Navigating Platform (Dis)affordances: Rhetorics of Suspension
Various digital platforms analyze user interests, identities, and behaviours, categorizing users into hierarchies that impact the ways that users (can) engage on the platform. In the case of marginalized communities and their activisms, these processes lead to account suspension, shadow banning and otherwise silencing. In this talk, I will share the preliminary findings from my critical discourse analysis of 35,000 tweets with the keyword “suspended”. Analyzing the sharing of user experiences and understandings of platform suspension, I explore the ways in which platforms limit how we can participate and the possible factors that make these suspensions possible.
Facilitator Bio
Alexis-Carlota Cochrane (she/they) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts and Gender and Social Justice at McMaster University. She researches at the intersection of identity, technology, and digital culture. Some of Alexis-Carlota’s research can be found in Rivista di Digital Politics and IDEAH Journal.