Kelly Bergstrom
Department of Communication & Media Studies
Associate Professor
on sabbatical July 2025-June 2026
Email: kmb@yorku.ca
Please note: While I am always happy to talk to potential graduate students, I will be on sabbatical from July 2025 to June 2026. My capacity for supervision and committees will be limited until I return.
Kelly Bergstrom is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at York University. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor in the School of Communications at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and a Postdoctoral Fellow at York University’s Institute for Research on Digital Learning and a MITACS Postdoctoral Researcher at Big Viking Games.
Bergstrom’s research examines drop out and disengagement from digital cultures, with a focus on digital games and social media. She is co-editor of Internet Spaceships are Serious Business: An EVE Online Reader (University of Minnesota Press, 2016) and her work has been published in journals such as Feminist Media Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and Social Media + Society.
Degrees
PhD, York UniversityMA, University of Calgary
BA (Honours), Simon Fraser University
BFA, Simon Fraser University
Research Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
True crime—a media genre that examines the specific details of a crime and the individuals associated with (and impacted by) criminal events—has been popular since the 16th century. However, in part due to its natural fit with online participatory culture, true crime content has proliferated across social media and podcasting platforms—an estimated 24% of all podcasts available for streaming are now focused on true crime. Its popularity with audiences and profitability for advertisers has led to a new development: true crime conventions. These multi-day ticketed events push true crime out of a private mediated experience and into the public where fans, content creators, victims and their advocates, law enforcement, legal experts, and exonerated former suspects congregate in a shared physical location. I argue that these conventions are a site of context collapse, where a fan’s uncritical consumption of true crime media may be challenged by crossing paths with a victim or their family and as such, warrant critical investigation.
Start Date:
- Month: Jun Year: 2025
End Date:
- Month: May Year: 2027
Funders:
SSHRC IDG
-
Summary:
Platforming Leisure seeks to address the paucity of knowledge concerning platform-mediated work and leisure: what do digital platform workers do when they are “off the clock,” either by choice or when they are waiting between contracts? Building on existing scholarship and a pilot study about the leisure practices of students engaged in gig work, this project asks: how have digital labour platforms affected workers’ access to and experiences of leisure?
Start Date:
- Month: Apr Year: 2025
End Date:
- Month: Mar Year: 2029
Collaborator: Co-Is: Denielle Elliott (Anthropology & Social Science), Hannah Johnston (School of Human Resource Management), sava saheli singh (Faculty of Education)
Funders:
SSHRC IG
Bergstrom, K., & Poor, N. (2023). We have always been social: Comparing social expressiveness between single-player and multiplayer gamers. Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 15(3), 247-266.
Bergstrom, K. (2022). Ignoring the blood on the tracks: exits and departures from game studies. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 39(3), 173-180
Bergstrom, K. and Poor, N. (2022). Signaling the Intent to Change Online Communities: A Case from a Reddit Gaming Community. Social Media + Society, 8(2), 1-10.
Bergstrom, K. (2022). When a door becomes a window: Using Glassdoor to examine game industry work cultures. Information, Communication & Society, 25(6), 835-850.
Bergstrom, K. (2021). Anti-social social gaming: community conflict in a Facebook game. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 38(1), 61-74.
Bergstrom, K., & Poor, N. (2021). Reddit Gaming Communities During Times of Transition. Social Media+ Society, 7(2). DOI: 20563051211010167
Bergstrom, K. (2021). What if we were all novices? Making room for inexperience in a game studies classroom. Digital Culture & Education, 13(2).
Bergstrom, K. (2021). Who is playing Pokémon GO? An observational activity. Communication Teacher, 35(2), 93-97.
Bergstrom, K. (2020). Destruction as Deviant Leisure in EVE Online. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 13(1).
Bergstrom, K., & Neo, R. (2020). Searching for the stairway to heaven: information seeking about an illegal hiking trail in Hawaii. Leisure Studies, 39(5), 751-764.
Bergstrom, K. (2019). Barriers to play: Accounting for non-participation in digital game play. Feminist Media Studies, 19(6), 841-857.
Bergstrom, K. (2019). EVE Online is not for everyone: Exceptionalism in online gaming cultures. Human Technology, 15(3).
Please note: While I am always happy to talk to potential graduate students, I will be on sabbatical from July 2025 to June 2026. My capacity for supervision and committees will be limited until I return.
Kelly Bergstrom is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at York University. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor in the School of Communications at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and a Postdoctoral Fellow at York University’s Institute for Research on Digital Learning and a MITACS Postdoctoral Researcher at Big Viking Games.
Bergstrom’s research examines drop out and disengagement from digital cultures, with a focus on digital games and social media. She is co-editor of Internet Spaceships are Serious Business: An EVE Online Reader (University of Minnesota Press, 2016) and her work has been published in journals such as Feminist Media Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and Social Media + Society.
Degrees
PhD, York UniversityMA, University of Calgary
BA (Honours), Simon Fraser University
BFA, Simon Fraser University
Research Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
True crime—a media genre that examines the specific details of a crime and the individuals associated with (and impacted by) criminal events—has been popular since the 16th century. However, in part due to its natural fit with online participatory culture, true crime content has proliferated across social media and podcasting platforms—an estimated 24% of all podcasts available for streaming are now focused on true crime. Its popularity with audiences and profitability for advertisers has led to a new development: true crime conventions. These multi-day ticketed events push true crime out of a private mediated experience and into the public where fans, content creators, victims and their advocates, law enforcement, legal experts, and exonerated former suspects congregate in a shared physical location. I argue that these conventions are a site of context collapse, where a fan’s uncritical consumption of true crime media may be challenged by crossing paths with a victim or their family and as such, warrant critical investigation.
Project Type: FundedRole: Principal Investigator
Start Date:
- Month: Jun Year: 2025
End Date:
- Month: May Year: 2027
Funders:
SSHRC IDG
-
Summary:
Platforming Leisure seeks to address the paucity of knowledge concerning platform-mediated work and leisure: what do digital platform workers do when they are “off the clock,” either by choice or when they are waiting between contracts? Building on existing scholarship and a pilot study about the leisure practices of students engaged in gig work, this project asks: how have digital labour platforms affected workers’ access to and experiences of leisure?
Project Type: FundedRole: Principal Investigator
Start Date:
- Month: Apr Year: 2025
End Date:
- Month: Mar Year: 2029
Collaborator: Co-Is: Denielle Elliott (Anthropology & Social Science), Hannah Johnston (School of Human Resource Management), sava saheli singh (Faculty of Education)
Funders:
SSHRC IG
All Publications
Bergstrom, K., & Poor, N. (2023). We have always been social: Comparing social expressiveness between single-player and multiplayer gamers. Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 15(3), 247-266.
Bergstrom, K. (2022). Ignoring the blood on the tracks: exits and departures from game studies. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 39(3), 173-180
Bergstrom, K. and Poor, N. (2022). Signaling the Intent to Change Online Communities: A Case from a Reddit Gaming Community. Social Media + Society, 8(2), 1-10.
Bergstrom, K. (2022). When a door becomes a window: Using Glassdoor to examine game industry work cultures. Information, Communication & Society, 25(6), 835-850.
Bergstrom, K. (2021). Anti-social social gaming: community conflict in a Facebook game. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 38(1), 61-74.
Bergstrom, K., & Poor, N. (2021). Reddit Gaming Communities During Times of Transition. Social Media+ Society, 7(2). DOI: 20563051211010167
Bergstrom, K. (2021). What if we were all novices? Making room for inexperience in a game studies classroom. Digital Culture & Education, 13(2).
Bergstrom, K. (2021). Who is playing Pokémon GO? An observational activity. Communication Teacher, 35(2), 93-97.
Bergstrom, K. (2020). Destruction as Deviant Leisure in EVE Online. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 13(1).
Bergstrom, K., & Neo, R. (2020). Searching for the stairway to heaven: information seeking about an illegal hiking trail in Hawaii. Leisure Studies, 39(5), 751-764.
Bergstrom, K. (2019). Barriers to play: Accounting for non-participation in digital game play. Feminist Media Studies, 19(6), 841-857.
Bergstrom, K. (2019). EVE Online is not for everyone: Exceptionalism in online gaming cultures. Human Technology, 15(3).
