Hegde is an interdisciplinary media scholar whose research interests intersect media industries, technology and society, cultures of media production, and labor studies. Broadly constituted, his work examines how sites of technological change within media industries reshape labor configurations and cultures of media production.
Before joining the PhD program, Hegde pursued a BFA in film/media arts and visual anthropology at Temple University where he developed an interest in critically examining industrial practices. He moved to L.A. in 2018 after graduating to pursue freelance work in the entertainment industry, where he became aware of the precarious position film production workers hold as freelancers, and of how unions serve as important sites for negotiating their place in an industry at the forefront of creative and technological development.
Hegde began his USC journey by obtaining an MS in digital social media from Annenberg, developing both a technical foundation in social media analytics as well as a critical lens to how emergent technologies are reconfiguring creative work in the entertainment industry. Hegde advocates a critical approach to engaging with media and technology, mediating the ever-increasing interdependence of human and technological systems in the 21st century.
Hegde grew up in the Pacific Northwest, spending most of his childhood in the Bitter Lake neighborhood in North Seattle and the nearby suburb of Redmond. Washington. He has a lot of passion for all things Seattle sports/music/pop culture/history, with much of his academic perspective being informed by the technology revolution of the 1990s and 2000s taking place within his backyard. Hegde is also a long-time resident of L.A. Koreatown with all the great coffee shop recs, has been an avid vinyl record collector for over ten years with 300 albums in his still-growing collection, loves all things cinema and is a regular at both popular and arthouse theaters, and is a passionate urban explorer of Los Angeles neighborhoods and suburbs with a deep love for the rich, diverse history and flourishing arts/culture of the city.