This sandwich thesis initiates a dialogue to examine connections and departures between new media studies, platform studies, critical digital race studies, critical disability studies, and feminist data studies. The manuscript presents four research papers that traverse issues regarding ableist platform governance, algorithmic visibility, and crip/neuroqueer
digital cultural production. My theorizing of crip data seeks to interrupt hegemonic Western and Eurocentric conceptualizations of what is (not) valued and who (does not) holds power within platform spaces. Moreover, an intersectional focus on disability and race interrogates the ways technoableism (Shew, 2020) and algorithmic oppression (Noble, 2018) collectively animate the creation, development, and use of platforms and
other new media technologies.
I introduce crip data studies as an interdisciplinary academic and activist theoretical framework that counters the dominance of Western and Eurocentric ideologies that
inform a digital platform’s algorithmic infrastructure, governance, and cultural production. I utilize the sandwich thesis model to examine the ways crip data can support critical/cultural investigations about platforms, power, disability, race, and culture through various case studies. In Chapter 1, I assess the relationship between race, disability, and bias in platform content moderation. Chapter 2 proposes neuroqueer
practices for new media production and disability engagement that do not reproduce techno-solutionist measures in mediating neuroqueer self-expression and digital relationality. Chapters 3 and 4 communicate the generative departures of crip and neuroqueer platform use as a mode of hosting cultural production. In sum, this thesis engages with enmeshed inquiries regarding disability, race, and ideological value to
respond to the following provocation: Is another platform– one beyond ableist, racist, and colonial bias– possible? / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis introduces crip data studies as a theoretical practice that challenges how dominant Western, Eurocentric conceptualizations of disability and race inform governance and cultural production on digital social platforms. I invoke crip, a subversive reclamation that reframes disability as a political and cultural identity, to disrupt the erasure and devaluation of disability within digital platforms. Through theorizing crip
data, I reconfigure the disabled user and creator to investigate the significance of technological bias in shaping platform economies, politics, and creative engagement. The thesis project has two goals. First, crip data reveals how offline biases animate a platform’s algorithmic infrastructure and user interactions. Crip data also amplifies the creative, strategic practices shaping digital disability cultural production on social sharing
and content creation platforms. In doing so, the manuscript demonstrates how crip data offers potentialities for intersectional readings beyond platformed mediations of ableism, racism, and coloniality.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/30496 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Rauchberg, Jessica Sage |
| Contributors | Brophy, Sarah, Communication and New Media |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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