RESEARCHERS

ALEX CHARTRAND

Alex is a Ph.D. student in Communication Studies at Concordia University. He works on the activism of LGBTQ+ communities against algorithmic bias on social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Previously, Alex studied LGBTQ+ social movements at the Political Science department of the University of Montréal, which led him to spend several months at the University of the Philippines Diliman for his research. During a much-needed pause between his Master’s and Ph.D. programs, Alex started hosting and producing the weekly radio show Avez-vous du WiFi? on CISM public radio, which he loosely describes as a sociocultural analysis of Internet and technology.

CHRISTOPHER DIETZEL

Christopher Dietzel, Ph.D. (he/him) is a postdoctoral fellow whose research explores the intersections of gender, sexuality, health, safety and technology. Chris’ work focuses on LGBTQ+ people’s experiences with dating apps and social media, and it investigates the barriers, harms, and violence that people face when using these digital platforms.

HANNAH JAMET-LANGE

Hannah Jamet-Lange (she/they) ) is an MA student in Media Studies at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, Canada, where she also received her BA in Communication Studies with a minor in Interdisciplinary Studies in Sexuality. Centred in affect and queer theory, their research interests revolve around conceptions of happiness, intimate publics, and queer activisms, with a focus on discourses around music and emotions that are mobilized on social media. Specifically, the thesis examines the formation of networked intimate publics on TikTok, how these reflect on queer youth’s anxieties related to (hetero)normative ideas of happiness, and what their political potential may be.

Aviva Majerczyk

Aviva Majerczyk is an MA student in Media Studies at Concordia University in Tiohtia:ke/Montreal. She holds a BA in Communications and Cultural Studies with a minor in Religions and Cultures from Concordia University. Her research is focused on girls’ self-identification through TikTok, specifically focused on discourses around heterosexuality and the aesthetics of anger. A writer and media-maker, Majerczyk also produces freelance cultural criticism and hosts a long-running radio show on CJLO 1690AM. 

dunja nesovic

Dunja is a PhD student working under the supervision of Stefanie Duguay. Her doctoral research focuses on investigating queer visibility on social media. As a researcher, curator and editor, she has been collaborating with the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam, NL), Tijdschrift Kunstlicht (Amsterdam, NL), Screen Walks (Photographer’s Gallery in London and Fotomuseum Winterthur) and IMPAKT Festival (Utrecht, NL).

VISITING SCHOLARS

Carlo Handy Charles

Dr. Carlo Handy Charles (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Windsor and a Visiting Scholar in the Digital Intimacy, Gender, and Sexuality Lab at Concordia University. He is also a former Vanier Scholar, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Scholar, and a Fellow at the Institut Convergences Migrations at the CNRS and Collège de France in Paris. His current book project with the University of Chicago Press examines how socio-economic inequalities, sexuality, and space shape transnational same-sex intimate relationships among Haitian men in Haiti, the United States, Canada, France, Brazil, Chile, and the Dominican Republic. He received a Ph.D. in Sociology at McMaster University and a Ph.D. in Geography at the Université des Antilles in 2023. Prior to joining the University of Windsor, he taught Sociology at McMaster University and French at L'Alliance Française de Toronto and L'Alliance Française de Caracas (Venezuela). Beyond academia, he is an award-winning essayist and the co-author of the critically acclaimed Kap O Mond, a play focusing on Haitian migration in France. He is also a public policy advisor, currently working on the Toronto Francophone Affairs Advisory Committee. His publications have appeared in over two dozen academic journals and news media in Canada and internationally. For more information about him and his research, please visit: www.uwindsor.ca/sociology/CarloCharles. Dr. Charles visited the DIGS Lab from May-June 2024.

FORMER TEAM MEMBERS

Rachel Kirstein

Rachel is a student in Concordia's MA in Media Studies. She has a BA in Creative Industries from Ryerson University, where she specialized in publishing, business management, and visual culture. Her current research interests include mediated intimacies, sexual norms and subjectivities, digital cultures and networked publics, neoliberalism and consumer culture, and precarious and affective labour. Her thesis will be centred on the (simultaneously educational, commercial, and personal) sex-positive discourses circulating on Instagram.

BEN LAPIERRE

Ben is a PhD student working under the supervision of Stefanie Duguay. His research is focused on the ways in which digital technologies are impacting queerness. Specifically, he is interested in queer gesture, ephemerality, and how digital technologies may impact these phenomena. Ben’s work as an interdisciplinary researcher and multimedia producer lead him to create Queer Media Magazine which sparked his curiosity in queer social networks online.

JACQUELINE MATSKIV

Jackie is an emerging scholar in the field of Media Studies, with a particular focus on digital culture and aesthetics, digital economies, and affect theory. She also engages critically with postfeminism (as sensibility, as ideology) as it intersects with the neoliberal values characteristic of the digital era. Jackie has a background in journalism, and spent the final year of her BA at Ryerson University practicing and studying the genre of literary journalism (also known as creative non-fiction). During this time, she wrote about women’s mental health, and interviewed professional writers about their craft. Jackie also has a deep love for 20th century Russian literature, as well as contemporary fiction.