Özgem Elif Acar

Özgem Elif Acar holds a BA in Psychology, BS in Industrial Engineering, and a minor degree in Media and Visual Arts from Koc University, Turkey. She is conducting research on TikTok and intergenerational communication among queer community at DIGS Lab and on Gender Equity and Global Index in AI at Applied AI Institute. Her research interests lie primarily in the intersection of emerging media platforms and technologies, user experience, the discourse of performativity, identity authenticity in social media, and the relation among embodiment, intimate publics and platform affordances from psychosocial, ethnographic and design perspectives. She is interested in exploring digital existences that collectively reflect social practices with the aim of redesigning the interaction among experiences, technology and communications. 

Thesis title or subject: #Simstagram: Performativity of Authenticity, Gender and Influencer Identities of The Sims Players in Instagram’s Lifestyle Culture (Working title)

Works:

Conference Papers

Duguay, S., Acar, Ö. E., & Jamet-Lange, H. (2023, October 18-21). Dear baby gays: Investigating the sociotechnical practices of older LGBTQ+ TikTok users. AoIR2023: The 24th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers., Philadelphia, PA.

Duguay, S., Jamet-Lange, H., & Acar, Ö. E. (2023, June 28-29). #queersover30: Exploring creative production at the intersection of age and sexual identity on TikTok. Global Perspectives on Platforms, Labor and Social Reproduction, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Duguay, S., Acar, Ö. E., & Jamet-Lange, H. (2023, May 29 - June 2). Where the methods of the medium meet the practices of data cultures: Investigating TikTok as a research tool. Canadian Communication Association Annual Conference, York University, Toronto, CA.

Acar, Ö. E., Jamet-Lange, H., Johnston, M., Ogilvie-Hanson, S., & Morgan, P. (2023, May 23). [Art]ificial Intelligence: Authenticity and Audience Reactions to Stylistic Mimicry Using Stable Diffusion. [un]Stable Diffusions, Concordia University, Montreal.

In Progress

Duguay, S., Jamet-Lange, H., & Acar, Ö. E. (accepted for publication). “How do we do that?” An analysis of TikToks by older lesbian and queer women representing lived experience, survival, and advice for intergenerational audiences. Journal of Lesbian Studies, Special Issue: Lesbian and Queer Generations.