We welcome you to a special master class dedicated to exploring research into nuanced creator content and its connected communities. Tom Divon and Dr. Carolina Are will be unpacking the contested digital lives of their ongoing study participants – Palestinian, Jewish, and sex-positive content creators on digital platforms. In this master class, Tom and Carolina aim to uncover the opportunities and challenges these communities face on digital media as researchers deeply embedded within the landscapes and scenarios these participants inhabit. The masterclass will highlight how participants are able to connect under the watchful governance of Instagram and TikTok, which provide them with novel bonding opportunities and workstreams after having faced offline discrimination due to their work, background or style of expression while also rendering their earnings and activism remarkably precarious for the nuances of that same content they produce.

Through this session, Tom and Carolina will spotlight creators’ work – Palestinian activism in and around Gaza, Jewish creators’ fight against hate speech before and after October 7, and sex-positive creators’ education, activism, and self-expression – to show the nuanced labor these groups engage in, which is frequently misunderstood by humans and algorithms alike. This masterclass will also focus on methodologies and practices Tom and Carolina have utilised and developed over the years in researching these communities, navigating the delicate balance of becoming their (digital) lifeline in certain instances via a format showcasing examples, interview quotes, methods, and creators' perspectives.

The aim is to provide a hands-on, practical understanding of platforms, moderation, and creators, moving beyond theory-heavy discussions and centring ethical, realistic research practice to aid early-career and established researchers alike in the focus on nuanced creator content. Masterclass participants will be encouraged to bring their own challenges related to creator research on platforms and seek practical advice. Participants who wish to discuss their struggles with platform research are invited to contact Tom and Carolina beforehand to provide more context.

Bios
Tom Divon is an ethnographer of user-platform interactions, focusing on creator culture, platform affordances, and user-generated content. In his PhD taking place in the Department of Communication at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Divon explores the socio-political subcultures of platforms across three distinct domains on TikTok: (1) Memory: Creators' Engagement with Historical Commemoration and Education, (2) Activism: Creators' performative combat against racism, antisemitism, and hate speech, and (3) Conflict: Creators' memetic participation in identity-driven warfare, with a focus on Palestinian resistance.

Dr Carolina Are is a platform governance researcher with a PhD in online abuse and conspiracy theories, currently working as Innovation Fellow at Northumbria University’s Centre for Digital Citizens. Following her experiences of online censorship, she has been researching on algorithmic bias against nudity and sexuality on social media, and has published the first study on the shadowbanning of pole dancing in Feminist Media Studies. Her work has been published in New Media & Society, Social Media + Society, Media, Culture & Society, Convergence and Porn Studies, and it has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Conversation, the BBC, Wired, and the MIT Technology Review. She is also a content creator and blogger, as well as an activist, pole dance performer and instructor, on social media at @bloggeronpole.