Dr. Rebecca Scharlach

Vita

Since May 2024, Dr. Rebecca Scharlach is an advisory member of ZeMKI and affiliated researcher of the lab Platform Governance Media and Technology. She investigates the social, political, and power relations connected with and constituted by social media platforms. Her work has been published in leading outlets such as New Media & Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Communication, and Communication Theory.
Rebecca is a PhD Candidate at Hebrew University in the Department of Communication & Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, advised by Prof. Dr. Limor Shifman as part of the ERC-funded DigitalValues project. She submitted her dissertation, “The Construction of Values by Social Media Platforms,” in April 2024.

Research interests

• Platform Governance
• Social Media Research
• Platform Power
• Values
• Technological Systems

Memberships

• Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR)
• International Communication Association (ICA)

Publications

• Scharlach, Rebecca and Blake Hallinan (2023). “The Value Affordances of Social Media Engagement Features”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 28(6), 1-11. https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/28/6/zmad040/7326084?searchresult=1&login=false#421922698
• Scharlach, Rebecca, Blake Hallinan, and Limor Shifman (2023). “Governing Principles: Articulating Values in Social Media Platform Policies”. New Media & Society. Online First, 1-20. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448231156580
• Trillò, Tommaso; Hallinan, Blake; Green, Avishai; Kim, Bumsoo; Mizoroki, Saki; Scharlach, Rebecca; Frosh, Paul; Shifman, Limor (2023). “I Love This Photo! I Can Feel Their Hearts”. How Users Across the World Evaluate Social Media Portraiture. Journal of Communication. Online First, 1-22. https://academic.oup.com/joc/article/73/3/235/7078537
• Trillò, Tommaso, Rebecca Scharlach, Blake Hallinan, Bumsoo Kim, Saki Mizoroki, Paul Frosh, and Limor Shifman (2021). “What Does #Freedom Look Like? Instagram and the Visual Imagination of Values.” Journal of Communication 71 (6), 875-897. https://academic.oup.com/joc/article/71/6/875/6358707
• Hallinan, Blake, Rebecca Scharlach, and Limor Shifman (2022). “Beyond Neutrality: Conceptualizing Platform Values.” Communication Theory 32 (2), 201-222. https://academic.oup.com/ct/article/32/2/201/6333289
• Hallinan, Blake, Bumsoo Kim, Saki Mizoroki, Rebecca Scharlach, Tommaso Trillò, Mike Thelwall, Elad Segev, and Limor Shifman (2021). “The Value(s) of Social Media Rituals: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of New Year’s Resolutions.” Information, Communication, & Society. Online First, 1-22. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1983003
• Hallinan, Blake, Bumsoo Kim, Rebecca Scharlach, Tommaso Trillò, Saki Mizoroki, and Limor Shifman (2021). “Mapping the Transnational Imaginary of Social Media Genres.” New Media & Society 25 (3), 875-897. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14614448211012372
• Ackermann, Judith; Egger, Benjamin and Rebecca Scharlach (2019). “Programming the Postdigital: Curation of Appropriation Processes in (Collaborative) Creative Coding Spaces.” Journal of Postdigital Science and Education (2), 416-441.

Book Reviews

• Scharlach, Rebecca. “Digitale Medien zwischen Transparenz und Manipulation. Internet und politische Kommunikation in der repräsentativen Demokratie.” TV Diskurs.