UCD Centre for Digital Policy

Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández is Associate Professor in the School of Information and Communication Studies at UCD and an adjunct at the Queensland University of Technology (UCD). She has established an international reputation and a substantial ongoing research agenda around platform studies, harmful content and behaviour online, and the development of digital methods.

In 2023, she was elected Open Seat in the Executive Committee (two-year term) of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). Matamoros-Fernández has also consulted and provided advice for industry and government, including Meta Platforms, Google, the Australian eSafety Commissioner and Ofcom.

Research Interests and projects

Dr Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández researches social media cultures, platform governance, online harms, and algorithmic systems. She was an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Research (DECRA) Fellow (2023-2025) (DE230101558). Her DECRA project examined harmful humour’s impact on women’s wellbeing online, how it is poorly managed by social media platforms and has not been integrated into online safety regulation and policy. The project brought together sociocultural theory, social media analysis, and interviews to better understand the dynamics of harmful humour online in Australia.

She is currently involved in an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on Australian experiences of algorithmic culture on TikTok (DP240102939) with colleagues at QUT and the University of Sydney.

Matamoros-Fernández has also received research funding from industry, such as Meta and The Volkswagen Foundation.

Affiliations

Assoc Prof Matamoros-Fernández is a member of the QUT Digital Media Research Centre and Affiliate Investigator at the national Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S). She holds degrees in Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), a Master of New Media and Digital Culture from the University of Amsterdam, and a PhD from the Queensland University of Technology.

Teaching 

Assoc Prof Matamoros-Fernández delivers the PG modules Topics in Digital Media and Communication and Media Management Project (with Paraic Kerrigan) in the School of Information and Communication Studies, UCD.

Publications

Ariadna’s research has been published in New Media & Society; Information, Communication & Society; Television & New Media; Internet Policy Review; Feminist Media Studies and other international, peer-reviewed journals. She is also co-author of the book WhatsApp: From a One-to-one Messaging App to a Global Communication Platform (Polity).

 

She is currently preparing an edited collection on Platforms and Society with QUT colleagues (under review with De Gruynter). For a full publication list please see Ariadna’s Google Scholar Profile. 

  • Matamoros-Fernández, A., Jude, N. (in press). The importance of centering harm in data infrastructures for ‘soft moderation’: X’s Community Notes as a case study. New Media & Society. (special issue Infrastructures of datafication)
  • Matamoros-Fernández, A., Bartolo, L., Alpert, B. (2024). Acting like a bot as a defiance of platform power. Examining YouTubers’ patterns of ‘inauthentic’ behavior on Twitter during COVID-19. New Media & Society (Q1). (special issue ADMS)
  • Rieder, B., Borra, E., Coromina, O. & Matamoros-Fernández, A. (2023). Making a Living in the Creator Economy: A Large-Scale Study of Linking on YouTube. Social Media + Society.
  • Bartolo, L. & Matamoros-Fernández, A. (2023). Online Harms. Yale ISP: Platform Governance Terminologies Essay Series. Yale Law School. Available at: https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/center/isp/documents/onlineharm_ispessayseries_2023.pdf
  • Matamoros-Fernández, A., Bartolo, L., & Troynar, L. (2023). Humour as an online safety issue: exploring solutions to help platforms better address this form of expression. Internet Policy Review(Q1,), 12(1). DOI: 10.14763/2023.1.1677
  • Matamoros-Fernández, A., Rodriguez, A., & Wikstrom, P. (2022). Humor That Harms? Examining Racist Audio-Visual Memetic Media on TikTok During Covid-19. Media & Communication (Q1).
  • Matamoros-Fernández, A., Gray, J., Bartolo, L., Burgess, J., Suzor, N. (2021). What’s ‘up next’? Investigating algorithmic recommendations on YouTube at scale and over time. Media & Communication (Q1). Special Issue on algorithms.
  • Matamoros-Fernández, A., Farkas, J. (2021). Racism, Hate Speech and Social Media: A Review and Critique. Television and New Media (Q1) Special Issue in Digital Racism

 

Contact: ariadna.matamorosfernandez@ucd.ie

Media

Ariadna is available for opinion and comment to journalists. Her previous publications and appearances include: El Pais, Washington Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, BBC radio, and ABC News. She has also written for The Conversation and Tech Policy Press.

 

 

Skip to content