WGS Pre-Doc Fellow 2024-2025

Nora Suren is a PhD candidate in Communication at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She studies social media cultures, influencers/digital content creators, and the platformization of creative labor using digital ethnographic methods and in-depth interviews. Her research interests also include issues of identity, femininity, and social advocacy. During the 2024-2025 term, she is a visiting scholar at MIT SHASS, holding the Diversity Pre-doctoral Fellowship within both the Women's and Gender Studies Program and the Comparative Media Studies/Writing Department.

Nora's PhD dissertation, titled “Navigating Double Oppression Online: How Digital Content Creators Maintain Their Ideological Integrity under Algorithmic Bias and Turkish Authoritarianism,” analyzes the experiences of digital content creators navigating Turkey’s complex political landscapes. These "alternative creators," particularly women and LGBTQ+ individuals, advocate for progressive ideologies despite facing censorship, governmental constraints, and identity-based hate. While existing studies primarily focus on North America and Western Europe, her research offers a diverse perspective, illuminating the challenges politically precarious creators encounter in authoritarian regimes.

Nora holds a master’s degree in Communication from North Carolina State University and a BA in English Language and Literature from Istanbul University. She is also a graduate fellow at UMass Amherst's Global Technology for Social Justice Lab (GloTech).