Emily Van Der Nagel
Biographic Data
| ID | 288542 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Emily Van Der Nagel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Emily |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Der Nagel |
| SIGNATURE | VAN DER NAGEL E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2994-4542 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 43 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Sextech Industries and Cultures: Towards Mediated Pleasures and Data Justice
The industry of sextech is on the rise. But while the term sextech has been applied to a wide range of intimate technologies, it is often understood in terms of technologies that enhance or improve sex in an individualist manner. This panel instead furthers an understanding less concerned with sexuality as a question of technological optimisation, and more invested in sextech as technologies, not only for pleasure and health, but also for regulat…
Navigating the Digital Identity Industry
Examining and explaining tensions between being public and private on the internet is an enduring aspect of the work of the Association of Internet Researchers. In this paper, I present a concept to aid those working in this space: digital identity integrity, the ability to use a range of personal accounts and platforms to meaningfully participate in digital cultures and economies. When an individual can maintain a reasonable amount of privacy ov…
Black summer on TikTok and ABC news: Shaping cultural identity during an Australian bushfire crisis
This study investigates the role of two intermediaries, a mainstream media outlet and a popular digital media platform, to shape cultural identity through a case study of the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire crisis (colloquially known as the ‘Black Summer’). Theoretically framed by networked publics, this study explores the vernacular creativity of social media users and mainstream media coverage during the Black Summer bushfire crisis. Findings dra…
Interdependent Platforms: Onlyfans as NSFW Social Media Layer
This paper presents an analysis of 200 memes about content subscription platform OnlyFans to discover that the platform imaginary is of heterosexual women posting adult, or Not Safe For Work (NSFW) content. This platform imaginary contrasts with OnlyFans' corporate communication, which insists that OnlyFans is for influencers of all kinds. This challenges the platform imaginary, revealing two main strategies for this emerging platform. First, tha…
Competing platform imaginaries of NSFW content creation on OnlyFans
This article investigates the competing platform imaginary of content subscription platform OnlyFans. A feminist content analysis of news articles, memes, and posts to the official OnlyFans blog reveals that the dominant platform imaginary of OnlyFans is one of women selling Not Safe for Work (NSFW), or adult, content – even though there is room for resistance and alternative platform use too. The platform’s corporate communication contests the N…
Sex and Social Media
Sex and Social Media offers a curious reader an academically informed yet accessible discussion of the nuances of sexual social media and socially mediated sex, giving a much-deserved space to explore the multiplicity and richness of sexual practices online.
‘Please Read the Comments’: Commenting Cultures Across Platforms
An old adage about the internet goes “Don’t Read The Comments”. It is a cynical word of caution from supposedly more experienced and savvy internet users, against a slew of negative, abusive, and unhelpful comments that are usually rampant online, stemming from trolling behaviour (Phillips 2015). “Don’t Read The Comments” has become an internet meme. Alongside parody websites (i.e. @AvoidComments n.d.), trawling through the comments section in se…
What's at Stake When Sex Is Deplatformed
Although sex an essential part of the human experience, there are increasing attempts to remove it from social media. This paper brings together two researchers’ extensive research (~ 50 total interviews between 2011 and 2020, an extended 2011 to 2018 ethnography with a community of NSFW bloggers on Tumblr, and a year-long observation of multiple sex related Reddit communities) with people who have incorporated various social media platforms and …
Verifying images: Deepfakes, control, and consent
Deepfakes are portrayed as ‘deceptive media’ that amalgamate fact and fiction. But even when they do seem threatening to our narratives of the truth, there is still room for pushback to the problem of deepfakes thwarting control over images of women. In this article, I first examine the general phenomenon of deepfake porn as a misogynistic way to control women’s images. I then present some lessons from photographic studies about manipulated image…
Fluids on Pictures on Screens: Pseudonymous Affect on Reddit's TributeMe
Tributing is the practice of sending a sexually explicit photo adorned in ejaculate to the subject of the photo. It involves an entanglement of screens, online identities, platforms, affect, materiality, and bodily fluids and plays out in a particular way on bulletin board Reddit. This article draws on two week-long archives of the subreddit TributeMe to study the way affective exchanges are intensified by the circulation of digital images. I dra…
Networks that work too well: Intervening in Algorithmic Connections
Within the emerging field of critical algorithm studies, this article theorises that forced connections happen when algorithms exacerbate human actions in connecting otherwise disparate data points on digitally networked platforms to the subject of the data's detriment. Although social media users may not have a comprehensive understanding of how algorithms work to make some content visible, when users form their own explanatory theories about th…
From usernames to profiles: The development of pseudonymity in Internet communication
This article traces the development of Internet communication by examining online names and pseudonyms. I argue that choosing a username, as the first interaction a person has with a platform, sets the tone for how communication and content flows through platforms. By focusing on pseudonymity as an enduring, if contested, affordance of online communication, I consider the sociocultural conventions of naming in early computer terminals and operati…
Regulation and social practice online
This article argues that everyday media practices are foundational to regulation on social media platforms. Beginning from a practice theory perspective, supported by qualitative research conducted on Facebook and Reddit, this paper shows how individual interactions with the platform and with other people on the site shape central regulatory norms on these sites. We suggest that our focus on practice complements existing studies that consider how…
Situating research, situating practice: New voices in cultural research
This special section follows on from the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia (CSAA) intermezzo symposium 'Doing Cultural Studies: Interrogating Practice'. The symposium was held at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, on 3 December 2013 and co-hosted by CSAA and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research. We organized the event in order to provide emerging cultural studies scholars with a space to interrogate both …
Anonymity, pseudonymity, and the agency of online identity: Examining the social practices of r/Gonewild
A debate is currently raging regarding the value of anonymity online. On one side of the debate is Facebook, the world’s largest social network site. Facebook demands that people use their real names and is one of the leading forces behind the push towards a “real name” Internet. On the other side of the debate are scholars such as danah boyd and Bernie Hogan and sites such as 4chan and Reddit that view anonymity and pseudonymity as important to …
Networks that work too well: Intervening in Algorithmic Connections
Within the emerging field of critical algorithm studies, this article theorises that forced connections happen when algorithms exacerbate human actions in connecting otherwise disparate data points on digitally networked platforms to the subject of the data's detriment. Although social media users may not have a comprehensive understanding of how algorithms work to make some content visible, when users form their own explanatory theories about th…
From usernames to profiles: The development of pseudonymity in Internet communication
This article traces the development of Internet communication by examining online names and pseudonyms. I argue that choosing a username, as the first interaction a person has with a platform, sets the tone for how communication and content flows through platforms. By focusing on pseudonymity as an enduring, if contested, affordance of online communication, I consider the sociocultural conventions of naming in early computer terminals and operati…
Competing platform imaginaries of NSFW content creation on OnlyFans
This article investigates the competing platform imaginary of content subscription platform OnlyFans. A feminist content analysis of news articles, memes, and posts to the official OnlyFans blog reveals that the dominant platform imaginary of OnlyFans is one of women selling Not Safe for Work (NSFW), or adult, content – even though there is room for resistance and alternative platform use too. The platform’s corporate communication contests the N…
Regulation and social practice online
This article argues that everyday media practices are foundational to regulation on social media platforms. Beginning from a practice theory perspective, supported by qualitative research conducted on Facebook and Reddit, this paper shows how individual interactions with the platform and with other people on the site shape central regulatory norms on these sites. We suggest that our focus on practice complements existing studies that consider how…
Verifying images: Deepfakes, control, and consent
Deepfakes are portrayed as ‘deceptive media’ that amalgamate fact and fiction. But even when they do seem threatening to our narratives of the truth, there is still room for pushback to the problem of deepfakes thwarting control over images of women. In this article, I first examine the general phenomenon of deepfake porn as a misogynistic way to control women’s images. I then present some lessons from photographic studies about manipulated image…
Anonymity, pseudonymity, and the agency of online identity: Examining the social practices of r/Gonewild
A debate is currently raging regarding the value of anonymity online. On one side of the debate is Facebook, the world’s largest social network site. Facebook demands that people use their real names and is one of the leading forces behind the push towards a “real name” Internet. On the other side of the debate are scholars such as danah boyd and Bernie Hogan and sites such as 4chan and Reddit that view anonymity and pseudonymity as important to …
Regulation and social practice online
This article argues that everyday media practices are foundational to regulation on social media platforms. Beginning from a practice theory perspective, supported by qualitative research conducted on Facebook and Reddit, this paper shows how individual interactions with the platform and with other people on the site shape central regulatory norms on these sites. We suggest that our focus on practice complements existing studies that consider how…
Situating research, situating practice: New voices in cultural research
This special section follows on from the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia (CSAA) intermezzo symposium 'Doing Cultural Studies: Interrogating Practice'. The symposium was held at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, on 3 December 2013 and co-hosted by CSAA and the Swinburne Institute for Social Research. We organized the event in order to provide emerging cultural studies scholars with a space to interrogate both …
From usernames to profiles: The development of pseudonymity in Internet communication
This article traces the development of Internet communication by examining online names and pseudonyms. I argue that choosing a username, as the first interaction a person has with a platform, sets the tone for how communication and content flows through platforms. By focusing on pseudonymity as an enduring, if contested, affordance of online communication, I consider the sociocultural conventions of naming in early computer terminals and operati…
Networks that work too well: Intervening in Algorithmic Connections
Within the emerging field of critical algorithm studies, this article theorises that forced connections happen when algorithms exacerbate human actions in connecting otherwise disparate data points on digitally networked platforms to the subject of the data's detriment. Although social media users may not have a comprehensive understanding of how algorithms work to make some content visible, when users form their own explanatory theories about th…
Sex and Social Media
Sex and Social Media offers a curious reader an academically informed yet accessible discussion of the nuances of sexual social media and socially mediated sex, giving a much-deserved space to explore the multiplicity and richness of sexual practices online.
‘Please Read the Comments’: Commenting Cultures Across Platforms
An old adage about the internet goes “Don’t Read The Comments”. It is a cynical word of caution from supposedly more experienced and savvy internet users, against a slew of negative, abusive, and unhelpful comments that are usually rampant online, stemming from trolling behaviour (Phillips 2015). “Don’t Read The Comments” has become an internet meme. Alongside parody websites (i.e. @AvoidComments n.d.), trawling through the comments section in se…
What's at Stake When Sex Is Deplatformed
Although sex an essential part of the human experience, there are increasing attempts to remove it from social media. This paper brings together two researchers’ extensive research (~ 50 total interviews between 2011 and 2020, an extended 2011 to 2018 ethnography with a community of NSFW bloggers on Tumblr, and a year-long observation of multiple sex related Reddit communities) with people who have incorporated various social media platforms and …
Verifying images: Deepfakes, control, and consent
Deepfakes are portrayed as ‘deceptive media’ that amalgamate fact and fiction. But even when they do seem threatening to our narratives of the truth, there is still room for pushback to the problem of deepfakes thwarting control over images of women. In this article, I first examine the general phenomenon of deepfake porn as a misogynistic way to control women’s images. I then present some lessons from photographic studies about manipulated image…
Fluids on Pictures on Screens: Pseudonymous Affect on Reddit's TributeMe
Tributing is the practice of sending a sexually explicit photo adorned in ejaculate to the subject of the photo. It involves an entanglement of screens, online identities, platforms, affect, materiality, and bodily fluids and plays out in a particular way on bulletin board Reddit. This article draws on two week-long archives of the subreddit TributeMe to study the way affective exchanges are intensified by the circulation of digital images. I dra…
Interdependent Platforms: Onlyfans as NSFW Social Media Layer
This paper presents an analysis of 200 memes about content subscription platform OnlyFans to discover that the platform imaginary is of heterosexual women posting adult, or Not Safe For Work (NSFW) content. This platform imaginary contrasts with OnlyFans' corporate communication, which insists that OnlyFans is for influencers of all kinds. This challenges the platform imaginary, revealing two main strategies for this emerging platform. First, tha…
Competing platform imaginaries of NSFW content creation on OnlyFans
This article investigates the competing platform imaginary of content subscription platform OnlyFans. A feminist content analysis of news articles, memes, and posts to the official OnlyFans blog reveals that the dominant platform imaginary of OnlyFans is one of women selling Not Safe for Work (NSFW), or adult, content – even though there is room for resistance and alternative platform use too. The platform’s corporate communication contests the N…
Black summer on TikTok and ABC news: Shaping cultural identity during an Australian bushfire crisis
This study investigates the role of two intermediaries, a mainstream media outlet and a popular digital media platform, to shape cultural identity through a case study of the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire crisis (colloquially known as the ‘Black Summer’). Theoretically framed by networked publics, this study explores the vernacular creativity of social media users and mainstream media coverage during the Black Summer bushfire crisis. Findings dra…
Sextech Industries and Cultures: Towards Mediated Pleasures and Data Justice
The industry of sextech is on the rise. But while the term sextech has been applied to a wide range of intimate technologies, it is often understood in terms of technologies that enhance or improve sex in an individualist manner. This panel instead furthers an understanding less concerned with sexuality as a question of technological optimisation, and more invested in sextech as technologies, not only for pleasure and health, but also for regulat…
Navigating the Digital Identity Industry
Examining and explaining tensions between being public and private on the internet is an enduring aspect of the work of the Association of Internet Researchers. In this paper, I present a concept to aid those working in this space: digital identity integrity, the ability to use a range of personal accounts and platforms to meaningfully participate in digital cultures and economies. When an individual can maintain a reasonable amount of privacy ov…
Sociology (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Social media (8 works) · Internet privacy (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · World Wide Web (7 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Media studies (5 works)