Jessalynn Keller
I am an Assistant Professor in Critical Media Studies in the Department of Communication, Media & Film at the University of Calgary, Canada. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2013.
My research interrogates gender politics and mediated identities within popular digital cultures, particularly in relation to contemporary feminist activism. I have written about specific topics that include girl feminist bloggers, hashtag feminisms, teen feminist media mogul Tavi Gevinson, model Tyra Banks, and the politics of inclusivity online.
I am the author of Girls' Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age (Routledge 2015), co-editor (with Maureen Ryan) of Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a Postfeminist Media Culture (Routledge 2018), and co-author (with Kaitlynn Mendes and Jessica Ringrose) of Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2019). I have also published scholarship in Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Celebrity Studies, Information, Communication & Society, Women's Studies International Forum, the Journal of Gender Studies, and Social Media + Society (forthcoming) as well as in several edited anthologies.
My research interrogates gender politics and mediated identities within popular digital cultures, particularly in relation to contemporary feminist activism. I have written about specific topics that include girl feminist bloggers, hashtag feminisms, teen feminist media mogul Tavi Gevinson, model Tyra Banks, and the politics of inclusivity online.
I am the author of Girls' Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age (Routledge 2015), co-editor (with Maureen Ryan) of Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a Postfeminist Media Culture (Routledge 2018), and co-author (with Kaitlynn Mendes and Jessica Ringrose) of Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2019). I have also published scholarship in Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Celebrity Studies, Information, Communication & Society, Women's Studies International Forum, the Journal of Gender Studies, and Social Media + Society (forthcoming) as well as in several edited anthologies.
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Books by Jessalynn Keller
In 2015, after being reprimanded for wearing a crop top to school, an Ontario teenager started the hashtag #CropTopDay to organize a protest day in which over 300 girls wore crop tops to school. The protest was used to challenge the ways girls’ bodies are policed and subject to gendered body-shaming (“slut-shaming”) in school settings. The teens used Twitter as both an organising tool and as a platform to circulate alternative narratives about school dress codes, producing a space where teenage girls were seen as feminist, activist, and political – identities they are often denied (Keller 2015; Kearney 2006; Harris 2004).
These are two examples of the innovative ways girls and women are using participatory digital media as activist tools to dialogue, network and organise in order to challenge sexism, misogyny and rape culture. In doing so, these activists expose, critique and educate the public about sexism and offer counter discourses to the “popular misogyny” that Sarah Banet-Weiser (2015) argues is increasingly prevalent in twenty-first century media culture. Yet, despite these often highly visible forms of activism and the growing body of research interested in digital feminist activism (Dimond et al. 2013; Horeck 2014; Puente 2011; Rapp et al. 2010; Rentschler 2014; Shaw 2011, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c; Thrift 2014), little research has yet to explore feminists’ experiences in using digital platforms to challenge on and offline misogynistic practices and dialogue, and none has attempted to collate these into a book-length project.
Digital Feminist Activism is the first book to explore how girls and women negotiate rape culture through the use of digital platforms, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and mobile apps. Based upon a 21-month study funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, this book explores three primary research questions: What experiences of harassment, misogyny and rape culture are girls and women responding to? How are girls and women using digital media technologies to document experiences of sexual violence, harassment, and sexism? And, why are girls and women choosing to mobilize digital media technologies in such a way? We address these questions through an analysis of the following five case studies:
• Hollaback! (anti-street harassment website)
• The Everyday Sexism Project (where users post instances of sexism)
• The Tumblr site Who Needs Feminism (where users create and post signs)
• Twitter anti-rape culture hashtag communities including #BeenRapedNeverReported, and #CropTopDay
• A diverse range of international self-defined ‘Twitter Feminists’ (women and some men) who use Twitter to challenge rape culture, which a specific focus on Teen feminists’ use of social media platforms like Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook to challenge rape culture and misogyny both online but also inside the institutional space of schools.
In order to capture the experience of doing digital feminist activism, this project combines several methodological approaches, including qualitative content analysis, thematic textual analysis, and ethnographic methods such as in-depth interviews and close-observations of online communities. Across the five case studies listed above, we conducted interviews with over 50 girls and women from 9 countries (Canada, India, Ireland, Kenya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, US, UK, and Venezuela), and have analysed eight hundred pieces of digital content, including blog posts, tweets, and selfies. In this sense, our methodological location is unique, drawing on traditions of “virtual ethnography” (Hine 2000 2015), “netnography” (Kozinets 2010) and “social media ethnography” (Postill and Pink 2012), while simultaneously considering questions of personal experience, power, and difference that anchor feminist research methodologies (Hesse-Biber 2012; Shaw 2013; Taft 2011; van Zoonen 1994). In this sense, this book contributes to a deeper understanding of how feminists can study digital media cultures that are often fluid, dispersed, and challenging to access as researchers.
Papers by Jessalynn Keller
Talks 2015 by Jessalynn Keller
Talks (2014) by Jessalynn Keller
Talks (2013) by Jessalynn Keller
Edited journal issues by Jessalynn Keller
Book Reviews by Jessalynn Keller
In 2015, after being reprimanded for wearing a crop top to school, an Ontario teenager started the hashtag #CropTopDay to organize a protest day in which over 300 girls wore crop tops to school. The protest was used to challenge the ways girls’ bodies are policed and subject to gendered body-shaming (“slut-shaming”) in school settings. The teens used Twitter as both an organising tool and as a platform to circulate alternative narratives about school dress codes, producing a space where teenage girls were seen as feminist, activist, and political – identities they are often denied (Keller 2015; Kearney 2006; Harris 2004).
These are two examples of the innovative ways girls and women are using participatory digital media as activist tools to dialogue, network and organise in order to challenge sexism, misogyny and rape culture. In doing so, these activists expose, critique and educate the public about sexism and offer counter discourses to the “popular misogyny” that Sarah Banet-Weiser (2015) argues is increasingly prevalent in twenty-first century media culture. Yet, despite these often highly visible forms of activism and the growing body of research interested in digital feminist activism (Dimond et al. 2013; Horeck 2014; Puente 2011; Rapp et al. 2010; Rentschler 2014; Shaw 2011, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c; Thrift 2014), little research has yet to explore feminists’ experiences in using digital platforms to challenge on and offline misogynistic practices and dialogue, and none has attempted to collate these into a book-length project.
Digital Feminist Activism is the first book to explore how girls and women negotiate rape culture through the use of digital platforms, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and mobile apps. Based upon a 21-month study funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, this book explores three primary research questions: What experiences of harassment, misogyny and rape culture are girls and women responding to? How are girls and women using digital media technologies to document experiences of sexual violence, harassment, and sexism? And, why are girls and women choosing to mobilize digital media technologies in such a way? We address these questions through an analysis of the following five case studies:
• Hollaback! (anti-street harassment website)
• The Everyday Sexism Project (where users post instances of sexism)
• The Tumblr site Who Needs Feminism (where users create and post signs)
• Twitter anti-rape culture hashtag communities including #BeenRapedNeverReported, and #CropTopDay
• A diverse range of international self-defined ‘Twitter Feminists’ (women and some men) who use Twitter to challenge rape culture, which a specific focus on Teen feminists’ use of social media platforms like Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook to challenge rape culture and misogyny both online but also inside the institutional space of schools.
In order to capture the experience of doing digital feminist activism, this project combines several methodological approaches, including qualitative content analysis, thematic textual analysis, and ethnographic methods such as in-depth interviews and close-observations of online communities. Across the five case studies listed above, we conducted interviews with over 50 girls and women from 9 countries (Canada, India, Ireland, Kenya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, US, UK, and Venezuela), and have analysed eight hundred pieces of digital content, including blog posts, tweets, and selfies. In this sense, our methodological location is unique, drawing on traditions of “virtual ethnography” (Hine 2000 2015), “netnography” (Kozinets 2010) and “social media ethnography” (Postill and Pink 2012), while simultaneously considering questions of personal experience, power, and difference that anchor feminist research methodologies (Hesse-Biber 2012; Shaw 2013; Taft 2011; van Zoonen 1994). In this sense, this book contributes to a deeper understanding of how feminists can study digital media cultures that are often fluid, dispersed, and challenging to access as researchers.