[Air-L] ANU Sociology Seminar Series: "Young people, platform practices and dimensions of the ‘data gaze’", Julia Coffey & Steven Threadgold, Monday 17 February, 12 - 1pm

[Thao Phan]

Hi all, excited to announce the first set of speakers for the ANU Sociology
Seminar Series for 2025. Our first speakers are A/Prof Julia Coffey and
A/Prof Steven Threadgold presenting their paper "Young people, platform
practices and dimensions of the ‘data gaze’"



Hope you can join us!



All the best,

Thao

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*Sociology Seminar Series 2025*

"Young people, platform practices and dimensions of the ‘data gaze’"

A/Prof Julia Coffey, University of Newcastle

A/Prof Steven Threadgold, University of Newcastle



*Date:* Monday 17 Feb, 12 – 1pm

*Location:* 4.69 RSSS Building & Online (Zoom)

*Full details: *
https://sociology.cass.anu.edu.au/events/young-people-platform-practices-and-dimensions-data-gaze
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*Abstract*

Data is now central to how we experience the social world. The concept of
the ‘data gaze’ helps to understand how everyday life is viewed through
data ‘in ever more forensic, strategic, predictive, and knowing ways’ (Beer
2018, p.25). In this presentation we present preliminary theorising from a
range of projects to explore different dimensions of the data gaze where
the classificatory logics of algorithmic and machinic gazes intersect with
(and sometimes cross over) with young people’s own capacities to see and
know themselves.

Careful curation of images and content is an increasingly common-sense way
for young people to negotiate the intense pressures of visibility in a
digitally-networked world. This context requires developing ever-finer
capacities to differentiate and classify images and individuals. Drawing
from a study of young people’s selfie editing practices, we discuss
the image-reading and classificatory systems young people use. This
provides new understandings of how normalising logics of visibility and
popularity shape how young people view themselves, their peers, and the
world around them.

We use the ‘data gaze’ to examine how young people critically engage with
the with digital platforms central to their daily lives; and to also
critically examine how platforms function to extract data and value from
young people’s everyday practices. We ask: how are young people imagined by
this data gaze? How does the data gaze inform their own practices,
subjectivities, and orientations to their lives?



*Bios*

Julia Coffey is Associate Professor in Sociology at University of
Newcastle, Australia. Her research focuses on youth and gender, with
particular interests in feminism, embodiment and body work practices; and
how bodies and identity is mediated through digital technologies and
environments. She currently leads an Australian Research Council Discovery
Project exploring young people's digital presentation and image-editing
practices. She is on the editorial boards of Journal of Youth Studies,
Qualitative Research, and Journal of Applied Youth Studies. She is the
author of Body Work: Youth, Gender and Health (Routledge) and edited or
coauthored titles Learning Bodies(Springer, with Helen Cahill and Shelley
Budgeon), Youth Sociology (Red Globe Press, with Steve Roberts, Alan France
and Cathy Waite) and Gender in an Age of Post-truth Populism (Bloomsbury,
with Penny Jane Burke, Rosalind Gill and Akane Kanai. Her latest book is
Everyday Embodiment: Rethinking Youth Body Image (2021, Palgrave
Macmillan).



Steven Threadgold is Associate Professor of Sociology the Director of the
Newcastle Youth Studies Centre at University of Newcastle, Australia. His
research focuses on youth and class, with particular interests in unequal
and alternative work and career trajectories; underground and independent
creative scenes; cultural formations of taste, and financial practices.
Steve an Associate Editor of Journal of Youth Studies, and on the Editorial
Boards of The Sociological Review, DIY, Alternative Culture & Society, and
Journal of Applied Youth Studies. His latest book is Bourdieu and Affect:
Towards a Theory of Affective Affinities (Bristol University Press). Youth,
Class and Everyday Struggles (Routledge) won the 2020 Raewyn Connell Prize
for best first book in Australian sociology. His latest edited collection
with Jessica Gerrard is Class in Australia.

This seminar will be chaired by A/Prof Gavin Smith (ANU)