Molly Kalan

Communications professional & media scholar

Hey there! I'm a media and communications professional based in Boston. I'm passionate about media strategy and research, and have experience ranging from teaching multimedia production and crafting PR campaigns to leading marketing activations and event series. I've also conducted extensive research on how people express grief online. I love soaking up knowledge from those around me, talking comm and making things happen. Get in touch!

Grants & Projects

Expressions of grief on Facebook: Navigating discomfort, persistent identity, and public memorialization.
This qualitative study explores concepts of online identity and memorialization in relation to Facebook users' mourning practices. In-depth interviews were conducted and analyzed for emergent themes as part of this master's thesis. Defended October 2013. Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.

Digital Methods Summer School 2013: On the challenges of studying social media data.
Research program affiliated with the Digital Methods Initiative and New Media & Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam. Amsterdam, Netherlands.  www.digitalmethods.net

  • "Media ecology of a revolt: Following hashtags and hyperlinks in the Gezi protest movement". Project presented at Digital Methods Summer School, June 2013.
  • "Amazon as Issue Engine: Islands of Weird". Project presented at Digital Methods Summer School, July 2013.

S.I. Newhouse School for Public Communications Research/Creative Grant
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.
To complete research for a paper titled “The Digital Divide on the Move: Demographic Influences on Patterns of Mobile Phone Use” with Rachel Somerstein, Ph.D. candidate in Mass Communication, and Alicia Wright, M.A. student in Media Studies at Syracuse University

Conferences

"Expressions of grief on Facebook: Navigating discomfort, persistent identity, and public memorialization". Thesis research presented at Translating Memory and Remembrance across the Disciplines, New Paltz, NY, March 2016. [LINK]

"Status update as memoir: An exploration of grief expression across media". Presentation at the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 2015. Session Chair for “Death in the Digital Age” panel.

"Expressions of grief on Facebook: Navigating discomfort, persistent identity, and public memorialization". Thesis research presented at Theorizing the Web (TtW14), New York, NY, April 2014. [LINK]

“Bereavement on the Internet: Facebook Profile as Digital Memory Object". Paper presented at the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, Chicago, IL, April 2014.

“‘The Fact is, I’m Gay’: Coming Out as a Public Figure”. Poster presentation at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference, Washington, DC, August 2013.

“‘The Fact is, I’m Gay’: Coming Out as a Public Figure”. Paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Midwinter Conference, Norman, OK, March 2013. Awarded Top Paper Abstract.

“‘No Words! Just Tears #DearWhitney’: How Social Media Sites Change the Way We Learn About Death Online”. Presentation at the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, Washington, DC, March 2013.

“The Digital Divide on the Move: Demographic Influences on Patterns of Mobile Phone Use”. Scholar-to-scholar presentation at the National Communication Association Conference, Orlando, FL, November 2012.

“The Digital Divide on the Move: How demographics influence instrumental, advanced, communication, and information-seeking behaviors among mobile phone users”. Paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Midwinter Conference, Norman, OK, March 2012.

“Get on the Bus and Black Masculinity”. Paper presented at the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Research Conference, Villanova, PA, April 2010.