Global Members

Juan Bermúdez

Juan Bermúdez is a Mexican ethnomusicologist. He studied music (marimba) at the University of Sciences and Arts of Chiapas, as well ethnomusicology at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz. Bermúdez received his PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Vienna with a thesis about the musicking of the smartphone application TikTok. Currently, he is visiting scholar at the Department of Arts and Musicology, Autonomous University of Barcelona. His current work focuses on music and dance practices in digital media and multimedia contexts.

Languages: Spanish, German, English 

Email: juan.bermudez[at]univie.ac.at  

Marcus Bösch

Marcus Bösch is a Research Fellow at HAW Hamburg, Germany. His research interests encompass computational propaganda, political communication, and multimodal memes. As a PhD Candidate at University Münster he investigates disinformation campaigns on TikTok. He publishes the leading subscriber newsletter Understanding TikTok. 

Languages: English, German

Email: m[at]marcus-boesch.de

Twitter: @m_boesch

Marion Breteau

Marion Breteau is an assistant professor of anthropology at the American University of Kuwait and an associate researcher at the French Research Center of the Arabian Peninsula, Kuwait. After having investigated online dating in the Sultanate of Oman as part of her Ph.D., she is currently studying the uses of TikTok by foreign domestic workers in the Gulf states. Her work addresses TikTok practices as bodily and sensory experiences with a focus on aesthetics and emotions. Her research also includes migrant “leisure connectivity” and the digitized control of migration.

Languages: English, French, Arabic

Email: marionbreteau[at]hotmail.fr

Twitter: @MarionBreteau

Earvin Charles B. Cabalquinto

Earvin Charles B. Cabalquinto is an Australian Research Council DECRA Research Fellow and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, Australia. His research expertise lies in the intersecting field of digital media, migration and mobilities.  His current projects focus on the ways migrants experience and navigate the digital divide. One of them extends the lens of digital brokering in a migration context and maps the ways online platforms, such as TikTok, are embedded and utilised within a migration industry in Australia to facilitate the brokerage of migration aspiration, mobility and settlement.

Languages: English, Filipino

Email: Earvin.cabalquinto[at]monash.edu

Twitter: @earvsc

Laura Cervi

Laura Cervi is Serra Húnter Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pavia (Italy) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). Her main research interests are political communication, activism, and social networks. Currently, she’s researching on how TikTok is used by political actors (with a focus on Italy, Spain and Latin America) and how the platform is engendering a new form of political activism: “playful activism”.

Languages: Italian, English, Spanish, French. Basic level of German and Portuguese.

Email: laura.cervi[at]uab.cat

Twitter: @LaCerviTM

Oliver Ngai Keung Chan

Oliver Ngai Keung Chan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He studies the emerging forms of governance by and of platforms. His recent research explores the evolution of platform values in TikTok’s community guidelines.

Languages: Chinese, English  

Email: oliverchan[at]cuhk.edu.hk

Sabina Civila

Hello! My name is Sabina Civila and I am from Cádiz, a small city in Spain. I am actively involved in researching, publishing, and teaching on TikTok, specifically focusing on the analysis of hate speech discourse and the representation of vulnerable groups within the platform. I teach in social education developing effective strategies to address and prevent discrimination in online spaces. My work aims to shed light on the impact of TikTok as a social media platform, examining the dynamics of hate speech and advocating for inclusivity and equal representation. 

Languages: Spanish, English

Email: sabicivila[at]gmail.com

Instagram: @lamediaticadigital

Francesca Comunello

Francesca Comunello is a Full Professor in the Department of Communication and Social Research, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, where she teaches “Internet and Social Media Studies” and “Gender and media studies”. Her research and publications focus on the intersections between digital technology and society, including digitally mediated social relations, ageing and digital communication, gender and digital platforms, digital media and disaster communication. She is also studying vaccine-related conversations on TikTok and user awareness and trust in TikTok’s algorithms.

Languages: Italian, English, French, German, some Spanish

Email: francesca.comunello[at]uniroma1.it

Twitter: @fcomun

Alexandra Cotoc

Alexandra Cotoc is a lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. Her scientific fields of interest are Internet Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis, New Media Studies, Online Identity, and Digital Pedagogy. Selected single-authored and collaborative publications include Textual Negotiation of Online Identities, in Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai. Philologia, Volume 67 (LXVII) (2022); and An Introduction to Internet Linguistics: The Cultural Sociolinguistic Take with Case Studies (2021).

Languages: Romanian (mother tongue), English, French

Email: alexandra.cotoc[at]ubbcluj.ro

Twitter: @alexandracotoc

Guanqin He

Guanqin He is a PhD student at the Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on the female migrant workers in China’s platform-based gig economy, their everyday socio-spatial practices, digital engagements, and social mobilities in different platforms. Recently, she has been investigating the gendered implications of the politics of activism as seen in the self-presentation videos posted by delivery riders on the platform Douyin. Her research interests are more about gender, migration, and popular culture in digital media. Guanqin is now based in the Netherlands.

Languages: Chinese, English

Email: g.he[at]uu.nl

Twitter: @guanqinstellahe

Zoe Hurley

Dr Zoe Hurley is a Visiting Fellow at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and an Assistant Professor in the College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Zayed University, Dubai. She is a feminist-postdigital researcher exploring TikTok cultures in the Gulf. Her TikTok research theorises postfeminist subjectification, self-representations, platform patriarchy and diaspora placemaking. She is developing undergraduate courses in transmedia and social innovation which highlight the ambivalences of TikTok’s visible economies and algorithms of platform positivity.

Languages: English

Email: Zoe.hurley[at]zu.ac.ae; Z.HURLEY[at]lse.ac.uk

Twitter: @ZoehurleyDubai

Mary Jones

Mary Jones is a Masters student at the Humboldt University of Berlin in the field of global studies. Her research is concerned with the replication and exacerbation of structural hegemonies and social inequalities in the digital sphere. Her Masters thesis documented the communicative practices and semantic decision-making of lesbians on TikTok, including a case study of the morph le$bean. She is based in Germany. 

Languages: English, German, French

Email: maryjonesirmena[at]gmail.com

Irini Koutrouba

Irini Koutrouba is a PhD student in Sociolinguistics at the Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Western Macedonia, Greece. Her research focuses on new immigrants’ to and from Greece identity construction by linguistic and semiotic means in social media and particularly on Instagram and TikTok and based on multimodal critical discourse analysis. Her research on TikTok focuses on how ethnocultural identity is constructed through platform affordances in comparison with other social media platforms and on the immigration discourses emerging. Ongoing research projects include online hate speech and fluid racism regarding immigrants from different cultural contexts.

Languages: Greek, English, German (B2 level)

Email: e.koutrouba[at]uowm.gr; kmeirini123[at]gmail.com

Instagram: @eirini_k_t_

Yongjian Li

Yongjian Li is a PhD candidate/researcher at the Department of Media and Communication,  Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His research lies in the crossings of ageing, migration and popular culture in digital media, with a focus on elderly migrants on short-video platform Douyin/TikTok. He is especially interested in migrant’s everyday social-spatial practices, digital engagements across online-offline spaces, and mediated (im)mobilities on different platforms. Recently, he has been investigating the place-making practices and knowledge sharing activities of a novel form of warm experts as seen in the self-presentation videos posted by elderly influencers on the platform Douyin.

Languages: Chinese, English

Email: yongjian.li[at]eshcc.eur.nl

Twitter: @YongjianLi_

Sarah Livant

Sarah Livant is a high school art teacher and a graduate student in art education at the University of Georgia. Previously, she worked in theatre and database management. Her research focuses on the intersections of teenage TikTok use and secondary art education. She is based in the southern United States.

Languages: English

Laura Katharina Mücke

Laura Katharina Mücke is an assistant in the working unit “Everyday Media and Digital Cultures” at the University of Mainz, Germany and PhD-candidate at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her PhD project aims at a critical and feminist perspective on media experience concepts like ‘immersion’. Her TikTok research conducts a postfeminist view on female protest videos from politically repressive regimes in East Europe and their (in)visible dissemination strategies, which she reconnects to aesthetic regimes, cultural stereotypes, algorithms, and specific contexts of the recorded everyday. 

Languages: English, German. Advanced level of French.

Email: lamuecke[at]uni-mainz.de

Twitter: @lauramuecke

Lynette Ng

Lynette Ng is a PhD Candidate at Societal Computing program at Carnegie Mellon University, USA, studying and modeling social behavior from online spaces by different types of users (by country, automation etc). She is currently researching on the use of TikTok in SouthEast Asia, and engagement strategies of #foodtok.

Languages: English, Mandarin 

Email: lynnetteng[at]cmu.edu 

Twitter: @quarbby

Isabell Otto

Isabell Otto is a professor of media studies at the University of Konstanz in Germany. Her research focuses on TikTok aesthetics and visual practices, as well as on youth cultural forms of community building. She wrote a book on TikTok’s digital image cultures. An article on social cohesion, affective assemblages and hate speech on TikTok is currently in preparation. Isabell conducted a media studies seminar on TikTok cultures at the University of Konstanz and is currently preparing a research project on “Platform Economies and Polarisations in Digital Youth Cultures”, which will focus centrally on TikTok.

Languages: English, German

Email: isabell.otto[at]uni-konstanz.de

Florian Primig

Florian Primig is a research associate at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies at Freie Universität Berlin in the Division Digitalization and Participation and associate researcher at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society. His work addresses discourse and the formation of (counter-) communities on TikTok and other platforms with a special focus on the affective and embodied construction of knowing subjects. Recent work includes the reimagination of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on TikTok.

Languages: English, German

Twitter: @FlorianPrimig
Bluesky: floprim.bsky.social

Email: florian.primig[at]gmail.com

Jess Rauchberg

Jess Rauchberg is an incoming Assistant Professor of Communication Technologies at Seton Hall University, USA. Rauchberg’s research investigates the discursive relationships between disability, race, and marginality on TikTok and other social sharing platforms, focusing on governance and cultural production. Her work appears in Feminist Media Studies, the Journal of Applied Communication Research, the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, First Monday, and several edited collections. To learn more, visit http://www.jessrauchberg.com.

Language: English

Email: jessrauchberg[at]gmail.com 

Twitter: @JessRauchberg 
Bluesky: @jessrauchberg.bsky.social

Charlotte Spencer-Smith

Charlotte Spencer-Smith a doctoral candidate in Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg in Austria. She is interested in visibility and invisibility on social media platforms, particularly not being recommended as a content moderation measure, including on TikTok. She also teaches an undergraduate course on content moderation, also covering TikTok.

Languages: English, German 

Email: charlotte.spencer-smith[at]plus.ac.at

Twitter: @c_spencer_smith

Krysten Stein

Rooted in critical/cultural studies, utilizing an intersectional feminist lens, my writing and research focuses on cultural production, representation, political economy, and media industries. It investigates how popular culture, television, and digital media specifically, are intertwined with systems of power and systematically excluded populations. Specific to TikTok, I am interested in how professionals curate their online content and their experiences on the platform, in addition to representations of identity markers, like gender, sexuality, and race. Global regional location: Chicago, IL, USA.

Languages: English

Email: kstein22[at]uic.edu; steinkrysten[at]gmail.com

Twitter: @stein_krysten

Rebeca Suárez-Álvarez

Rebeca Suárez-Álvarez is Lecturer at the University of Rey Juan Carlos (Department of Journalism and Corporate Communication). She holds a PhD in Social Communication from CEU San Pablo University (Madrid). Professor Suárez has completed two master’s degrees: one in Radio from CEU San Pablo University and another in Communication of Public Institutions and Policies from Complutense University (Madrid). Her main lines of research are communication, online audiences and digital sphere. Specific to TikTok, she is interested in how TikTok has a significant impact on our society, online community and culture specifically on minors.

Languages: Spanish, English

Email: rebeca.suarez[at]urjc.es

Hoimawati Talukdar

Dr Hoimawati Talukdar holds a dual Master’s degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Tezpur University and Development Studies from Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. She did her PhD from the Department of Communication and Journalism, Gauhati University, India. She is currently teaching as an Assistant Professor at Christ University, Delhi NCR, India. She is a member of Research Network on Dialectics & Society. Broadly, her research interests include media and development studies.

Languages: Assamese, English, Hindi

Zari Taylor

Zari Taylor is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the United States. Her research lies at the intersection of Critical Platform Studies, Black Studies, and Cultural Studies. Her research on TikTok focuses on how racial identity is mediated through platform affordances. Ongoing research projects include regimes of visibility on the TikTok search engine, the racial disparities in the creator economy, and the translation of TikTok trends and culture in historical and contemporary American popular culture.

Languages: English

Email: zari[at]live.unc.edu

Twitter: @zaritaylor_

Yiting Wang

Yiting Wang studies short videos at UH Mānoa. As an interdisciplinary researcher, she uses multimodal analysis for short videos on TikTok and other platforms. With no specific socio-technical topic, she focuses on the creative practices and user behaviors via short video artifacts. At present, she resides in Honolulu.

Languages: Chinese, English

Email: yitingw[at]hawaii.edu

Twitter: @yiting_ting

Estu Putri Wilujeng

Estu Putri Wilujeng is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social and Political Science, Universitas Indonesia. Her main key areas are social movement especially labor movement, urban sociology, and communication, information technology, and media sociology (CITAMS). Currently, she is supervising undergraduate thesis on SMEs and TikTok in Indonesia.

Languages:  Indonesian, English, Javanese

Email: estuputri[at]ui.ac.id

Twitter: @comsociology

Gene Lim Jing Yi

Gene Lim Jing Yi (Ph.D.) is lecturing at Graphic Communication Design Department, School of the Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. Her research focuses on new media literacy and youth digital competency. She is currently working on several projects which include empowering young people through digital competency as well as digital participatory culture in social media. Her research interests include digital competency, media and social studies as well as visual communication design.

Languages: English, Mandarin, Malay

Email: gene.limjingyi[at]usm.my 

Zizheng Yu

Dr Zizheng Yu is an assistant professor at the Department of Communications, Drama and Film at the University of Exeter, UK. His current research mainly focuses on short-video-based social media platforms (e.g., Douyin/TikTok), consumer activism/nationalism, and AI/algorithmic resistance. His recent research explores how short-video-activism tactics have become an innovative repertoire of contention for Chinese consumers and Douyin, the “sister app” of TikTok, has become a real-time updated database of this repertoire. 

Languages: Cantonese, Chinese, English. 

Email: z.y.yu[at]exeter.ac.uk

Twitter: @zizheng_yu384