INTERVIEW SERIES: The New Face of Media: Platform Capitalism, Gender, and Digital Care INTERVIEWER: Gökhan Çolak INTERVIEWEE: Krysten Stein

Mental Health on Digital Platforms: Knowledge, Access, and Commodification

Platforms like TikTok host a huge amount of mental health content. Do they truly democratize access to this knowledge, or do they create a new media economy built on commodifying therapy?

TikTok appears to expand access to mental-health knowledge, but that access is emerging from the cracks of systemic failure rather than from the platform’s benevolence. In my upcoming book, And How Does That Make You Feel? Theratainment and the Digital Commodification of Mental Health (under contract with University of California Press), I show that people are turning to digital media because the institutions that should provide care have become inaccessible, underfunded, or hostile. Many of the creators I spoke with described logging on because their clients or students had nowhere else to go.

These creators were responding to a world in which the waitlist for therapy can be months long, school counselors are overwhelmed, and insurance coverage is unpredictable and inequitable. Their care becomes a form of improvisation. It is messy, like humans, because it emerges from the collapse of structured support. TikTok does circulate language and strategies that once felt out of reach for many people. Viewers recognize themselves in discussions of trauma responses or attachment patterns and feel comforted by hearing their struggles articulated. But visibility alone does not equal democratization. It is shaped by platform logics that reward quick, emotionally intense storytelling and punish slower, more nuanced educational work.

I studied a creator whose detailed explanation of panic disorder received little engagement, while a humorous self-mockery about the same symptoms went viral. These disparities are not random. They reflect platform incentives that prioritize entertainment, spectacle, and emotional punch.

So access on TikTok is filtered through commercial infrastructure, and this produces a new media economy in which care becomes content. Creators share deeply personal stories, often because vulnerability increases reach. Yet the same algorithms that elevate this content can also exploit it. In this way, TikTok both democratizes mental-health discourse and commodifies it. It gives people language for their experiences, but it does so within a profit-driven system that reduces complex human needs into metrics. This is why examining the power structures embedded in technological systems is essential. They shape how care circulates, whose stories matter, and what kinds of emotional expression become legible or profitable.

Theratainment, Digital Care, Culture, and Alternative Media Frameworks

You often use the concept of theratainment in your work. How should we understand this idea through the lens of alternative media and social responsibility? Does digital care empower people, or does it function as another mechanism of control?

Theratainment, as I describe it, refers to the way therapeutic language, emotional storytelling, and spectacle merge within contemporary media environments. In my upcoming book, I trace the genealogy of this phenomenon through daytime talk shows and reality series that turned vulnerability into a consumable format. TikTok inherits that lineage, but instead of relying on studio productions, it invites ordinary people to perform their pain and advice for mass audiences. That shift creates both possibility and risk.

It allows people to share experiences that once remained private, but it also encourages them to translate those experiences into platform-friendly formats.

There is real empowerment in this. Creators log on because they want to reduce stigma, reach underserved communities, or share tools they wish they had when they were younger.

A Black woman creator told me that she posted about anxiety because her community rarely talked about mental health and she wanted to model openness for others. Another creator, a social worker, used TikTok to offer grounding exercises for teens experiencing panic attacks. These actions matter. They create visibility and connection, and they offer care in ways that institutions often fail to provide. The care they offer is not traditionally polished or orderly; it is experimental, relational, and human, like when a creator films a late-night check-in from their bedroom floor because they know their followers feel most alone at that hour.

Yet theratainment also reinforces neoliberal narratives about personal responsibility and emotional self-management. Platform algorithms reward content that frames mental health as an individual issue rather than a structural one. They encourage people to monitor their emotions, optimize their behaviors, and self-regulate without addressing the social conditions that produce distress in the first place. This mirrors what I observe in higher education through my pedagogy scholarship, which reveals how institutions celebrate care rhetorically while extracting it from those who are already overburdened. Platforms do something similar. They rely on creators to provide care work for free while profiting from the engagement that care generates.

So digital care is both empowering and controlling. It allows people to express themselves and find community, yet it narrows the forms of expression that receive visibility. It celebrates vulnerability while disciplining it into content. It creates solidarity while reinforcing the idea that healing is an individual responsibility. These contradictions are not failures of the creators.

Algorithmic Politics, Visibility Struggles, and Digital Surveillance Regimes

How do algorithmic structures shape the politics of visibility, particularly for women and Black women creators? Should we view these platforms as part of a new digital surveillance regime?

Visibility on platforms like TikTok is governed by opaque, constantly shifting algorithms that shape who is seen, under what conditions, and for what emotional reward. In my research on drag creators, I found that the platform disproportionately amplified white, thin, highly stylized performers while sidelining those whose content foregrounded political critique, racial identity, or nonnormative gender expression. Black and Brown creators described their performances being flagged at higher rates, their political posts receiving fewer views, and their comments being more heavily policed by moderators. These dynamics are not incidental. They reflect embedded power structures in machine-learning systems trained on biased engagement patterns.

Women, especially Black women, face similar constraints in the mental-health and educational spaces on TikTok. Many described feeling pressure to soften their tone, increase emotional warmth, or perform a specific kind of calm, reassuring femininity to avoid harassment or downranking. One creator said she intentionally altered her voice because a deeper tone triggered negative comments and reduced her reach. Another explained that her posts about racism and trauma never circulated widely, while her videos about self-care routines did. These are examples of creators navigating the messy intersections of identity, visibility, and algorithmic governance.

This is why it is helpful to think of platforms as forms of digital surveillance. They may not monitor creators through explicit punishment, but they exert power through conditional visibility. Creators learn to anticipate what the platform will reward and what it will suppress. They internalize these guidelines, often unconsciously, shaping their performance of identity in ways that align with platform expectations. In my pedagogy work, I describe how institutions surveil care by policing tone, emotional availability, and relational style. Platforms operate with a similar logic. They extract value from care while disciplining the forms of care that are allowed to flourish.

So yes, platforms function as surveillance regimes, but in a subtle, deeply embedded way. They shape the expressive possibilities of users while presenting themselves as neutral tools. They discipline identity through metrics. And they operate within larger sociotechnical power structures that determine what kinds of content appear meaningful, valuable, or professional. Recognizing this complexity is essential because these systems impact creators who must navigate them not as abstractions but as lived, daily constraints.

Queer Representation Digital Spaces, and the Political Power of Popular Culture

Your research on drag culture and LGBTQ+ representation highlights the political capacity of popular culture. Does contemporary social media truly provide a liberating space for queer visibility?

Social media absolutely offers opportunities for queer visibility, especially for young users who are exploring identity in environments that may not validate them offline. In my drag TikTok study, creators described the platform as a space where they could experiment with femininity, comedy, transformation, and self-expression. One creator said TikTok was the first place they felt they could “try on” gender without fear. Another talked about how duets and stitch formats helped them connect with queer peers around the world. These experiences are real and meaningful.

They demonstrate the transformative potential of popular culture to nurture community, belonging, and joy.

But queer visibility on TikTok is never detached from platform infrastructures. The algorithm promotes certain kinds of drag content, especially polished makeup transitions, comedic lip-syncs, and high-energy performances that align with the platform’s youth-friendly aesthetics. Political content, historical education, or discussions about queer trauma often receive significantly less reach. Creators said that their activist posts were suppressed or triggered hateful comments. This reflects broader structural biases embedded in technological systems. Platforms celebrate queer aesthetics while disciplining queer critique.

Queer visibility is therefore conditional. It is allowed as long as it remains entertaining, visually appealing, and not too disruptive. This conditionality mirrors the messy contradictions of digital mental-health content, where creators are expected to share emotional truths but in highly curated, platform-friendly forms. In both cases, the platform celebrates diversity while narrowing the range of stories that receive visibility. This is why recognizing the role of power structures is essential. We cannot interpret queer visibility without understanding the commercial and technological systems that shape it. So contemporary popular culture and social media can provide liberation through connection and visibility, but that liberation exists within constraints. True queer liberation requires more than visibility. It requires the ability to be complex, political, angry, joyful, exhausted, and creative without worrying about algorithmic penalties. Many creators push toward this vision, but they do so within infrastructures that are complex, unpredictable, and shaped by unequal distributions of power.

Care Ethics and the Reimagining of Critical Media Scholarship

The concept of care has become increasingly significant in media and communication studies. How can critical media scholarship be reimagined through the lens of care ethics?

Care ethics invites us to think about media not only as systems of information but as infrastructures of relationality. In my pedagogy work with Dr. Kishonna Gray, we argue that care is not sentimentality or softness but a method rooted in Black feminist, disability justice, and abolitionist traditions. These traditions imagine care as a collective practice, an infrastructure, and a form of political resistance. This lens reshapes how we understand media systems because platforms like TikTok are not simply venues for entertainment or content creation.

They are also places where people seek connection, emotional support, and community in conditions of institutional abandonment and austerity.

If we use care ethics as an analytic lens, we can see the labor that creators perform in new ways. Mental health creators offer what I call relational triage. They respond to crisis disclosures in their comments, create grounding exercises, and offer guidance in ways that mimic therapeutic care yet occur with little institutional support. These creators often describe the emotional toll of managing their audiences’ needs, especially when young followers share suicidal ideation or trauma histories. One creator told me that reading her comments felt like being everyone’s big sister at once, while another said he could not sleep after responding to crisis disclosures because he worried he had not said the right thing.

This is where my co-authored article “In Defense of Qualitative Description: Reclaiming ‘Small t’ Theory as a Site of Knowledge Advancement” connects directly to care. In that piece, my collaborators and I argue that our field systematically devalues descriptive, emic, context rich work, what we call small t theory, in favor of Big T, postpositivist theories that promise generalizable explanatory power. Desk rejections that dismiss qualitative projects as “too descriptive” are not just methodological disagreements, they are forms of gatekeeping that marginalize research grounded in lived experience, including work from the Global South and from scholars at the academic margins. From a care ethics perspective, qualitative description is itself a practice of care because it honors participants’ language, contexts, and everyday theorizing rather than forcing them into pre-existing conceptual boxes.

Feminist ethics of care pushes us further by insisting that collective care must replace the individualist orientation that defines both academia and much of critical media studies. Too often, our field rewards solo authorship, competitive productivity, and detached critique that celebrates distance rather than relational engagement, even as it praises community and justice in its mission statements. Collective and community care frameworks, especially from disability justice and decolonial traditions, show that knowledge is always co produced and held across relationships. Reimagining media scholarship through care ethics means recognizing students, creators, and community members not as data sources but as co theorists and collaborators whose descriptive insights are themselves forms of small t theory. It also means working to loosen entrenched hierarchies of expertise, which is difficult in a system that valorizes the lone author and the singular breakthrough.

Ultimately, care ethics asks us to transform not only what we study but how we study and with whom. When we defend qualitative description as a legitimate, rigorous mode of inquiry, we are also defending the right of marginalized communities to have their experiences documented and theorized in ways that feel legible and accountable to them. When we build collaborative research designs, share credit, and treat participants as partners rather than subjects, we practice a feminist, collectivist ethics of care that pushes back against academic individualism. And when we center care in our methods, writing, and relationships, we open critical media scholarship to forms of knowledge that have long been dismissed as too descriptive, too local, or too emotional. Care ethics, in this sense, is not just a theme. It is a blueprint for reimagining media studies as a field grounded in relationality, reciprocity, and collective world making.

The Limits of Representation, Identity Politics, and New Forms of Political Action

From your perspective in feminist media theory and identity politics, where do the limits of representation begin and end in the digital age? Is it possible to move toward a new form of political action beyond representation?

Representation is necessary, but it is never sufficient. Digital platforms have expanded who appears in media, but they have not changed the broader power structures that determine which identities receive visibility and under what conditions. Algorithms elevate certain narratives while suppressing others, and these patterns reflect longstanding social inequalities. In my drag research, creators whose performances aligned with platform-friendly aesthetics rose quickly, while those whose content foregrounded racial identity, trans experience, or political critique often struggled to gain visibility. These disparities show the limits of representation. Visibility does not necessarily challenge the systems that shape whose stories matter.

In the mental-health space, a similar dynamic emerges. Creators who discuss boundaries or self-care strategies often receive more engagement than those discussing racism, state violence, or systemic trauma. This is not because audiences do not care about structural issues. It is because platforms reward individualistic narratives that can be easily consumed and circulated. These patterns reflect broader neoliberal logics that prioritize personal responsibility over structural transformation. They also show how messy and uneven digital visibility can be. It allows certain forms of identity work to flourish while narrowing the range of political critique.

Moving beyond representation requires shifting from appearance to infrastructure. Instead of asking who is visible, we need to ask what structures support meaningful participation and sustained expression. Representation becomes powerful when creators mobilize their visibility toward collective projects. Many creators in my research use their platforms to support mutual aid, raise funds for marginalized communities, or educate audiences about systemic issues. These practices reflect forms of political action that emerge from relational accountability rather than visibility alone.

This is where my pedagogy work intersects with my media scholarship. Care-centered teaching shows that transformation happens through collective practice, not individual performance. The same is true online. Representation matters, but it becomes transformative only when paired with structural critique, mutual support, and community building. Political action beyond representation looks like creators challenging platform norms, forming solidarity networks, and reimagining care as a collective responsibility rather than a personal burden. These practices acknowledge the messy nature of digital participation and refuse simple narratives about representation as inherently empowering.

Popularizing Health Information: #TikTokDocs and the Rise of New Health Communicators

Your work on #TikTokDocs explores the popularization of health information. Should social media influencers be considered a new form of health communicator?

Yes. Influencers have become a new form of health communicator, but their role differs dramatically from traditional medical or public-health professionals. In my co-authored IJOC study on TikTok doctors, we found that creators rely on a range of communicative styles including explanatory videos, comedic sketches, quick duets, and stitched responses to user comments. These communicative forms reflect a deep understanding of the platform’s culture, where humor, speed, and relatability often determine visibility. One doctor described learning how to use memes in order to make health content more accessible.

Another said that she felt like she was “translating medical language into something emotionally resonant,” and she did this through storytelling rather than clinical explanation.

These creators also perform a hybrid form of authority. Their professional credentials matter, but their credibility relies equally on their willingness to show vulnerability, humor, or personal anecdotes. Viewers repeatedly said they trusted certain doctors because they seemed “real,” “human,” or “like someone you could talk to.” This reflects the complex nature of digital credibility, which is not built through institutional validation alone but through affective connection. A creator’s ability to joke about their own anxiety or share moments of imperfection often determines how their content resonates.

However, this role is fraught with challenges. Creators must navigate the thin line between education and medical advice. They face a constant stream of misinformation that spreads rapidly through platform logics. One doctor described spending whole weekends debunking viral trends that promoted harmful home remedies. Another spoke about the emotional toll of responding to crisis comments from teenagers seeking immediate reassurance. These pressures reflect broader power structures within digital ecosystems that place disproportionate responsibility on individuals to correct systemic failures.

So influencers are health communicators, but they operate within a system that is fragmented, unregulated, and shaped by platform profit models. Their work reveals both the potential and the precarity of digital health communication. It underscores the need for platforms to take responsibility for supporting creators who perform emotionally laborious, impactful public health work. It also highlights the urgent need for systemic changes to our mental and physical health care systems so that high quality care is accessible to all people, rather than outsourced to individuals who are doing their best within an unequal and under-resourced landscape.

Digital Platform Economies, Content Creators, and the Political Economy of Identity Performance

How does the political economy of platforms shape or constrain content creators? Do these structures push users toward specific forms of identity performance?

Platforms shape identity performance by rewarding content that is engaging, emotionally resonant, and aligned with normative expectations of beauty, gender, and professionalism. Creators learn quickly that certain aesthetics, tones, and narrative styles increase visibility. For example, therapists who use humor, quick cuts, or storytelling tend to perform better than those offering dense educational content. In my upcoming book, I show that mental-health creators must constantly balance their professional expertise with personal disclosure.

They often feel pressured to share personal stories or trauma in order to appear authentic. Yet they are also expected to demonstrate stability and emotional composure. This tension is intricate and deeply human because creators must navigate conflicting demands in real time. Women and creators of color face even more complex pressures. Many described feeling scrutinized by both their audiences and the algorithm. A Black woman therapist told me she avoids discussing race because those posts receive less visibility and invite harassment. Another creator described modifying her appearance, lighting, and tone to align with platform norms that she knew would increase her reach. These adjustments reflect the embedded power structures within digital media systems. Creators internalize them not because they choose to but because the platform conditions their behavior through visibility rewards.

These dynamics mirror what I argue in my pedagogy scholarship about the extraction of care labor from marginalized educators. Universities expect faculty to provide emotional support but refuse to recognize or compensate that labor. Platforms do something similar. They rely on creators to build community, mediate conflict, and perform emotional labor without providing meaningful support, pay, or protection. This political economy is not accidental. It is baked into the design of platforms that extract value from identity, relatability, and personal narrative.

So yes, platforms push creators toward specific identity performances, and these performances are shaped by the messy interplay of human emotion, commercial logics, and algorithmic power. Platforms do not simply host identity; they produce it. They shape the boundaries of what is possible, desirable, or valuable online. Recognizing these structures is essential because creators experience their effects every time they post, respond to comments, or adjust their behavior to remain visible.

Radical Pedagogy, Care-Centered Teaching, and Media Literacy for New Generations

In your academic role, you emphasize radical pedagogies and care-centered teaching. What do you see as the most significant transformation when teaching media literacy to younger generations?

Teaching media literacy today requires acknowledging that students already inhabit algorithmic systems that shape their identities, emotions, and relationships. Many young people understand content creation intuitively. They know how to curate themselves online, avoid harassment, and read platform trends. But they do not always recognize the larger power structures behind these dynamics. Media literacy becomes transformative when students realize that platforms are not neutral tools but infrastructures shaped by corporate interests, surveillance logics, and sociotechnical biases.

In my pedagogy work, care is central to helping students understand these systems. Care is not a soft skill or a distraction from rigor. It is a method that frames learning as relational and collective. When students help build classroom norms, engage in collaborative discussion guidelines, or participate in group assignments that analyze their everyday media practices, they begin to see how their experiences fit into broader cultural patterns. For example, in one activity students bring in screenshots of their TikTok “For You” pages and work together to map how their feeds differ based on race, gender, class, and interests.

In another assignment, students keep short “algorithm journals” for a week, reflecting on how their emotional states influence what they click and how the platform responds. These practices show them that their anxieties around visibility, productivity, or self-presentation are not personal failures but patterned responses to platform expectations. This realization can be profoundly liberating.

Students also learn that their media habits are shaped by emotional and institutional pressures. Many describe feeling exhausted by constant engagement or overwhelmed by the need to maintain an online persona. In the classroom, we talk about how these pressures are not individual shortcomings but the tangled result of platform infrastructures that reward constant output. One student told me that learning about algorithmic bias helped them stop blaming themselves for low engagement on their posts. Another shared that after our unit on platform governance, they recognized that the harassment they experienced was not their fault but a result of structural failures in content moderation. These shifts reflect deeper understandings of power, which is the heart of media literacy.

The most significant transformation is when students begin to see themselves as active participants in shaping digital culture. They recognize that their creativity, attention, and relationships have power. Media literacy becomes not only analytical but also political. It is an invitation to imagine digital futures that are more equitable, relational, and grounded in community care.

Content Creation, Journalism, and the Emergence of a New Alternative Media Ecosystem

You study content creators, social-media personalities, and the impact of popular culture on the media landscape. How will content creation intersect with journalism and media labor in the near future? Are we witnessing the rise of a new alternative media ecosystem?

We are witnessing a fundamental transformation in how public knowledge is produced and circulated. Creators increasingly act as journalists, educators, and commentators. They report on current events, offer analysis, and translate complex information through personal narrative and emotional connection. This reflects a broader cultural shift away from institutional trust and toward decentralized, relational forms of communication. Many people turn to creators because they feel alienated by traditional news or intimidated by institutional authority. Creators provide immediacy, relatability, and authenticity that legacy media often lacks.

However, this ecosystem is shaped by significant precarity. Creators must manage constant productivity, algorithmic unpredictability, and audience expectations without the protections afforded to traditional media workers. In my upcoming book, creators described feeling like “one-person newsrooms” who must produce content, engage with audiences, fact-check information, manage harassment, and maintain their mental health. These demands are complex and exhausting because they blend personal and professional identity in ways that are difficult to sustain. They reveal the uneven distribution of labor in a platform-driven media economy.

My pedagogy scholarship argues that teaching is a form of organizing, and content creation functions similarly. Creators build communities, foster dialogue, and engage in collective meaning-making. Many use their platforms for political education, mutual aid, or community care. They often collaborate with one another to amplify marginalized voices or share resources. These practices suggest the emergence of an alternative media ecosystem grounded in relationality rather than institutional authority. But this ecosystem is constrained by platform infrastructures that extract value from creators’ labor while offering few protections.

So yes, we are witnessing the rise of an alternative media ecosystem, but it is shaped by contradictions. It offers possibilities for community-based public knowledge while existing inside systems that are commercially driven and structurally unequal. The future of media labor will depend on whether creators, communities, educators, and institutions can build infrastructures of care that counteract the exploitative conditions of platform capitalism. Platform capitalism refers to economic systems in which digital platforms extract value from users’ data, creativity, attention, and labor while offering little transparency or protection in return. That means acknowledging the complex, human nature of digital labor and refusing to ignore the power structures that govern our technological and media environments.