Visiting Period: 17 July – 30 July 2024
Tom Divon is an ethnographer of user-platform interactions, focusing on creator culture, platform affordances, and user-generated content. He explores how platforms cultivate social-political cultures and facilitate participatory dynamics that allow creators to engage with activism, trauma, war, and conflict. In his PhD research, Divon delves into how TikTok Jewish and Palestinian creators interact with the platform’s moderation infrastructures to negotiate and navigate their performative combat against antisemitism and hate speech, as well as their use of memetics vernaculars in identity-driven conflicts. Steaming from his research trajectory, Divon leads a network of scholars who examine TikTok’s cultural dominance in the MENA region. This initiative aims to dissect the complex creator cultures in the Middle East, intersecting human rights, freedom of creation and expression, and the obstacles imposed by authoritarian regimes. Through this collaborative effort, Divon and his colleagues are dedicated to advocating for actionable insights that empower creators, moving towards a supportive and sustainable creator culture in the region.