My research examines how digital platforms and emerging technologies organize power, visibility, participation, and belonging. Working at the intersection of communication, media studies, science and technology studies, and Black feminist thought, I study how platform governance, artificial intelligence, social media, and immersive technologies can reproduce racial and gender inequality—and how marginalized communities resist and reimagine these systems.
Using critical virtual ethnography, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and interface and policy analysis, I connect institutional structures with people’s everyday experiences. My dissertation examined women of color’s digital praxis in Meta’s Horizon Worlds and introduced the concept of “system overrides” to describe how marginalized users work within, against, and beyond technological systems. Across my research, I seek not only to explain how technological power operates, but also to recognize the people and communities already creating more just ways of communicating, governing, and belonging.
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Selected Publications
.JOURNAL ARTICLES
Adeyemo, B, & Papacharissi, Z. (2026). Unbecoming: Twitter and a better sociotechnical future. M/C Journal, 29(2), https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.3249
Gray, K. & Adeyemo, B. (2021). Not “falling for the okey-doke”: #BlackLivesMatter as resistance to disinformation in online communities. Feminist Media Studies, 21(5), 868-871, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2021.1952468
BOOK CHAPTERS
Adeyemo, B., McGee, M., Stevenson, A. & Pimentel, D. (2026). Virtual reality, real bias: Fostering inclusivity in virtual worlds. In S.J. Ahn & B. McEwan (Eds.), The Social Virtual Reality Debate. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003488460
AWARDS
2026 AoIR Dissertation Honorable Mention
2023 Meta Research PhD Fellowship, Finalist
2022 Grace Holt Memorial Award, Black Studies Department, University of Illinois at Chicago
2021 Graduate Instructor Award, Communication Department, University of Illinois at Chicago
GRANTS
2023 Dissertation Research Grant, Institution for Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP)
BREIGHA ADEYEMO, Ph.D. 