Jul Parke

Jul/Julia’s doctoral research examines the emergence of virtual influencers—AI- and CGI-generated humanlike characters—on contemporary social media platforms. Drawing from Platform Studies and Cultural Studies, she introduces the theoretical framework of ‘virtual skin’ to analyze racial and gendered embodiment in immersive and augmented digital spaces. Through this lens, she examines how skin is technically calibrated and rendered, revealing complex paradoxes surrounding race and beauty standards within social media ecosystems.

Julia’s adjacent research interests include the Korean Wave (‘Hallyu’) and the implications of East Asian popular media and fandom for theories of affect and globalization. She has written on ethnic and diasporic media, AI-generated synthetic media, KPOP, Internet culture, and girlhood for Feminist Theory, Canadian Journal of Communication, and the Journal of Global Diaspora & Migration.

As a former Strategic Communications Advisor for Statistics Canada, Julia conducted workshops on AI bias and social media for directors and researchers in the public service. Her community engagement work has involved a partnership with STACKT market for Asian Heritage Month, funded by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, and well as knowledge translation projects through outlets such as Teen Vogue, The Conversation, Koffler Centre of the Arts, and Vancouver TAIWANfest.