The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies established the Charles Bergquist Labor Research Grant in 2020 to honor the memory of Bergquist, UW History professor emeritus and a former holder of the Harry Bridges Endowed Chair in Labor Studies.
Jeehyun (Jenny) Lee was the Charles Bergquist Labor Research Grant recipient in 2021-2022. Lee later graduated from the UW in 2024 from the Department of Communication, and began a new position at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication.
The manuscript, titled "Managing Unwanted Visibility: How Transnational Korean Women Content Creators Manage Harmful Algorithmic Visibility on Global Social Media," was published in the Information, Communication & Society journal with the support of the Charles Bergquist Labor Research Grant.
Lee's project investigates the transnational and racial dimensions of the platformized cultural economy. In particular, this study aims to understand the experiences of Asian cultural producers from East Asia who create content for global audiences beyond their locality by addressing the following questions: How do the algorithmic systems of global social media platforms structure the production of Asian creative labor? How do cultural producers perceive the algorithmic ranking and categorization of their work? How do they navigate through these algorithmic imaginaries? Lastly, how does the algorithmic management of their work shape the symbolic and material value of Asian creative labor?