Dr Aleena Chia

Staff details

Position

Lecturer

Department

Media, Communications and Cultural Studies

Email

a.chia (@gold.ac.uk)

Links

Website
aleenachia.org

Twitter
@aleenachia

Aleena researches cultures of creativity and digital labour in game production and computational wellness.

Dr Aleena Chia uses ethnographic and textual methods to study cultures of creativity such as vocational passion and computational creativity in digital game production, New Age innovation rituals in tech cultures, and wellness discourses in social media disconnection.

Academic qualifications

PhD (Indiana University) 2017

Teaching and supervision

Dr Chia teaches the modules Key Debates in Media Studies, Race and Technology, and is programme co-convener (Theory) of the BA in Media and Communications. Aleena is available to supervise PhD & MA students who use interpretive approaches to study digital labour, media theory, creative industries, critical game studies, and ethnography of media.

BA Media & Communications

Featured publications

2022: Chia A. and Neves, J. "The Data Pharmacy: Wearables from Sensing to Stimulation." OA Download: Media Theory. 6(2): 77-110.

2022: Chia A. "The Metaverse, but not the way you think: Game engines and automation beyond game development." Critical Studies in Media Communication.

2022: Chia, A. “The Artist and the Automaton in Digital Game Production.” Convergence.

2022: Neves, J., Chia, A., Paasonen, S., & Sundaram, R. TechnoPharmacology. University of Minnesota Press.

2022: Chia, A., Jorge, A. and Karppi, T. (Eds.) Reckoning with Social Media. Rowman & Littlefield. 

Publications and research outputs

Book Section

Chia, Aleena; Jorge, Ana and Karppi, Tero. 2021. Reckoning with Social Media in the Pandemic Denouement. In: Aleena Chia; Ana Jorge and Tero Karppi, eds. Reckoning with Social Media. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 1-10. ISBN 9781538147405

Chia, Aleena and Beattie, Alex. 2021. Ethics and Experimentation in The Light Phone and Google Digital Wellbeing. In: Aleena Chia; Ana Jorge and Tero Karppi, eds. Reckoning with Social Media. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 127-146. ISBN 9781538147405

Aleena received her PhD in Communication and Culture from Indiana University in 2017 and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Finland's Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies in 2018. Before joining Goldsmiths, she was Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, Canada. Her work has been supported by funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and an internship at Microsoft Research New England's Social Media Collective.

Dr Chia is available to supervise PhD & MA students who use interpretive approaches to study digital labour, media theory, creative industries, critical game studies, and ethnography of media.

Photo Credit: Jenni Toivonen