PhD Oral Exam - Alex Chartrand, Communication Studies

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

Social media platforms play an important mediating role in LGBTQ+ people’s social lives (Robards et al., 2019). Yet, this potential has to be harnessed by these users as technology is not made for them (Duguay, 2022) and often is incompatible with queer needs (Haimson et al., 2021). Everyday acts of resistance become a mandatory aspect of social media use as users need to appropriate digital technology while also safeguarding the spaces they have created. This dissertation investigates the role of algorithmic imaginaries–originally conceptualized by Taina Bucher (2017) as the ways users’ sense-making of algorithmic functions shapes their behaviours on social media–in informing this day-to-day digital resistance by LGBTQ+ users in Montréal, Canada and Berlin, Germany. Through qualitative and comparative observation and interviews with 25 cultural producers, this project develops the concept of queer algorithmic imaginaries as vernacular knowledge about algorithms that is situated and part of users’ queer trajectories. This dissertation uncovers the contours of queer resistance on social media platforms as informed by queer algorithmic imaginaries. Three levels of resistance among LGBTQ+ users are uncovered: participatory resignation as low-effort acts of negotiation towards algorithmic visibility; confrontational acts of resistance, manifested through refusal that stands up to platforms’ constraints; and exit actions, or withdrawal from platforms, as enabling the exploration of alternatives to the current platform ecosystem. This dissertation thus builds on literature at the crossroads of algorithmic imaginaries and digital resistance to emphasize LGBTQ+ people’s agency in speaking back to power structures.