How does an Instagram Account’s Digital Activism Help NOLA’s Roads? w/ Alex Turvy

The Digital Void Podcast

How does an activist Instagram account help bring attention - and change - to New Orleans’ streets? On this week’s episode, we welcome Digital Void collaborator, PhD student, and researcher Alex Turvy to discuss Look at This Fuckin’ Street: an Instagram account that highlights hazardous roads, potholes, and crumbling infrastructure to put pressure on city government to improve long-ignored conditions.

This conversation was recorded on February 27, 2023

About Alex Turvy:

Alex Turvy is a PhD student and researcher focused on digital culture and memes. Currently, he is working on a few different threads of research: how identity and authenticity are performed on social media, niche meme pages on Instagram and memetic literacy, and how boundaries and deviance are managed by communities on TikTok. What ties these together is an interest in understanding how practices on social media are woven through everyday life -- despite what you hear sometimes, social media is very much real life. Prior to this, he spent ten years working in public schools, spending five years as an early elementary teacher and five years as Director of Operations. He lives in New Orleans with his partner Devon and their daughter June.

Keep up with Alex Turvy:

Twitter | Instagram

Show Notes:

Look at This Fuckin’ Street Instagram

12:47 - Critical Discourse Analysis

20:26 - Decorated pothole, Another Decorated Pothole

31:00 - MCM Wholesale Instagram

32:15 - Digital Dualism

Editorial note: Turvy’s paper is not yet available to the public. This conversation was recorded to bring attention to a digital activist cause in New Orleans.

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