accelerating infestation of entertainment within the contemporary capitalist media-reality-matrix. Entertainment has subsumed life into a vortex of alienation, control, and reality fragmentation. Through theory-fiction, his work utilizes an assemblage of interdisciplinary influences, such as critical theory, affect theory, cultural studies, and speculative realism. 

Abstract:
This study examines the phenomenon of "ideotainment"—a fusion of ideology and entertainment—on Bilibili, a leading Chinese youth-oriented platform for animation, gaming, and subculture. In November 2020, the Communist Youth League (CYL) celebrated reaching 10 million subscribers on Bilibili, signaling a strategic shift in how state-sponsored nationalism is disseminated. Unlike traditional propaganda, the content posted by CYL and other state-affiliated accounts adopts an engaging, entertaining, and community-oriented approach, incorporating nationalist rap music, military-themed lectures, and vlogs from national news reporters. This shift represents a broader transformation in China’s thought work, where digital platforms serve as key sites for ideological dissemination.

Drawing on Johan Lagerkvist’s concept of ideotainment, this study explores how Bilibili mediates national ideology through interactive, youth-centered content. While existing research has extensively analyzed the role of media in Chinese ideological production, less attention has been given to digital platforms as active participants in this process. This study argues that Bilibili is not merely a passive channel for state ideology but an active mediator that reshapes the narrative through platform affordances and community engagement. By analyzing how Bilibili responds to national control, this research sheds light on the evolving mechanisms of ideological influence in China’s digital landscape. Throug this research, it also figures about how Chinese youth site transformed from being communicative to incommunicative. 

Keywords:
ideotainment; digital platform; youth culture; ideology; CYL  

Presenter bio:
Jiayi Wang (she/her) is a second-year PhD student in the School of Communication at SFU. Her current research focuses on Chinese female fandom and popular culture in general.

Abstract:
The emergence of AI-generated images poses a threat to all users, but there is a special danger that women and girls face, in the form of deepfakes – digitally altered images or videos intended to give the appearance of one’s face on another’s body, commonly utilized maliciously as ‘revenge porn’ or to spread misinformation. AI-generated images have largely appeared in popular discourse as fun viral trends for anyone with access to a smart mobile device. They have been positioned as harmless and enjoyable manipulations of art, which further encourages public participation. However, this positioning obscures the more sinister dimensions of AI-generated image applications, which not only mine data from users but also perpetuate dangerous biases rooted in their training models. The ease at which the technology is able to produce fake pornographic images, unintentionally or not, demands investigation and calls for better tools to address potential harms. This research employs an affective approach to understand how gender-based violence is facilitated and enabled through AI-generated images and image generators. Through a discourse analysis of Reddit forums related to the AI-image generating application, Lensa, it aims to examine how users of the application understand and experience the gendering of AI systems, and how self-identity can become entangled with processes of collective sense-making in relation to emerging technologies.

Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence (AI), AI-generated images, gender-based violence, emerging tech, Lensa, self-identity

Presenter bio:
Denise Toor (she/her) is second year Masters student at Simon Fraser University in the School of Communication. She is part of the Digital Democracies Institute, where she provides financial management, and has helped coordinate international research collaborations, such as the Mellon-funded Data Fluencies Project. She is also Assistant Editor to the Terms of Media book series published by the Meson Press and Minnesota Press. Her research interests include examining the cultural and societal impacts of new and emerging digital technologies, such as AI.

Abstract:
Multibillion-dollar EdTech (educational technology) industry upholds this belief that education can be better delivered by technology. Often adopted by governments across the world, this tech-solutionist belief puts EdTech as a key solution to broader politicized crises such as plummeting mental health of students, environmental sustainability and even declining birth rates in a country. South Korea’s ambitious multi-year policy initiative embraces this very belief and implements what is touted as the world’s first “AI-digital textbook” (Lee, 2023) featuring an array of AI and algorithmic technologies ranging from student surveillance/dataveillance to predictive analytics (Lewis & Hartong, 2021). Characterized by strong corporate influence on policy and prioritization of market values over civic rights, this new initiative faces a major pushback from teachers, parents and civic organizations for concerns over students’ early exposure to digital devices as well as the students’ data privacy. I use South Korea’s ‘AI-textbook’ case to argue that the techno-utopian dreams of education (Bayne, 2024) are shaped and disseminated by the state and demonstrate how these grassroots refusal movements challenge and resist the techno-political realities surrounding education. By employing an ethnographic method involving interviews with teachers, parents, and policymakers as well as participant observations in a public elementary school classroom in a rural part of Korea, I show how this educational reform initiative redefines what counts as ‘good education’ in the era of AI and illustrate the reframing of aggressive adoption of AI in public schools as an agenda-setting work for the state. 

Keywords:
AI in education, AI-textbook, educational technology, EdTech, resistance, refusal, techno-utopianism

Presenter bio:
Saemi Nadine Jung (she/her) is a doctoral researcher at the Digital Democracies Insitute and a 2023 CERi (Community-Engaged Research Initiative) Graduate Fellow. Her main research area is at the intersection of technology, education, and policy. Prior to her PhD, Saemi worked in NYC, Chicago, London, and Seoul for about 10 years as a financial news anchor. Her recent publications cover topics of datafied school, AI in education and theory and praxis in the critical edtech scholarship. For her doctoral research, she examines the social implications of Artificial Intelligence in education.

Abstract:
Amid rising confusion, polarization and authoritarianism worldwide, the societal impact of digital technology, particularly social media, is never far from discussion.

We are increasingly dependent on networked digital communications infrastructures for every aspect of our lives, from working and learning to building communities and expressing ourselves, from security to solidarity. The same technologies that we use for activism, art and advocacy become forms of surveillance, oppression and commodification. 

Underlying this is the way that these technologies are designed, developed and deployed for maximum profit under the logics of neoliberalism, the attention economy and surveillance capitalism. Third spaces and public institutions have become eroded and replaced by “digital public spheres” of global scale, organised by opaque algorithms designed to optimise for fear, anger and moral outrage, forming communities that create radicalisation through homophily, and framing encounters with “others” in interactions optimised for fear, anger and outrage. 

My research explores the power dynamics, biases and methods that led to our current moment, tracing the influence of behavioural psychologist BF Skinner on Silicon Valley to Meta’s mood manipulation experiments on its users, and the incentives for our informational ecosystems to favour predictability and monetizability over justice.

In searching for ways to address these challenges, my project is positioned as a direct counterpoint to the methods that led us to this point, emphasising human-centred participatory research methods, bringing community members together to create decentralised, locally-based solutions that embrace uncertainty and difference. 

Keywords:
Social media, polarization, attention economy, echo chambers, filter bubbles, participatory action research

Presenter bio:
Originally from Ireland, Ciaran (he/him) has lived and worked in Vancouver since 2020. His background combines experience in business strategy & management with event production & social entrepreneurship. His research at SFU explores how social media & the attention economy relate to social cohesion, polarisation, and extremism. A researcher at SFU’s Digital Democracies Institute, his MA project seeks to engage communities in participatory research and sense-making, building decentralized, interpersonal responses to global, technological challenges.

Abstract:
Over the past two decades, many assistive technologies designed for people with disabilities have been marketed to able-bodied consumers as “augmentations.” This paper critiques Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface (BMI) Neuralink in this context. It argues that Musk uses its simultaneous marketing as an assistive aid and as a superhuman consumer product to promote a neo-eugenic anxiety over universal human disability. 

Musk explicitly describes Neuralink in Romantic terms, as removing all layers of mediation between users and their communication with world; however, this is in no way borne out by the neuroscientific literature on BMIs. Rather, this appeals to a longstanding fantasy of humans merging seamlessly with media, such that media become their abilities. Through the logic of this fantasy, Musk argues that AI poses an existential risk, as its autonomy threatens to separate humans from their (media-augmented) abilities. As such, Musk argues that humans have little choice but to adopt Neuralink or become “useless.” By reading Neuralink’s cultural fantasy against the technical parameters of BMIs, its resonance with Romanticism, the critical apparatus of disability theory, and the author’s own experience of impairment, the paper argues for a politics that refuses disabling demands, rather than accelerating bodies to meet them. 

This paper addresses the theme “incommunicative,” by interrogating Neuralink’s fantasy of constant and im-mediate communication. While a disability lens refuses the imperative to constantly and perfectly transmit information, it also resists the ways ableism labels differently-communicating bodies as “incommunicative.”

Keywords:
brain-machine interface; disability; augmentation; Elon Musk; neuralink

Presenter bio:
Rowan Melling (he/him) is a painter and academic living in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish Territories. He is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, focusing on how the more megalomaniacal aspects of Romanticism have returned in the Digital Age.

Abstract:
This paper examines the 2023 controversy surrounding romance #BookTok influencer Kierra Lewis and NHL player Alex Wennberg, highlighting the digital collective of #BookTok as a distinct site of surveillance, cultural policing, and racialized gender dynamics. Employing the concept of the gender panopticon (Katyal & Jung, 2021) as a critical lens, I explore how the algorithmically-driven environment of TikTok creates a pervasive sense of visibility, effectively disciplining users’ expressions of sexuality, particularly those from marginalized identities. Lewis’ hyper-visible position as a Black woman within the predominantly white space of romance #BookTok serves as a pivotal point of analysis, uncovering entrenched cultural anxieties and implicit biases that govern digital expressions of desire.

Integrating insights from Cultural Studies, particularly Stuart Hall’s theories of hegemony and representation (2001, 2020), alongside frameworks from audience reception studies (Gorton, 2009), I demonstrate that romance #BookTok functions as more than a mere space for literary enthusiasm. It is instead a complex digital ecosystem shaped by implicit conventions, collective expectations, and the algorithmic logics of visibility that reinforce existing power structures. By unpacking this controversy, I argue that the gender panopticon within romance #BookTok exposes deep-rooted dynamics of domination and resistance, highlighting how racialized and gendered identities are continuously renegotiated and regulated within participatory online cultures and sub-communities.

Keywords:
Panopticism, Gender Panopticon, #BookTok, Romance #BookTok, Surveillance, Race, Cultural Studies, Sexual Expression, Digital Collectives, Algorithmic Culture, TikTok

Presenter bio:
Mallory Mariano (she/her) is a first-year MA Candidate in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, where she explores intersections between popular romance fiction, racial representation, publishing industry dynamics, and new media. A recent graduate from SFU (BA in Communication with a Minor in Print and Digital Publishing, 2024), she integrates her scholarly work in publishing with an exploration of participatory cultures and diversity, particularly through platforms and online subcommunities like Romance #BookTok. Beyond academia, Mallory has professional experience in medical communication and office administration. She can typically be found climbing stairs at the gym with a novel, scrolling through TikTok, or revisiting past seasons of Love Island.

Abstract:
This research is interested in the portrayal of sexual violence narratives on television and the ways in which such representations function as cultural pedagogies. This research uses a specific focus on the two recent television shows, "Sex Education" (2019-2023) and "The Sex Lives of College Girls" (2021-present), and their portrayal of storylines featuring sexual violence as they reach adolescent audiences. This research explores how these narratives reflect and disseminate broader cultural understandings of sexual violence through the medium of television. By acknowledging the ways in which such stories are depicted, this research aims to contribute to a stronger cultural understanding of the representation of sexual violence that can facilitate necessary societal and political change. 

This research draws on comparative case analysis to understand the representation of sexual violence across television media. This approach supports a critical examination of how these narratives challenge existing ideologies surrounding sexual violence by providing meaningful articulations of sexual violence. By investigating the depiction of sexual violence in popular media, this research contributes to ongoing discussions about the role of television in shaping cultural perceptions and attitudes towards sensitive social issues. The findings of this study have potential implications for media producers, educators, and policymakers in addressing and better understanding sexual violence.

Keywords:
Sexual violence, Television, Sexuality, Media

Presenter bio:
Noelle Gesner (she/her) is a first year Master's student in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on the portrayal of sexual violence narratives in television series, examining how these representations function as cultural pedagogies..With a background in Communication and Film studies, she brings a multidisciplinary approach to her research. Her professional experience includes an eight-month term as a Communication and Public Affairs specialist with Fraser Health's communication team. Noelle’s academic interests lie at the intersection of gender studies, media studies, and social justice issues, with a particular emphasis on how media shapes cultural perceptions and attitudes.

Abstract:
In recent years, particularly when talking about Mexican immigrants, Donald Trump took the phenomenon of ‘othering’ that had been lurking since the 1920s and brought to the public discourse the idea that Mexican bodies threaten racial purity and superiority. Initially seen as just an imaginary boundary, through human actions and social and physical reinforcement, the separation between both countries gains social significance and is defined as ‘bordering’ (Fleuriet, 2021). In consequence, bordering practices create distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘the other’ and determine who belongs and who does not. With Trump being reelected and with Mexicans continuing to cross both material and symbolic borders, this research utilizes Anguiano and Castañeda’s (2014) Latina/o Critical Communication Theory (LCCT) to explore what is lacking in the representation of México and Mexican characters and narratives in children’s television shows and films created by U.S production companies. I propose to pay special attention to immigration policies, anti-immigrant rhetoric and the history of Mexican representation in animation while analyzing potential hidden meanings in cartoons. Furthermore, this analysis enriches the importance of analyzing children’s media —especially when we understand children as interpreters and “processors of meaning" (Buckingham, 2009)— to evaluate the impact that homogeneous portrayals can bring concerning communication patterns and interpersonal relationships. 

References:

Anguiano, C., & Castañeda, M. (2014). Forging a Path: Past and Present Scope of Critical Race Theory and Latina/o Critical Race Theory in Communication Studies. The Review of Communication, 14(2), 107–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/15358593.2014.951954

Buckingham, D. (2005). A Special Audience? Children and Television. In A Companion to Television (pp. 468–486). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 

Fleuriet, K. J. (2021). Rhetoric and Reality on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Place, Politics, Home. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63557-2

Keywords:
Immigration, racialization, México, children’s animation, cartoons.

Presenter bio:
Jimena (she/her) is an international student from México pursuing her Master’s Degree in Communication at Simon Fraser University. Her research revolves around Mexican and Mexican female representation in children’s animated films and television shows created by U.S. production companies and how racism and machismo are shown in small (or bigger) instances throughout their narratives. In her free time, she loves to hang out with her fourteen-year-old cat Otto, go to coffee shops, the cinema, the theatre, spend time outside and write in her bullet journal.