Q. (Qian) Huang, Dr

Assistant Professor (2023-Present) in the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at University of Groningen

My research interests and expertise include digital vigilantism, digital harms, creator culture, and digital culture in general. My research intersects media studies and surveillance studies through lenses of critical theories such as feminism and post-colonialism. I am currently working on research projects studying how content creators and general citizens negotiate their identities and manage their visibility in daily production practices in contemporary surveillance culture (including potential peer surveillance, platform governance, and state censorship) and influencer culture, especially in transnational contexts. 

I teach in BA & MA courses, including coordination and lectures (Media, Culture & Society; Imagining the Digital; ), seminars (Introduction to Cultural Industries; Platform Studies; Thinkers and Theories). I am also providing mentorship and research tutorials for a Research Master student. My teaching has been consistently highly evaluated by students, with an average score of 4.7/5.0 for courses I have designed and taught.

Visiting Research Fellow (2024) at the University of Oxford China Centre

I was invited to research and teach about Chinese digital cultures at the China Centre. I gave a guest lecture on Chinese nationalist digital vigilantism in the Contemporary China Seminar Series. I was also invited to deliver a research talk about Chinese content creators' cautious labor in the workshop Solitude and Community in Contemporary Chinese Culture.

Lecturer (2022-2023) in the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at University of Groningen

I have been teaching since September 2022 in BA & MA courses, including lectures (Media, Culture & Society; Platform and Media Industries 2; Imagining the Digital; Media Spaces & Practices), seminars (Studying Media in Everyday Life; Introduction to Cultural Industries; Academic Skills; Platform Studies; Thinkers and Theories; Introduction to Media Studies). I am also providing mentorship and research tutorials for a Research Master student. My teaching has been consistently highly evaluated by students, with an average score of 4.7/5.0 for courses I have designed and taught.

Lecturer (2017-2022) in the Department of Media and Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam

I taught for five years in IBCoM courses, including Academic Skills, International and Global Communication, Communication as Social Force, Communication Technologies and their Impacts, Qualitative Research Methods, and Privacy, Surveillance and New Media Technologies. I also designed and taught in the newly founded MA programme Digitalisation, Surveillance and Society, including Digitalisation and Social Change, Master Thesis Class, and Surveillance and The Media. I supervised bachelor and master theses focusing on privacy and surveillance. My teaching was consistently highly evaluated by students, with an average score of 5.6/6.0 for 13 different courses I have taught. I was also invited to present in lectures and seminars as a guest lecturer in our university’s other Bachelor and Master courses.

Ph.D. (2017-2022) in the Department of Media and Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam

Project Title: The Assemblage of Social Death: Mapping Digital Vigilantism in China. Digital vigilantism (DV) is a process where citizens who are facilitated by digital media and technology are collectively offended by other citizens’ activities and use visibility as a weapon to conduct mediated policing and control. The project will offer a conceptually and empirically grounded understanding of DV practices in China.

Master of Arts (2013-2014) in Global Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong 

Thesis Title: Diaosi as a Way of Speaking. The thesis concludes that diaosi speaking does not only reflect the current decreasing social mobility and the only-child generation’s mentality in China, but it also serves as the vent of social discontent and meanwhile constitutes a group identity related to a generation and social class. The thesis is later revised and published as a book chapter.

Bachelor of Arts (2009-2013) in English and International Studies at China Foreign Affairs University