ABOUT

Thessa Jensen, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark.

My research examines how fan communities emerge and evolve on digital platforms, with particular attention to the ethical, relational, and design dimensions of participatory culture. Through my own long-term engagement in fanfiction communities as a reader and writer I explore how fans negotiate recognition, creativity, and power in online spaces.

Theoretically, my work is grounded in the Danish philosopher and theologian Knud Ejler Løgstrup’s ontological ethics and German philosopher Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition, which I use to analyse how digital media mediate responsibility, vulnerability, and acknowledgment between users, designers, and institutions. Across projects in interactive digital media, design fiction, and transmedia storytelling, I investigate how narratives and technological infrastructures shape the possibilities for relations in online life.