Amanda Luz Henning Santiago is a communications expert and a graduate of Hunter College.

About

Amanda Luz Henning Santiago is a graduate of Hunter College’s Digital Sociology Program.

Her research explores the intersection between class, culture, and digital platforms, particularly social media platforms. Fashion, pop culture and the medical cosmetics industry are favorite topics.

She is currently employed at The Parkside Group as a Communications Account Executive, where she manages public relations for nonprofit and political clients.

Previously, she worked as a staff reporter at City & State, where she covered New York politics and policy, and authored Excelsior, a biweekly civic explainer newsletter. She has also written for HuffPost, Mashable, Business Insider and VinePair.

Born in Manhattan, raised in Brooklyn, Amanda now lives in Queens with her husband and their poorly behaved cat. 

Projects

• The Experience of “Essential” Food Workers in NYC during the COVID-19 Pandemic

• How do online communities discuss elective cosmetic procedures and surgeries?

• Five days of employing encryption services

• Culture as a Means of Class Distinction

• Here for the wrong reasons: An analysis of one of The Bachelorette’s biggest scandals

• Influencer’s impact on Fast Fashion

Internship

For her research internship Amanda anonymized Instagram posts and stories, and coded Instagram profiles of individuals who have either been or are currently incarcerated, as well as the individuals and communities who are supporting or are in some way connected with formerly or currently incarcerated people.

The work aided CalvinJohn Smiley, PhD & Jan Haldipur, PhD with their research on the intersection of prisoner reentry and social media, examining how Instagram can be utilized by individuals’ post-incarceration to create a sense of community and network, as well as a digital journal.

Seven hundred seventy-three Instagram profiles (n = 773) that had been previously identified as having some connection to formerly or currently incarcerated folks and collected in a Google sheet were coded over the course of the Fall 2022 semester. Several different typologies were identified throughout the coding work and a research paper was written to capture findings.

Identifying Typologies of Formerly and Currently Incarcerated People on Instagram

Skills

Digital Sociology Learning Objectives:

• Explain the social and political context of how data is generated and why this matters for research.

• Construct a viable research question

• Design an evaluation study (available upon request)

• Produce a step-by-step research work plan that is feasible given time and Resource constraints.

• Collect data from a variety of sources, using both digital and analog methods

• Analyze the data using the most appropriate methods and tools available

• Interpret the results of the analysis

• Write clearly and analytically

• Demonstrate a working knowledge of basic steps to protect digital privacy and evade digital surveillance mechanisms

Courses

• Statistics I & II

• Quantitative Research Methods

• Qualitative Research Methods

• Data Analytics

• Applied Research Evaluation

• Workshop in Information Technology

• Thinking Critically in a Digital Society

• Culture & Cognition

• Cultural Studies

• LGBT Social Movements Project

• Research Internship