Dr Kylie Jarrett

Biography
I am Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer and teach modules related to social media, subcultures and cultural theory. I am also Coordinator of the MA in Critical and Creative Media.
My research focus is theorising the political economy of digital media and in particular the commercial Web, with an emphasis on digital labour. I am author of Digital Labor (Polity, 2022) and Feminism, Labour and Digital Media: The Digital Housewife
(Routledge, 2016) applying Marxist feminist theories of domestic work to understand the practice of consumer labour. This was also translated into Portuguese as A Dona de Casa Digital: Feminismo, Trabalho e Mídias Digitais (Editora Politeia, 2021).
With Susanna Paasonen and Ben Light, I am co-author of #NSFW: Sex, Humor and Risk in Social Media (MIT Press, 2019) - winner of the 2020 Association of Internet Researchers book award. With colleagues Ken Hillis and Michael Petit, I have explored the commercial search industry, published in the book Google and the Culture of Search (Routledge, 2013). I have also published extensively on a variety of social media platforms, apps and websites.
I am currently Working Group 1 Leader and on the Management Committee of the Platform Work Inclusion Living Lab (P-Will) COST Action. I was recently co-PI of a IRC/AHRC-UKRI UK-Ireland Collaboration in the Digital Humanities Networking project: Intersections: Feminism, Technology and Digital Humanities and am co-I on the Full Stack Feminism project which emerged from this network.
I am also co-editor of the SAGE Handbook of Digital Labour (under contract, 2025).
I am available to supervise research in all dimensions of online culture, gender and media, and questions of labour and cultural work.
My media expertise is in user experiences of social media, the politics of the commercial Web, online sexuality, and gender issues relating to work in digital media industries.
Research Interests
My research focus is the critical analysis of the political economy of commercial digital media using various theoretical frameworks, but with an emphasis on feminist and Marxist approaches. My expertise is in the area of digital labour and cultural work, ranging from studies of social media users to platform workers and beyond. I also explore the cultural dimensions of user activity on social media as well as articulations of gender and sexuality in online practices.
Research Projects
Book
Year | Publication | |
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2022 | Jarrett, Kylie (2022) Digital Labor. London: Polity. | |
2021 | Jarrett, Kylie (2021) A Dona de Casa Digital: feminismo, trabalho e mídia digital. Brazil: Editora Politeia. | |
2019 | Paasonen, Susanna, Kylie Jarrett and Ben Light (2019) #NSFW: Sex, Humor and Risk in Social Media. Massachusetts: MIT Press. | |
2016 | Jarrett, Kylie (2016) Feminism, Labour and Digital Media: The Digital Housewife. New York and London: Routledge. [DOI] | |
2013 | Hillis, Ken, Michael Petit and Kylie Jarrett (2013) Google and the Culture of Search. London: Routledge. |
Book Chapter
Year | Publication | |
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2023 | Jarret, Kylie (2023) 'Die Reproduktion des digitalen Unternehmers: Digitale Arbeit als feminisierte Arbeit/Reproducing the Digital Entrepreneur: Digital Labour as Feminised Work' In: Theorien Des Digitalen Kapitalismus. Germany : Suhrkamp. | |
2022 | Light, Ben, Susanna Paasonen and Kylie Jarrett (2022) 'Rethinking Dick Pics' In: Introducing the New Sexuality Studies: Original Essays. London : Routledge. | |
2021 | Jarrett, Kylie (2021) 'Digital Ireland: Leprechaun economics, Silicon Docks and crisis' In: Routledge International Handbook of Irish Studies. London : Routledge. | |
2019 | Jarrett, Kylie (2019) 'Through the Reproductive Lens: Labour and struggle at the intersection of culture and economy' In: Digital Objects Digital Subjects: Interdisciplinary perspectives on capitalism, labour and politics in the age of Big Data. London : University of Westminster Press. | |
2018 | Jarrett Kylie (2018) 'Exploitation, alienation, and liberation: Interpreting the political economy of digital writing' In: The Routledge Handbook of Digital Writing and Rhetoric. London : Routledge. [DOI] | |
2015 | Jarrett, Kylie (2015) 'Devaluing Binaries: Marxist Feminism and the Value of Consumer Labour' In: RECONSIDERING VALUE AND LABOUR IN THE DIGITAL AGE. BASINGSTOKE : PALGRAVE. | |
2015 | Jarrett, Kylie (2015) 'Let's Express Our Friendship by Sending Each Other Funny Links instead of Actually Talking: Gifts, Commodities, and Social Reproduction in Facebook' In: Networked Affect. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press. | |
2014 | Jarrett, Kylie (2014) 'A Database of Intention?' In: Society of the Query Reader: Reflections on Web Search. Amsterdam : Institute of Network Cultures. http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publication/society-of-the-query-reader-reflections-on-web-search/ | |
2009 | Jarrett, Kylie (2009) 'Through An Interface Darkly: Consumer power and agency on the commercial Web' In: Ruggill,J.C., McAllister K. S. and Chaney, J. R(Eds.). The Computer Culture Reader. : Cambridge University Press. | |
2008 | Hicks, Margaret and Kylie Jarrett (2008) 'Providing Induction, Orientation and Professional Development of all Staff Involved in Transnational Teaching' In: Teaching in Transnational Education: Enhancing learning for offshore and international students. New York : Routledge. | |
2006 | Jarrett, Kylie (2006) 'The Perfect Community: Disciplining the eBay user' In: Everyday eBay: Culture, consumption and collecting online. New York : Routledge. | |
2004 | Jarrett, Kylie (2004) 'Battlecat Then, Battlecat Now: Temporal shifts, hyperlinking and database subjectivities' In: Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community and Culture of Weblogs. Minnesota, MN : University of Minnesota. [Link] [Full-Text] |
Peer Reviewed Journal
Year | Publication | |
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2022 | Jarrett, K. (2022) 'Showing off your best assets: Rethinking commodification in the online creator economy'. Sociologia del lavoro, . [Link] [DOI] | |
2019 | Paasonen, Susanna, Ben Light and Kylie Jarrett (2019) 'The Dick Pic: Harassment, Curation, and Desire'. Social Media + Society, 5 . [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2018 | Jarrett, Kylie (2018) 'Laundering women's history: A feminist critique of the social factory'. First Monday, 23 (3). [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2017 | Jarrett, Kylie (2017) 'Le travail immatériel dans l’usine sociale: une critique féministe'. 13 :12-25. [Full-Text] | |
2016 | Jarrett, Kylie (2016) 'Queering alienation in digital media'. First Monday, 21 (10). [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2016 | Jarrett, Kylie and Dylan Wittkower (2016) 'Economies of the internet'. First Monday, 21 (10). [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2016 | Jarrett, Kylie and Jeneen Naji (2016) 'What Would Media Studies Do? Social media Shakespeare as a technosocial process'. BORROWERS AND LENDERS: THE JOURNAL OF SHAKESPEARE AND APPROPRIATION, . [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2014 | Jarrett, Kylie (2014) 'The Relevance of Women's Work: Social Reproduction and Immaterial Labor in Digital Media'. Television and New Media, 15 (1):14-29. [DOI] | |
2014 | Jarrett, Kylie (2014) 'The Alternative to Post-Hegemony: Reproduction and Austerity's Social Factory'. CULTURE UNBOUND: JOURNAL OF CURRENT CULTURAL RESEARCH, 6 (1). [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2008 | Jarrett, Kylie (2008) 'Interactivity is evil! A critical investigation of web 2.0'. First Monday, 13 (3). [Full-Text] | |
2008 | Jarrett, Kylie (2008) 'Beyond broadcast yourself (TM): The future of YouTube'. Media International Australia, 126 :132-144. [Full-Text] | |
2009 | Jarrett, Kylie (2009) 'Private Talk in the Public Sphere: Podcasting talk as broadcasting talk'. COMMUNICATION, POLITICS AND CULTURE, 42 (2):116-135. [Full-Text] | |
2005 | Jarrett, Kylie (2005) 'Ordering Disorder: ninemsn, hypertext and databases'. M/C JOURNAL, 7 (6). [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2003 | Jarrett, Kylie (2003) 'Labour of Love: An archaeology of affect as power in e-commerce'. Sociology, 39 (4):335-351. [Full-Text] |
Other Journal
Year | Publication | |
---|---|---|
2020 | Voros, Florian, Susanna Paasonen, Kylie Jarrett and Ben Light (2020) 'Puritanisme sexuel et capitalisme numérique: Entretien avec Susanna Paasonen, Kylie Jarrett, Ben Light' Revue Française de Socio-Économie, 25 (2) :167-174. | |
2018 | Pencole, Marc-Antoine and Kylie Jarrett (2018) 'Des salaires pour facebooker » : du féminisme à la cyber exploitation – entretien avec Kylie Jarrett' Periode, . [Link] | |
2018 | Jarrett, K and MA Pencole (2018) 'Kylie Jarrett: Feminism, Labor and Digital Media' Historical Materialism, . [Link] |
Conference Contribution
Blog
Year | Publication | |
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2021 | The IFTe collective (2021) The Chain - an intersectional feminist Digital Humanities project. BLOG | |
2020 | do Nascimento Grohmann, Rafael and Kylie Jarrett (2020) Trabalho digital em lentes feministas marxistas: entrevista com Kylie Jarrett. BLOG [Link] |
Book Review
Year | Publication | |
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2021 | Jarrett, Kylie (2021) A Precarious Game: The Illusion of Dream Jobs in the Video Game Industry. LONDON: BREV [DOI] | |
2019 | Jarrett, Kylie (2019) Public privates: feminist geographies of mediated spaces. ABINGDON: BREV [DOI] | |
2016 | Jarrett, Kylie (2016) Putting the Inalienable to Work: Labour and Life in Contemporary Capitalism. BREV [Link] | |
2016 | Jarrett, Kylie (2016) Review: Uberworked and Underpaid. BREV [Link] | |
2010 | Jarrett, Kylie (2010) YouTube: Online video and participatory culture. BREV [DOI] [Full-Text] |
Electronic Book
Year | Publication | |
---|---|---|
2016 | Leyda, Julia, Rosalind Galt and Kylie Jarrett (2016) Post-cinema, Digitality, Politics. Falmer, UK: ELEB [Link] http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/post-cinema/ |
Magazine Article
Year | Publication | |
---|---|---|
2014 | Jarrett, Kylie (2014) Google: een database van intenties?. Amsterdam: MA [Link] |
Electronic Article
Year | Publication | |
---|---|---|
2013 | Jarrett, Kylie (2013) Cead Mile Mugail - A Hundred Thousand Muggings. ELEA [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2012 | Jarrett, Kylie (2012) Accounts of Accountability. ELEA [Link] |
Certain data included herein are derived from the © Web of Science (2023) of Clarivate. All rights reserved.
Committees
Teaching Interests
I teach primarily in the areas of digital media and cultural theory, including the modules Social Media Storytelling, Media & Cultural Theory, Fans and Subcultures and the MA module Media Theory.
I also have a background in academic staff development in Teaching and
Learning. I occasionally run curriculum development seminars for
interested staff.
I am available to supervise in all areas relating to digital media but particularly research into the political economy, labour and gendered aspects of its industries.
Current doctoral supervision:
Chloe Eaton: Concepts of Family in Irish Family Vlogging