Academic Research

I study the role of new media technologies in processes of collective identification, social, and institutional change.

My research is motivated by a desire to understand how media technology is changing what it means to belong and the cultural politics associated with new forms of sociality and social organization. 

My work centers on the role myths, narratives, and affect play in socio-technical processes of collective identification, sense-making, and institutional change. Current and past projects span substantive topics of nostalgia, misinformation, and the knowledge cultures of professions such as public relations and public policy. 

Drawing on a background that spans the social sciences (sociology, public policy), humanities (French literature), and professional practice (public relations), I combine cultural and historical analysis with digital methods to map/trace the evolution of social formations and how collective meanings emerge within them. 

Research Interests

  • Conner, V. (2023). Fever Dreams and the ‘Future of Nostalgia’ on TikTok. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2023i0.13408

  • “Live Free and Die: COVID-19 as a Vector for Moral Judgment and Risk-Taking.”

  • “Myths and Markets: The Emergence of the Policy Program at the University of Chicago”

  • “PR as an Epistemic Culture: The Role of the Public Relations Profession in Managing Misinformation and Challenges to Epistemic Authority ”

Publications

Conner, V. A. (2025, in press). Fever Dreaming on TikTok: A Conceptual Framework for Performative Nostalgia. International Journal of Communication.

Rojecki, A., Conner, V. A., & Royal, P. (2024). Live Free and Die: How Social Media Amplify Populist Vaccine Resistance. Social Media+ Society, 10(3), 20563051241277293.

Conner, V. (2020). Myths and Markets: The Emergence of the Public Policy Program at the University of Chicago.
https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.11318

Projects

Conference papers

Nostalgia and Digital Media

Conner, V. (2024). NOSTALGIC NEIGHBORHOODS OF TIKTOK: MAPPING A TOPOLOGY OF AFFECTIVE PUBLICS. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2024i0.13922

  • Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference, Sheffield, UK (November 1, 2024)

Conner, VA. Digital Nostalgia, Remediated: Defining a Mediatized Emotion.

  • International Communication Association Annual Conference, Gold Coast, Australia (June 21, 2024 )

Conner, VA. Into the Depths: Re-articulating the Aesthetic Function in #nostalgiacore on TikTok.

  • Cultural Studies Association Annual Conference. (May 2024 - planned)

Conner, V. (2023). Fever Dreams and the ‘Future of Nostalgia’ on TikTok. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2023i0.13408

  • Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA (October 20, 2023 )

  • Backward Glances Biannual Graduate Student Conference, Northwestern University Screen Cultures Program, Evanston, IL (September 2022)

Epistemic Communities and Cultures

Conner, VA. PR as an Epistemic Culture: The Role of the Public Relations Profession in Managing Misinformation and Challenges to Epistemic Authority.

  • International Communication Association Annual Conference, Toronto, ON (May 29, 2023)

Misinformation

Rojecki, A., Royal, P., and Conner, VA. Live Free and Die: COVID-19 as a Vector for Moral Judgment and Risk-Taking.

  • American Political Science Association Annual Conference, Montreal, QC (September 2022)

  • International Communication Association Annual Conference, Toronto, ON (May 26, 2023)

MA thesis

Organizational Emergence

Conner, V.A. “Myths and Markets: The Emergence of the Public Policy Program at the University of Chicago.” MA Thesis, University of Chicago (August 2020) https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.11318

  • Committee: Andrew Abbott (Chair),

  • Cate Fugazzola (Preceptor)

Intellectual wayfindings

What prompted my journey from the boardroom to the classroom?

I like to say that I’ve always been at academic at heart. During my time working in the PR industry and higher education administration, I found myself wanting to dig deeper to understand the paradoxes of organizational life and what makes boundaries in the social world so messy. Mostly, I found myself questioning what I was really doing with words as J.L. Austin famously asked. Can a corporation really start a social movement? Where do frames come from? What does it mean to “construct” a narrative, and what role do professional cultures play in everyday ways of seeing and knowing the world?

My research interests, like everything in the social world, have been a process, shaped in interaction and in socially contextual ways. During my master’s studies in sociology at the University of Chicago, I cultivated a processual ontology to the study of social life that offers an heuristic for understanding my own intellectual journey and continues to influence how I think about the questions of communication, technology, culture, and society.

“Myths, however stable as they may appear, are dynamic. While they can – and are often used – within organizations to justify and legitimate paradoxical organizational behavior, they also have the power to cross social space and temporalities in a way that catalyzes subtle, yet profound, organizational change.”

— Viki Askounis Conner