[Air-L] AoIR 2023 Dissertation Award Announcement

[Michelle, Association of Internet Researchers]

We are delighted to announce the winner of the 2023 Dissertation Award!
This year, the committee evaluated 38 dissertations. It was a long and
challenging task, made even harder by the exceptional work submitted by all
the candidates. After careful deliberation, the committee has reached the
following decisions:

The winner of the 2023 award is *Tuğçe Bidav* of Maynooth University for
her dissertation, "Global Platform, Local Labour: Precarious YouTubing in
Ireland and Turkey". Congratulations, Tuğçe!

Bidav's dissertation offers a unique perspective by comparing creative
digital labor in two countries, Turkey and Ireland. This comparative
analysis makes significant contributions to internet research by situating
creator labor in relation to platform affordances, regulatory frameworks,
and diverse geopolitical contexts. It challenges Western-centric
understandings of YouTube and provides theories grounded in localized
experiences, drawing upon data from underrepresented national contexts and
shedding light on creators from peripheral digital cultures. The
dissertation also employs an innovative mixed methods approach that spans
multiple disciplines. Tuğçe’s work is truly deserving of our recognition.

The committee has also awarded an Honorable Mention to *Julian Posada*, a
student at the University of Toronto when he wrote, "The Coloniality of
Data Work: Power and Inequality in Outsourced Data Production for Machine
Learning".

Posada's work examines the working conditions of outsourced workers in the
AI industry, with a specific focus on lower-income countries in South
America. This focus makes a significant contribution to internet research
by decolonizing theory and research, and bringing underrepresented
linguistic communities to the forefront of scholarly debate. Furthermore,
the dissertation makes policy suggestions, further extending its
contribution. Posada's work employs an intriguing and novel approach by
integrating multiple disciplines and methodologies in service of his
research.

Both of these dissertations make remarkable contributions to the field of
internet research, addressing new problems (and, particularly, the theme of
digital labor) through the lens of marginalized cases, and with innovative
approaches. They impressed the award committee greatly, and will
undoubtedly have a substantial impact on the field.

AoIR is deeply grateful to Rafael Grohmann, Christian Ritter, Chikezie
Uzuegbunam, and especially Raquel Recuero, Chair of the Dissertation Award
Committee, for the hard work that they invested in this process. (In the
spirit of transparency, we note that no committee member evaluated
dissertations written by students from their own institution.)