Yena Lee

Reacting to memes in my DMs takes more bandwidth than giving feedback on a paper. Dunno how meme scholars do it

Excited to give a talk on brokerage in feminist movments next week at the Center for Korean Studies. I will also be exploring the implications of networked leadership on algormithmically curated and creator-centric platforms based on my book project.

korea.sas.upenn.edu/events/broke...

An IAMCR-sponsored online launch of East Asian Media Culture on Jan 29. Registration required: iamcr.org/webinars/eas... @cdcspenn.bsky.social

How are young people around the world organizing amid a global polycrisis—democratic backsliding, rising fascism, war/genocide & climate catastrophe?

Join the ASA CBSM @asa-cbsm.bsky.social virtual conversation on Global Youth Mobilization!

📅 Dec 8, 2025, 11AM (Chicago Time)
RSVP: bit.ly/3K1ZUIi

A great recap of this roundtable by Emily, AKS Postdoctoral Fellow! It was a wonderful opportunity to gain insights on many different perspectives on this topic, spanning heterosexual and queer relationships across both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

korea.sas.upenn.edu/news/dating-...

a screen cap of the first page of the article. basic information is in the main post. abstract: This article argues for critical posthumanist approaches to human-machine communication (HMC) and positions video game non-player, non-playing, or non-playable characters (NPCs) as a productive connective topic to facilitate this. Despite their historical presence as mundane, popular artificial intelligence (AI) and rich implications on the political notion of the nonhuman, insights from NPC research, especially qualitative and critical, have been largely missing in HMC discourses. To close this gap, this article aims to investigate and provide a guiding mapping of NPC literature. First, it critically contextualizes existing approaches to NPCs across disciplines to examine why and how NPCs can aid critical posthumanist research on AI contexts. Second, building on this, it conducted a scoping review of 22 grounded qualitative, critical theoretical works on emergent narratives on NPCs. The review suggested a budding interest in the topic and many promising research potentials. Specific recommendations are made. Drawing on the results, I argue that NPCs can help us interrogate the inhuman(e) in other-than-human.

New article, right before #NCA25! "Non-player characters and the nonhuman: Insights and scoping review toward critical posthumanist human-machine communication." The Communication Review. doi.org/10.1080/1071....
I needed this review myself to (re)think&write about emergent AI cultures, so I did it!

Were the No Kings protests WUNC? Evaluating a massive show of people power, and celebrating sweater weather.

Were the No Kings protests WUNC?
open.substack.com/pub/ruthbrau...

Elements of practices in digital publics: a model for identifying collective doings on social media platforms Abstract. Studies of public communication in digitally networked spaces have increasingly adopted the notion of practice to make sense of patterned doings

📝 New article out in Communication Theory. In it, I define practices, a term studies often use without operationalising, as things we do for a reason with specific others, driven by certain knowledge, values, and supported and constrained by language and material environments doi.org/10.1093/ct/q...

Image of first page of journal article entitled "Social Media and Society: Platforms, Publics, and Anti-Publics"

🚨Special Issue Alert: Platforms, Publics, and Anti-Publics
(1/9) Introduction from our guest editors Zoetanya Sujon, Harry Dyer and Felipe Bonow Soares. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

#academicsky #socialmediasky

This was such a meaningful experience and I am still thinking about the thoughtful questions students asked in the Q&A ✨✨

Call for paper flyer with too much text to type, but the gist is: Bringing the People Back In - Race, Class, and Inequality in US politics. People-Ing Politics Network Mini-Conference March 6-7, 2025, Washington DC Amid threats to democracy, this conference will bring together social scientists and practitioners who study US politics with a focus on race, class, inequality, and the influence of social and cultural forces. We are looking for papers that explore: - how people's cultures, identities, and social groups shape their political views and behaviors - how race, class, and other forms of inequality influence political engagement, representation, and policy outcomes - the roles played by behind-the-scenes actors such as campaign staff, organizers, and bureaucrats, as well as by marginalized communities, in shaping political institutions and procesess. visit https://www.essnet.org to apply; make sure to select this mini-conference when you do.

Sociologists, political scientists, other scholars & practitioners of US politics - submit a proposal to our People-Ing Politics conference as part of the Eastern Sociological Society's conference in DC this March 5 - 8th. Apply by 10/15 (unless they extend) & please share - ess2026.exordo.com/login

Excited to be hosting this symposium next April! Looking forward to a vibrant discourse on affect and activism 😎

Now that KakaoTalk’s new update has turned it into a pseudo social media feed (to much chagrin from users), I have yet to figure out the correct way to interact. My younger cousin liked my new profile but hers is from a year ago. Am I allowed to like it back, or will she think I’m weird/old?

Join us for a roundtable reflecting on the decade since Feminism Reboot (2015), a turning point in feminist and queer politics and scholarship in South Korea. Together, we’ll reflect on what has shifted, what has stalled, and what futures we might imagine.

Register here: bit.ly/46jg871

CDCS Colloquium: Yena Lee Creator Logic-in-Practice: Political Content Creators and the Negotiation of Influence in the Post-Networked Era

Excited to kick off my postdoc @cdcspenn.bsky.social @asc.upenn.edu with a colloquium on Monday, September 29th ✨

I’ll be sharing from my dissertation-to-book project titled, "Creator Logic-in-Practice: Political Content Creators and the Negotiation of Influence in the Post-Networked Era."

Promo AVP 2025 Info Doc Promotional Info for AVP 2025 get a copy in the IMAGES folder Accessible Virtual Pride 2025 Event Webpage Accessible Virtual Pride 2025 - Calling Up Justice! https://callingupjustice.com/access...

Promo: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Sign-up: callingupjustice.com/accessible-v...

I had the pleasure of interviewing Claudia and Jesenia from Calling Up Justice for my dissertation project and they are hosting an accessible virtual pride from July 4-6! They are looking for volunteers so make sure to sign-up if you are interested in this amazing initiative!