Skip to main content
Zeena Feldman_Approved_2401

Dr Zeena Feldman

Senior Lecturer in Digital Culture

  • Director of Queer@King's

Research interests

  • Digital

Biography

Dr Zeena Feldman’s research explores intersections between digital communication technologies and everyday life.

Her work is especially interested in how digital technologies impact understandings and performances of traditionally analogue concepts – for instance, belonging, identity, wellbeing and power. She currently runs the Quitting Social Media project, which explores digital detox and disconnection.

Zeena has published widely, including in Information, Communication & Society; the European Journal of Cultural Studies; Feminist Media Studies; Celebrity Studies; TripleC; and Cultural Policy, Criticism & Management Research.

She has also written for The Independent, OpenDemocracy and The Conversation. She is the editor of Art & the Politics of Visibility (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2017) and co-editor with Deborah Lupton of Digital Food Cultures (Routledge, 2020).

Her monograph, Belonging in the Sharing Economy, is due out later this year. Zeena enjoys speaking with journalists about her work, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and other events around the world.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

  • Digital detox and disconnection
  • The sharing economy
  • Online communities
  • Work and labour in the digital age
  • Wellbeing and the digital
  • Belonging and identity
  • Digital food cultures.

Zeena is not currently accepting new PhD applications. 

Teaching

Zeena Feldman teaches on the Department of Digital Humanities' postgraduate programmes. She is interested in critical approaches to social media and smartphone use and other digitally-mediated practices. 

Expertise and Public Engagement

Expertise:

  • The sharing economy (e.g. Uber, Airbnb, TaskRabbit)
  • Digital detox
  • Social media and smartphone addiction
  • Digital food cultures
  • Work and labour in the digital economy
  • Online conflict
  • Mental health, wellbeing and self-care apps
  • Belonging and identity

Recent media appearances:

  • Late Night Woman’s Hour (2017), BBC Radio 4, ‘Work and Rest’ episode.
  • Music Matters (2017) BBC Radio 3, ‘Music in the Time of Our Lives’ episode.

Projects:

  • Quitting Social Media: Zeena leads this project, which explores how people negotiate the pleasures and pressures of today’s connectivity culture.  
  • Internet Rights & Principles Coalition: The IRPC is a network based at the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Zeena has worked with the IRPC for several years on the design and production of its Charter booklet series, currently available in 6 languages. More at http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/site/charter
  • Global Internet Governance Academic Network: GigaNet is a global network of scholars working on issues of internet governance. Zeena led the network’s visual rebranding campaign in 2016-17. 

Zeena is a frequent speaker at conferences, workshops and other events around the world. 

    Research

    CDC header
    Centre for Digital Culture

    The Centre for Digital Culture at King’s College London is an interdisciplinary research centre promoting research and debate on digital culture

    Q@K banner
    Queer@King's

    Centre for research and teaching in gender and sexuality studies and a hub for collaborative work with queer activists, artists, and communities.

    Header
    Centre for Technology and the Body

    Shaping stories of embodied technology: from the plough to the touchscreen.

    News

    King's academics to advise House of Lords on LGBTQ+ policy

    The Global Cultures Institute’s Queer@King's research centre to lead on new initiative with the House of Lords to address the policy needs of LGBTQ+...

    Palace of Westminster and Westminster Bridge

    King's experts unite to fight LGBTQ+ health inequalities

    A 'supergroup’ of experts from across the University are pooling their knowledge and resources to help establish King’s as a global centre of research...

    Stethoscope and LGBT rainbow ribbon pride symbol

    Testing Ground opens at Science Gallery London

    New exhibition changes the ways we think about our invisible connections – to the cosmos, to nanoparticles, and to each other.

    Particle Shrine - Web Size

    Dr Zeena Feldman on how social media affects the way we listen to music

    Listen back as Dr Zeena Feldman talks to BBC Radio Three's 'Music Matters' programme about how social media can affect the ways we listen to music.

    BBC Radio 3

    Dr Zeena Feldman on the Facebook election

    Digital Humanities lecturer Dr Zeena Feldman has written for OpenDemocracy on the "Facebook witch hunt"

    Facebook witch hunt

    Events

    06MarPerfect Feeling Judged on Social Media

    Book Launch of Rosalind Gill’s Perfect: Feeling Judged on Social Media

    Join author Prof Rosalind Gill as she discusses her new book, Perfect: Feeling Judged on Social Media.

    Please note: this event has passed.

    23JunSIM Project

    Refugee Week SIM Project Workshops

    Creative workshops at the London Design Biennale to explore the ways that smartphone SIM cards provide a portable sense of belonging.

    Please note: this event has passed.

    04FebSharing Mobilities Image

    Book Launch: Sharing Mobilities - Questioning Our Right to the City

    Join Davide Arcidiacono and Mike Duggan for the launch of their recently published book, Sharing Mobilities: Questioning Our Right to the City in the...

    Please note: this event has passed.

    Features

    The SIM Project: Illuminating networked belonging in migration

    A collaboration between Dr Zeena Feldman (Senior Lecturer in Digital Culture) and King’s artist-in-residence Liz Hingley.

    1903x558 LizHingley_banner

    RuPaul's Drag Race: How social media made drag's subversive art form into a capitalist money maker

    RuPaul’s Drag Race has become a behemoth with seemingly unstoppable forward motion.

    RuPauls Drag race shutterstock

      Research

      CDC header
      Centre for Digital Culture

      The Centre for Digital Culture at King’s College London is an interdisciplinary research centre promoting research and debate on digital culture

      Q@K banner
      Queer@King's

      Centre for research and teaching in gender and sexuality studies and a hub for collaborative work with queer activists, artists, and communities.

      Header
      Centre for Technology and the Body

      Shaping stories of embodied technology: from the plough to the touchscreen.

      News

      King's academics to advise House of Lords on LGBTQ+ policy

      The Global Cultures Institute’s Queer@King's research centre to lead on new initiative with the House of Lords to address the policy needs of LGBTQ+...

      Palace of Westminster and Westminster Bridge

      King's experts unite to fight LGBTQ+ health inequalities

      A 'supergroup’ of experts from across the University are pooling their knowledge and resources to help establish King’s as a global centre of research...

      Stethoscope and LGBT rainbow ribbon pride symbol

      Testing Ground opens at Science Gallery London

      New exhibition changes the ways we think about our invisible connections – to the cosmos, to nanoparticles, and to each other.

      Particle Shrine - Web Size

      Dr Zeena Feldman on how social media affects the way we listen to music

      Listen back as Dr Zeena Feldman talks to BBC Radio Three's 'Music Matters' programme about how social media can affect the ways we listen to music.

      BBC Radio 3

      Dr Zeena Feldman on the Facebook election

      Digital Humanities lecturer Dr Zeena Feldman has written for OpenDemocracy on the "Facebook witch hunt"

      Facebook witch hunt

      Events

      06MarPerfect Feeling Judged on Social Media

      Book Launch of Rosalind Gill’s Perfect: Feeling Judged on Social Media

      Join author Prof Rosalind Gill as she discusses her new book, Perfect: Feeling Judged on Social Media.

      Please note: this event has passed.

      23JunSIM Project

      Refugee Week SIM Project Workshops

      Creative workshops at the London Design Biennale to explore the ways that smartphone SIM cards provide a portable sense of belonging.

      Please note: this event has passed.

      04FebSharing Mobilities Image

      Book Launch: Sharing Mobilities - Questioning Our Right to the City

      Join Davide Arcidiacono and Mike Duggan for the launch of their recently published book, Sharing Mobilities: Questioning Our Right to the City in the...

      Please note: this event has passed.

      Features

      The SIM Project: Illuminating networked belonging in migration

      A collaboration between Dr Zeena Feldman (Senior Lecturer in Digital Culture) and King’s artist-in-residence Liz Hingley.

      1903x558 LizHingley_banner

      RuPaul's Drag Race: How social media made drag's subversive art form into a capitalist money maker

      RuPaul’s Drag Race has become a behemoth with seemingly unstoppable forward motion.

      RuPauls Drag race shutterstock