Born and raised in the north of England, Deanna spent her years prior to coming to OSU teaching, writing, translating and studying languages in the UK, Germany, Czechia, Russia, The Netherlands and China. With a background in foreign languages, culture, international relations and politics, she is broadly interested in how cultural and political moments are created, reflected and reconstituted through digital and social media. Her work is fueled by a desire to understand how our imaginaries of who we are, how our bodies work, how we present ourselves, and the communities that we see ourselves belonging to, are all shaped by the technologies that we integrate into our everyday lives. She's especially interested in how these technologies produce taken-for-granted knowledge about the body and subject-hood that impact our base understandings of what it means to be human in the 21st century. Her previous research centered around the news media’s racial scapegoating of minority ethnic and racial groups in both the US and the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now in her fourth year as a doctoral candidate in Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University, Deanna's research explores the current proliferation of ADHD and its surrounding technologies. Her dissertation employs digital ethnographic methods and draws on affect theory, STS research, internet studies, and cultural inquiry to investigate how digital technologies and social media impact knowledge production and medical authority about ADHD. Her work engages and contributes to debates on digital culture, political affect, and the socio-cultural explications of mental health, and has received financial support from international, national, and university funding bodies, totaling over $45,000. 

Selected Publications

Holroyd, D. "TikTok Made Me Realize I Had ADHD: Social Media's Techno-Cultural Authority on Health and the Body", Screen Bodies: The Journal of Embodiment, Media Arts, and Technology, 9(2). (FORTHCOMING DECEMBER 2024)

Holroyd, D. (2024) “The Affects of Racist Discourse: British Media’s Scapegoating of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Groups in the COVID-19 Pandemic”. Interface. 

Holroyd, D. “Denying Systemic Racism, Racial Scapegoating and Discrediting the Left: Fox News’ Evolving Media Narrative of African Americans, COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter”. Chapter in edited volume Pandemic Politics: Leftist Critiques. Routledge. (FORTHCOMING 2024)

Holroyd, D. and Parker, H. “You Reap What You Sow: Creating Neoliberal Techno-Utopias through “Playbour” and Community Building in Stardew Valley”. Chapter in Future Spaces of Power: The Cultural Politics of Digital and Outer Spaces. Lexington Books (FORTHCOMING 2025)

 Parker, H. and Holroyd, D.  “Success Narratives and the Nuclear Family: Stardew Valley’s Neoliberal Ideologies Re-Packaged as a Techno-Utopia”. Futuri: Italian Institute for the Future. (FORTHCOMING 2024)

Selected Honors and Awards

Graduate Student Career Accelerator Fund ($3750), May 2024

First place prize winner for best oral presentation in the field of humanities at The Hayes Graduate Research Forum ($600), Mar. 2024

Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Travel grant ($600), Sep. 2023

Arts & Humanities Graduate Research Small Grant ($700), Aug. 2023

The Edward J. Ray Travel Award for Scholarship and Service ($1000), Mar. 2023 + Aug. 2024

Career Development Grant ($350), Feb. 2023 + May 2024

University Fellow 2021-2022

Teaching Record

AU2024 - COMPSTD2360 Introduction to Comparative Cultural Studies (Instructor of Record)

SU2024 – COMPSTD1100 Introduction to the Humanities (Teaching Associate)

SP2024 – COMPSTD2367.04 Science and Technology in American Culture (Instructor of Record)

AU2023 – ENG2367.04 Technology and Science in the US Experience (Instructor of Record)

SU2023 – COMPSTD1100 Introduction to the Humanities (Teaching Associate)

SP2023 – COMPSTD2341 Technology, Science, and Society (Recitation Instructor)

AU2023 – COMPSTD2341 Technology, Science, and Society (Recitation Instructor)