(last updated winter 2016)
Research Agenda
My research studies the intersections of gender and sexual identity and digital communication. My dissertation takes a rhetorical approach to studying online aggression. Frequently, targets of aggression are told not to “feed the trolls,” or not to respond to aggressive content lest they fuel further aggressive acts. However, this tactic does not work. First, it blames targets for further aggressive acts, not the aggressor; second, trolls and other online aggressors have set up a game that is impossible to win because it seems like no matter how you respond (or don’t) you are giving them what they want. If you ignore trolls, they have successfully silenced you and shut down discourse, but if you respond you give them the reaction they need to escalate the situation. The troll always gets the last word, and your silence is his or her victory. As a result, my dissertation, Memes and 4chan and Haters, Oh My! Rhetoric, Identity, and Online Aggression, examines methods for resisting online aggression without amplifying it while opening pathways to constructive discourse online.
The first chapter examines Internet memes, or digital content (usually photos, videos, or songs) that spreads online quickly and influences how viewers perceive and construct their world. In particular, this chapter examines how certain memes use stereotypes to depict gender identities. In addition to analyzing several examples of memes that disparage women, I provide a case study of Fake Geek Girl—a meme that amplifies gendered gatekeeping practices in the geek community—and explores counter-meming as a method for resistance. The second chapter turns to 4chan’s /b/ board, an imageboard known for its aggressive tendencies and anonymous interface. Through two case studies that examine how /b/ interacts with a self-identifying transwoman, I show that the board’s collective identity—which purports to be a monolithic whole—breaks down when its own identity rhetoric is used against it. As such, while we may vilify many online spaced that denigrate marginalized identities, the collective identities that drive them are fragile and can be ruptured. Finally, the third chapter studies YouTube celebrities’ responses to trolls, or anonymous users who post inflammatory or malicious content. Through examining videos by Hannah Hart, Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, Lilly Singh, Colleen Ballinger, and Jenna Marbles, I explore parody as a method for resisting online aggression: where trolls attempt to silence and shut down conversations, these YouTubers use parody re-open the pathway to civil discourse. Importantly, my dissertation goes beyond analysis; I also urge readers (teachers, scholars, and teacher-scholars) to take action by not only engaging in some of these counter-aggression methods but also by equipping our students with the rhetorical tools to be able to do so as well.
After completing my dissertation, I will adapt it into a book project by adding new identity categories for analysis. My study has lent insight into the integral role race and ethnicity play in aggressive practices online. As I have been working through my dissertation, I have realized that, although I am careful to represent multiple sexualities, I primarily examine white females. As such, when I revise my dissertation into a book-length monograph, I will add a chapter on the intersections of race, ethnicity, and online aggression. I intend to study Twitter, which has been the locus of harassment directed at people of color, as a new site for analysis. Earlier this year, Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones was barraged by racially-motivated aggression through her Twitter account; other celebrities and people of color have had similar experiences. I will analyze not only how race and ethnicity factors into aggression, but also look toward rhetorical methods to respond to it.
I have also begun to seek publication for some of my dissertation findings; I intend to publish material from the first two chapters and save the rest for the book-length monograph. An article that presents material from my second chapter has been accepted in Computers and Composition (publication date forthcoming). This work examines the imageboard 4chan to examine how the community’s use of identity rhetoric constitutes a collective that shuns certain identities. Then, I analyze how a transwoman used the collective identity’s rhetoric to cause a small rupture in the collective and open a brief moment of constructive dialog. My next project will be to craft an article from the first chapter of my dissertation and submit it to College Composition and Communication. At the beginning of October, I presented some of this material at the 2016 Cultural Rhetorics conference. In this article, I will examine meming and counter-meming as mundane public discourse that has powerful political potential. I take Fake Geek Girl, which reinforces a stereotype that all women who claim to be geeks are only faking their enthusiasm for male attention, as a case study to show how memes reflect cultural and social hierarchies. Then, I examine Fake Geek Girl counter-memes to offer counter-meming as one way to resist the hegemony offered by memes that exploit identity stereotypes. I end by exploring how we could add meming and counter-meming to composition and writing curricula to teach students the power their public writing has to empower or marginalize.
Related current projects addresses women’s epistemology and public rhetoric online. My colleague Alison A. Lukowski and I co-authored a book chapter (forthcoming in 2017) titled “Breastfeeding, Authority, and Genre: Women’s Ethos in Wikipedia and Blogs.” This chapter is concerned with women’s mis- or underrepresentation in knowledge creation, particularly when it comes to their bodies. We examine how Wikipedia’s generic regulations limit women’s experiential ethos and prevent them from constructing knowledge on the “Breastfeeding” entry. Then, we illustrate how blogs are an alternative genre that welcomes women’s ethos. This analysis points to the troubling exclusion of women from mainstream epistemology and questions claims of collaboration’s inclusiveness. Lukowski and I are currently pursuing a similar topic: our proposal for “The Evolution of Maternal Rhetoric – Jane Addams to Jezebel” is currently under consideration for inclusion in the edited collection Rhetorical Strategies from the Suffragists to the Cyberfeminists. In this work, we examine the trope of women using maternal rhetoric to gain entry into the public sphere. More specifically, we will present two case studies—one of Jane Addams’ articles published in Ladies Home Journal in the early twentieth century and one of Jezebel’s blogging practices in the early twenty-first century—to show how the rise of the Internet has allowed women to abandon apologist maternal rhetoric before speaking or writing in public spaces.
My research in the areas of digital and feminist rhetorics has already gained recognition as exemplary. I have presented my scholarship at various national academic conferences, such as Computers and Writing (2015), Cultural Rhetorics (2016), and the Conference on College Composition and Communication (2016 and 2017). As I add to my body of research, I will submit proposals to the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, the Modern Language Association, and others that match my research interests. Further, as I gain more experience teaching and researching professional and technical writing, I will begin submitting proposals to the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Conference and the International Professional Communication Conference. I have also received prestigious grants for my scholarship. In 2016, I won the Gloria Anzaldúa Award, a national award for $750 from the Conference on College Composition and Communication given to three scholars who use feminist or queer theory as a tool to dismantle privilege discourses. I am also the 2016-2017 Junior Schriber Scholar. Northern Illinois University’s English department grants this $2000 fellowship to one graduate student per academic year who studies or investigates women’s literature and language through a feminist lens; it also includes a public research presentation toward the end of the funding period.
Over the next five years I will remain an active scholar. I will not only revise my dissertation into a book-length, single-authored monograph by adding a chapter addressing the role of race and ethnicity in online aggression on Twitter, but I will also produce a series of journal articles pertaining to issues of rhetoric and social justice, exclusion, and online aggression. In addition, I will continue seeking opportunities for grant funding and travel to esteemed conferences.
The first chapter examines Internet memes, or digital content (usually photos, videos, or songs) that spreads online quickly and influences how viewers perceive and construct their world. In particular, this chapter examines how certain memes use stereotypes to depict gender identities. In addition to analyzing several examples of memes that disparage women, I provide a case study of Fake Geek Girl—a meme that amplifies gendered gatekeeping practices in the geek community—and explores counter-meming as a method for resistance. The second chapter turns to 4chan’s /b/ board, an imageboard known for its aggressive tendencies and anonymous interface. Through two case studies that examine how /b/ interacts with a self-identifying transwoman, I show that the board’s collective identity—which purports to be a monolithic whole—breaks down when its own identity rhetoric is used against it. As such, while we may vilify many online spaced that denigrate marginalized identities, the collective identities that drive them are fragile and can be ruptured. Finally, the third chapter studies YouTube celebrities’ responses to trolls, or anonymous users who post inflammatory or malicious content. Through examining videos by Hannah Hart, Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, Lilly Singh, Colleen Ballinger, and Jenna Marbles, I explore parody as a method for resisting online aggression: where trolls attempt to silence and shut down conversations, these YouTubers use parody re-open the pathway to civil discourse. Importantly, my dissertation goes beyond analysis; I also urge readers (teachers, scholars, and teacher-scholars) to take action by not only engaging in some of these counter-aggression methods but also by equipping our students with the rhetorical tools to be able to do so as well.
After completing my dissertation, I will adapt it into a book project by adding new identity categories for analysis. My study has lent insight into the integral role race and ethnicity play in aggressive practices online. As I have been working through my dissertation, I have realized that, although I am careful to represent multiple sexualities, I primarily examine white females. As such, when I revise my dissertation into a book-length monograph, I will add a chapter on the intersections of race, ethnicity, and online aggression. I intend to study Twitter, which has been the locus of harassment directed at people of color, as a new site for analysis. Earlier this year, Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones was barraged by racially-motivated aggression through her Twitter account; other celebrities and people of color have had similar experiences. I will analyze not only how race and ethnicity factors into aggression, but also look toward rhetorical methods to respond to it.
I have also begun to seek publication for some of my dissertation findings; I intend to publish material from the first two chapters and save the rest for the book-length monograph. An article that presents material from my second chapter has been accepted in Computers and Composition (publication date forthcoming). This work examines the imageboard 4chan to examine how the community’s use of identity rhetoric constitutes a collective that shuns certain identities. Then, I analyze how a transwoman used the collective identity’s rhetoric to cause a small rupture in the collective and open a brief moment of constructive dialog. My next project will be to craft an article from the first chapter of my dissertation and submit it to College Composition and Communication. At the beginning of October, I presented some of this material at the 2016 Cultural Rhetorics conference. In this article, I will examine meming and counter-meming as mundane public discourse that has powerful political potential. I take Fake Geek Girl, which reinforces a stereotype that all women who claim to be geeks are only faking their enthusiasm for male attention, as a case study to show how memes reflect cultural and social hierarchies. Then, I examine Fake Geek Girl counter-memes to offer counter-meming as one way to resist the hegemony offered by memes that exploit identity stereotypes. I end by exploring how we could add meming and counter-meming to composition and writing curricula to teach students the power their public writing has to empower or marginalize.
Related current projects addresses women’s epistemology and public rhetoric online. My colleague Alison A. Lukowski and I co-authored a book chapter (forthcoming in 2017) titled “Breastfeeding, Authority, and Genre: Women’s Ethos in Wikipedia and Blogs.” This chapter is concerned with women’s mis- or underrepresentation in knowledge creation, particularly when it comes to their bodies. We examine how Wikipedia’s generic regulations limit women’s experiential ethos and prevent them from constructing knowledge on the “Breastfeeding” entry. Then, we illustrate how blogs are an alternative genre that welcomes women’s ethos. This analysis points to the troubling exclusion of women from mainstream epistemology and questions claims of collaboration’s inclusiveness. Lukowski and I are currently pursuing a similar topic: our proposal for “The Evolution of Maternal Rhetoric – Jane Addams to Jezebel” is currently under consideration for inclusion in the edited collection Rhetorical Strategies from the Suffragists to the Cyberfeminists. In this work, we examine the trope of women using maternal rhetoric to gain entry into the public sphere. More specifically, we will present two case studies—one of Jane Addams’ articles published in Ladies Home Journal in the early twentieth century and one of Jezebel’s blogging practices in the early twenty-first century—to show how the rise of the Internet has allowed women to abandon apologist maternal rhetoric before speaking or writing in public spaces.
My research in the areas of digital and feminist rhetorics has already gained recognition as exemplary. I have presented my scholarship at various national academic conferences, such as Computers and Writing (2015), Cultural Rhetorics (2016), and the Conference on College Composition and Communication (2016 and 2017). As I add to my body of research, I will submit proposals to the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, the Modern Language Association, and others that match my research interests. Further, as I gain more experience teaching and researching professional and technical writing, I will begin submitting proposals to the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing Conference and the International Professional Communication Conference. I have also received prestigious grants for my scholarship. In 2016, I won the Gloria Anzaldúa Award, a national award for $750 from the Conference on College Composition and Communication given to three scholars who use feminist or queer theory as a tool to dismantle privilege discourses. I am also the 2016-2017 Junior Schriber Scholar. Northern Illinois University’s English department grants this $2000 fellowship to one graduate student per academic year who studies or investigates women’s literature and language through a feminist lens; it also includes a public research presentation toward the end of the funding period.
Over the next five years I will remain an active scholar. I will not only revise my dissertation into a book-length, single-authored monograph by adding a chapter addressing the role of race and ethnicity in online aggression on Twitter, but I will also produce a series of journal articles pertaining to issues of rhetoric and social justice, exclusion, and online aggression. In addition, I will continue seeking opportunities for grant funding and travel to esteemed conferences.