[Air-L] #AoIR2023 Best Student Paper & Honourable Mention

[Michelle, Association of Internet Researchers]

We are delighted to announce that the 2023 AoIR Student Paper Award has
been awarded to Nermin Elsherif for her paper “The Not-so-revolutionary
Facebook: Nostalgia and the return to a centralized state.”

Specifically, we selected this paper because of the author's use of
multi-year ethnographic research involving largely men in their 60s to
examine the use of Facebook to promote nostalgia for an imagined utopian
past following the 2011 revolution. This allows her to push back against
western-centric scholarship that has largely focused on the “modernizing”
potential of digital technologies in postcolonial contexts and digital
media studies focus on youth.

You will be able to hear Nermin’s paper in Philadelphia on Friday 20
October at 8:30-10:00 am in the Wyeth Ballroom B.

We would also like to recognize Ran Ju’s paper, “Lifestyle Governmentality
in China: Governing the entrepreneurial citizen subjects through lifestyle
practices on Xiaohongshu (Red),” with an Honorable Mention.

This paper utilizes multiple methods, including systematic analysis of
regulations and guidelines, discourse analysis, a walk-through method, and
in-depth interviews with both influencers and users. Using a Foucauldian
approach to governmentality and sociological lifestyle studies, the paper
examines how the platform Xiaohongshu (Red) “is distinctly tied to a hybrid
model of governmentality that combines neoliberal and socialist political
reasoning about governance, enterprise, and social welfare.”

You will be able to hear Ran’s paper in Philadelphia on Friday 20 October
at 15:30-17:00 pm in the Benton Room.

Congratulations to Nermin and Ran! Be sure to check out their papers at the
conference <https://aoir.org/aoir2023/>.

The AoIR 2023 Conference Committee