Talks

Below are the details of my forthcoming, invited, keynote and other talks. Please feel free to email me at y [dot] gerrard [at] sheffield [dot] ac [dot] uk to arrange a talk for 2023 and beyond:

2022

  • Invited speaker: Title TBD. Ofcom Online Communications Seminar. [Online].
  • Invited panel member: ‘The Social Media Debate’ book launch. The 25th Annual Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEEF). [Online].
  • ‘On the entanglement of value and safety: a case study of anonymous apps’. International Communication Association (ICA), Paris, France.
  • Invited speaker: ‘The modern-day Mean Girls: experiencing anonymous apps in schools and colleges’. The Queen’s School Lecture Series, Chester, UK.

2021

  • ‘Mining data, saving lives? Mental health provision in a social media age’. Co-authored with Dr. Hannah Ditchfield (University of Sheffield). European Communication and Research Association (ECREA), Braga, Portugal.
  • Invited speaker: ‘”Popular-by-surprise”: why new social apps put kids at risk’. 5Rights Foundation Coffee Hour. [Online].
  • Invited speaker: ‘Understanding online harms’. Hull City Council. [Online].

2020

  • Invited speaker: Looking ahead: reflection on 2020 for a way forward. Morneau Shepell LifeWorks Life Out Loud series.
  • ‘Methods that move us: creativity and ethics in researching digital youth cultures’. Roundtable discussion at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference.
  • ‘Life between worlds: navigating Big Tech partnerships, funding, and consulting’. Roundtable discussion at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference.
  • ‘Speaking (in) pictures: the politics of corporate commenting curation on Instagram’. Co-authored with Dr. Tama Leaver (Curtin University). Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference.
  • Invited speaker: Making and breaking the rules on social media. Festival of Debate 2020. Sheffield, UK. [Event cancelled due to COVID-19].
  • ‘Understanding the rise and fall of secret-telling social media apps’. Digital⇌Culture Conference, University of Nottingham. [Event cancelled due to COVID-19].
  • Invited speaker: Understanding the Social in our Algorithmic Lives. London College of Communication. [Event cancelled due to COVID-19].
  • Invited speaker: #Censored: the problems with social media content moderation. Museum of Brands, World Health Day 2020 Talk. London. [Event cancelled due to COVID-19].
  • Invited participant: Digital Media Platforms, Institutions and Identity in 21st Century Electoral Politics. University of Leeds, UK. [Event cancelled due to COVID-19].
  • Invited speaker: New tech, old problems: sexism and social media content moderation. Gender ARC, University of Limerick, Ireland. [Event cancelled due to weather-related travel disruptions].
  • Invited speaker: Is social media ruining your life? (Q&A with Chessie King and Rhiannon Lambert). Rhiannon Lambert/Rhitrition’s Food For Thought Festival 2020. London.
  • Keynote roundtable speaker: ‘Algorithms For Her?’ Feminist Approaches to Digital Infrastructures, Cultures and Economies. Kings’ College London.

2019

  • Invited guest lecturer: ‘Platform responsibilities’. Data and the Digital in Platform Societies. Department of Sociology, University of Surrey.
  • Invited guest lecturer: ‘Framing mental illness in American culture’. Advanced Topics in Gender and Sexuality Studies in the U.S./Americas. DePaul University, Chicago.
  • Invited speaker: ‘Circumventing content moderation on social media: a tale of two algorithms’. How To Do Research on Algorithms When You’re Not a Programmer. University of Bergen, Norway.
  • ‘“Female-presenting nipples”: Tumblr’s adult content ban and the sexist assemblages of social media’. Co-authored with Dr. Helen Thornham (University of Leeds). Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.
  • ‘Content moderation and the power of platforms: emerging concerns’. Roundtable discussion at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) conference. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.
  • Invited speaker: ‘When algorithms think you want to die: the power and politics of recommendation systems’. Monash University, Melbourne.
  • ‘”MySpace had us all coding”: a nostalgic (re)imagining of Web 2.0’. Co-authored with Kate Miltner (USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism). The Web That Was conference, University of Amsterdam.
  • ‘Pro-eating disorder communities and the imagined content moderator’. International Communication Association (ICA), Washington DC, USA.
  • Keynote speaker: ‘#NOACCESS: how content moderation fails vulnerable communities’. Digital⇌Culture Conference, University of Nottingham.
  • Keynote speaker: ‘#ManchesterArena and the suspension of the fangirl stereotype’. Fantastic! Conference, University of Sheffield.
  • Invited speaker: ‘Social media’s recommendation systems and the funhouse mirror effect’. Interdisciplinary Workshop: Mental Health, Social Media and Care, University of Birmingham.
  • Invited speaker: ‘The accidental amplification of pro-eating disorder content on social media’. University of Cambridge, Technology and New Media Research Cluster, Department of Sociology.
  • Invited guest: Q&A session at Tumblr HQ, New York City.
  • ‘The gendering of social media’s algorithmic recommendations’. Co-authored with Dr. Helen Thornham (University of Leeds). Understanding the Social in a Digital Age, University of East Anglia.

2018

  • Keynote speaker: ‘Content moderation: assemblages of silence on social media’. New Perspectives in the Digital Society Workshop, King’s College London.
  • ‘The ethics of researching pseudonymous social media users’. European Communication and Research Association (ECREA), Lugano, Switzerland.
  • ‘#depressed: problematic visibilities and identity work on Instagram’. Co-presented with Dr. Anthony McCosker (Swinburne University). Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), Montreal, Canada.
  • ‘Content moderation: silencing Tumblr’s pro-eating disorder community’. International Communication Association (ICA), Prague, Czech Republic.

2017

  • Invited speaker: ‘Hashtag logics in pro-eating disorder content moderation’, University of Huddersfield, Department of Media, Journalism and Film.
  • ‘If you’re going through something difficult, we’d like to help’: the limitations of hashtag logics in pro-eating disorder content moderation’. Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), Estonia.

2016

  • ‘Locating “the digital” in teen television fandoms’. European Communication and Research Association (ECREA), Prague, Czech Republic.

2015

  • ‘Teen television fandoms and re-imagining guilty pleasures’. Fan Studies Network Conference (FSN), University of East Anglia, UK.
  • ‘Online fandom, postfeminism, and the new guilty pleasures’. Console-ing Passions: Rebooting Feminism, Dublin, Ireland.
  • ‘“If young girls like it then it must be rubbish, right?” Teen drama fandoms and guilty pleasures. Consuming/Culture: Women and Girls in Print and Pixels. Oxford Brookes University, UK.

2014

  • ‘“You make it hard to be a modern postfeminist when you get so alpha male”: Unworthy popular cultures and Pretty Little Liars’. Fan Studies Network Conference (FSN), Regent’s University, London, UK.