University of Wisconsin–Madison
Clare O'Gara

Clare O'Gara

Media and Cultural Studies

Project Assistant

any pronouns

cogara@wisc.edu

2151 Vilas Hall

Clare O'Gara

Biography

Clare is a PhD candidate studying what people make and do with and through digital technologies. Their work broadly explores how power contours the conditions, discourses, and cultural objects by which human beings attach their bodies, identities, fantasies, and convictions to “new media.” Clare’s approach to media literacy extends critical attention to texts, performances, and subjectivities historically dismissed as frivolous, artless, and unruly.

Additional Research Interests: discourses of media consumption; micro-celebrity, social media entertainment, and the influencer industry; platform and interface studies; alternative internet histories; representations of artificial intelligence; gender and sexuality studies; sports and fitness media.

Clare is currently a Project Assistant for the Center for Humanistic Inquiry into Artificial Intelligence and Uncertainty.

clareogara.com

Education

  • PhD — University of Wisconsin – Madison, in progress — Communication Arts, Media and Cultural Studies
    • Minor: Gender & Women’s Studies
  • MA — University of Wisconsin – Madison, 2024 — Communication Arts, Media and Cultural Studies
  • BA — Smith College, 2022 — English, Film and Media Studies, Poetry
    • Honors Thesis: “Camera-Penned, User-Generated: Searching for Self in YouTube Video Essays”

Teaching Appointments

Teaching Assistant:

  • GWS101 Gender, Women, and Cultural Representation, Spring 2026
  • CA250 Survey of Contemporary Media, 2024-2025
  • CA359 Sports Media, Spring 2024
  • CA100 Introduction to Speech Composition, Fall 2023
  • CA155 Introduction to Digital Media Production, 2022-2023

Grader:

  • LIS500 Code and Power, Fall 2026
  • LIS461 Ethics and Policies of Data and Algorithms, Summer 2025
  • CA359 Sports Media, Fall 2023

Consultant:

  • DesignLab, Fall 2025

Publications

  • 2026. “‘congrats on the instagram soft launch of ur boyfriend’: Platform-Specificity, Cultural Production, and Theorizing Meta-Intimate Publics.” New Media & Society. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448261421871
  • 2024. “’This Is Not a Performance’: Coming-Out Videos, LGBTQ+ Microcelebrity, and the Tenuous Rise of New Queer YouTube.” Camera Obscura 39(116): 189–218. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-11207867
  • 2024. “Snackable, Spreadable, User-Generated Spectacles: Theorizing a ‘Dream Marriage’ Between Sports and Digital Media.” Journal of Sports Media 19(1): 1-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jsm.2024.a970124

Service