Antonia Fox
PhD student

Profile

Biography

I graduated from the University of Winchester in 2015 with a BA (Hons) in Sociology before doing an MA in Sociology and Social Research at Aston University in Birmingham.

During my BA and MA, I developed an academic curiosity in something I already pursued as a hobby, in Video Games and Gender. For my undergraduate dissertation I focused on gender representations in Video Games. As my interest in Online Cultures developed during my MA, I then conducted research on the online communities surrounding video games, examining femininity in online game streaming on Twitch.tv. As a member of the community I took a feminist and digital-ethnography approach, observing and interviewing female streamers. Whilst completing my dissertation I was given the opportunity to discuss the hostile environment for female streamers on live TV during a segment on the Victoria Derbyshire show on BBC2.

I have an interest in digital cultures, specifically how gender and sexuality are constructed and negotiated online

Research

Overview

My project is looking at the microblogging social network site Tumblr, in particular the online communities created in the digital space and the formation of a ‘queer space’. Using digital ethnographic techniques, I will be exploring how gender and sexual identities are constructed on Tumblr, and the influence of Tumblr on the user’s understanding of queer identities. By considering the content posted on Tumblr, and conducting in-depth interviews with the users, I wish to further understand how Tumblr challenges the boundaries of Heteronormativity. Through the investigation of the digital space, I also seek to understand if the queer gaze on Tumblr impacts the online-offline divide for the users.