Frances Corry is an assistant professor in the Department of Information Culture and Data Stewardship at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Computing and Information. Prior to joining SCI, Frances earned her PhD and MA in communication from the University of Southern California, and served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center on Digital Culture and Society.
Frances’ research employs critical and historical approaches to digital technology, emphasizing the prehistories and afterlives of data-intensive systems, from social media platforms to machine learning models. Her current major project examines the process of social media platform closure and content deletion to ask about the future of cultural memory. Work related to these themes has been published in venues including Convergence, FAccT, Feminist Media Studies, First Monday, Internet Histories, the International Journal of Communication, and elsewhere.
- PhD in Communication, University of Southern California
Education & Training
Butkowski, C. & Corry, F. (2025) Social Media’s Midlife Crisis? How Public Discourse Imagines Platform Futures. Social Media & Society 11(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251351493
Corry, F. (2025). The production of destruction: How employee values shape platform afterlives. New Media & Society, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241276382
Corry, F. Never forget? (2023) Memory maintenance on an aging platform. Convergence, 29(3), 602-619. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221129224
Alarcon, A., Altrudi, S., Corry, F., Forelle, M.C. (2022). The sociotechnical imaginaries of 1968. International Journal of Communication. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/15590/3916
Corry, F. (2021). Why does a platform die? Diagnosing platform death at Friendster’s end. Internet Histories. https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2021.1985360
Corry, F. (2021). Screenshot, Save, Share, Shame: Making sense of new media through screenshots and public shame. First Monday. http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i4.11649
Corry, F. (2020). ‘LADY U SEND ME YR MOVIE:’ Constructing Joanie 4 Jackie’s Feminist Distribution Network. Feminist Media Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1785912
Data management practices
Social media platforms
Memory and storage
History of technology
