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Authors:Susanne Benzel, Jacob Johanssen, Daniela Nadj, Nahiyan Rashid Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article presents a detailed qualitative content analysis of eating disorder and recovery videos on TikTok which show young women who proclaim to raise awareness or depict the recovery process. We pay particular attention to aspects of form and content and TikTok's affordances in relation to them. We argue that allegedly showing what an eating disorder and recovery are ‘really like’ is in tension with an aestheticisation of the female body and eating disorders that is present in the videos. While TikTok has been described by scholars as a memetic and viral platform, this aestheticisation points to a tension of authentic self-expression, complexities around body image and memetic visibility. We conclude that the platform is characterised by repetition and imitation, but those aspects are secondary as they relate to struggles linked to eating disorders themselves and their representation rather than primary virality or the memetic. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-09T11:02:52Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241268115
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Authors:Issaaf Karhawi, Rafael Grohmann Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article analyzes how Marxist platform-dependent cultural producers in Brazil - one woman and two drag queens - navigate platform spaces in relation to their identities and everyday work. Struggling with platforms refers to the specific ways in which Marxist cultural producers seek to engage in class struggles, while also grappling with the constraints imposed by platforms. There are paradoxes, tensions and frictions in these efforts. In analytical terms, the article develops how this ‘struggling with platforms’ occurs in two main dimensions: (1) struggling with identities – including the implications of being a Marxist cultural producer on platforms and how one's identity is shaped and commodified in this space, and (2) struggling with everyday work – considering how the pursuit of social change is both constrained and enabled on platforms. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-09T05:45:04Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241268078
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Authors:Alex Chartrand, Stefanie Duguay Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This study builds on theories of user imaginaries by examining how LGBTQ+ creators in Montreal, Canada and Berlin, Germany respond to perceived algorithmic bias. Through observation and close reading of creators’ Instagram content, the study finds that expectations of discrimination based on sexual and gender identity, embedded in geographical and sociocultural contexts, shape these users’ understandings of threats posed by algorithmic governance. Findings also identified three main responses to perceived algorithmic bias: direct calls for engagement, strategies for eluding algorithmic surveillance, and adaptation to presumed algorithmic parameters. Instead of giving up or leaving, these responses demonstrated users’ participatory resignation, as an expectation of algorithmic bias informed by past experiences of identity-based discrimination paired with determination to negotiate such bias to endure on the platform. Thus, this article contributes a novel comparative analysis that expands conceptualizations of algorithmic imaginaries while revealing how resignation is mobilized as resistance to algorithmic governance. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-09T05:39:49Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241267292
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Authors:Allen Munoriyarwa, Mathias-Felipe de-Lima-Santos, Lucia Mesquita, Adeola Abdulateef Elega Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. In recent years, media organizations globally have increasingly benefited from financial support from digital platforms. In 2018, Google launched the Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Challenge aimed at bolstering journalism by encouraging innovation in media organizations. This study, conducted through 36 in-depth interviews with GNI beneficiaries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, reveals that despite its narrative of enhancing technological innovation for the media's future, this scheme inadvertently fosters dependence and extends the philanthrocapitalism concept to the media industry on a global scale. Employing a theory-building approach, our research underscores the emergence of a new form of ‘philanthrocapitalism’ that prompts critical questions about the dependency of media organizations on big tech and the motives of these tech giants in their evolving relationship with such institutions. We also demonstrate that the GNI Innovative Challenge, while ostensibly promoting sustainable business models through technological innovation, poses challenges for organizations striving to sustain and develop these projects. The proposed path to sustainability by the GNI is found to be indirect and difficult for organizations to navigate, hindering their adoption of new technologies. Additionally, the study highlights the creation of a dependency syndrome among news organizations, driven by the perception that embracing GNI initiatives is crucial for survival in the digital age. Ultimately, the research contributes valuable insights to the understanding of these issues, aiming to raise awareness among relevant stakeholders and conceptualize philanthrocapitalism through a new lens. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-09T05:39:29Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241265734
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Authors:Tinca Lukan, Jožica Čehovin Zajc Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article examines how influencers establish agency amidst precarious working conditions both on and off platforms. Findings from over 50 in-depth interviews show that influencers in Slovenia do not gain agency through platform-centred practices as described in existing literature. Influencers use platform features with minimal effort across the entire cycle of cultural production, which includes content creation, distribution, and monetisation—a phenomenon referred to as ‘platform lethargy’. Instead, influencers gain agency through diverse income streams and the support of Instagram husbands and family members. Precarity is not alleviated by using intimacy as a tool in practices of relational labour with audiences, but by relational work that connects actual intimate relationships with economic transactions. This study sheds light on the integration of social media platforms into a pre-existing hustling culture and is relevant for the de-westernisation of research on platformised creative work. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-07T11:11:46Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241268208
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Authors:Arturo Arriagada, David Craig Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This paper investigates the intersection of racism, nationality, and the global Latin American influencer dream. It examines the experiences of Latin American influencers in the United States, where pursuing commercial success intersects with cultural and economic aspirations. Additionally, it explores the role of content service organizations in shaping creator culture and the working experiences of Latin American influencers. Despite the global imagination, influencer economies largely remain national, constrained by socio-cultural, linguistic, and regional norms. Drawing from literature on influencer cultures, platform economies, and imaginaries, the study analyzes data from interviews with content service organization executives and influencers, alongside platform analytics and advertising campaigns. The findings elucidate how racial discourses shape and challenge creator cultures, highlighting barriers for Latin American influencers in the US. This research contributes to understanding the social dimensions of creator culture, revealing impediments faced by diasporic influencers. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-05T08:05:49Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241268138
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Authors:Lucianna Furtado, Laura Guimarães Corrêa Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. We discuss the concept of love presented in a set of songs composed by Brazilian samba singer Dona Ivone Lara about romantic and sexual relationships. Popular music is a pervasive kind of media, reflecting ideas, values, power relations, practices, prejudices and privileges. Black music in the diaspora has been a counter-hegemonic space of knowledge production which provides insight into cultural, social, economic and political matters. To analyze the songs, we created a methodology which intersects themes and categories, reflecting upon the complexity of Black women's experiences depicted in Lara's intellectual production. Adopting an intersectional approach, we concluded that the combined oppressions of gender, race, age and class in Brazil have an important influence in the melancholic aspect of banzo in her songs. The results also show that love, for Lara, is not a fixed or permanent feeling, but a cycle, renewed and reinvented in practice and in constant motion. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-05T08:05:19Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241268106
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Authors:Li Zhi, Duanduan Wei Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. In Produce Camp 2021, an online Chinese talent show, an underdog named Lelush rose to fame as a slack laborer icon. This study investigated this case through a critical discourse analysis incorporating media events theory, the concept of carnival, aesthetic public sphere theory, and the concept of structures of feeling. It was revealed that the audience related to Lelush's slackness on carnivalesque social media, indirectly addressing work oppression and social stratification in an aesthetic public sphere. However, the audience's ambiguities, where they also objectified Lelush, somewhat diminished the aesthetic discussions’ critical potential. This contradiction suggested a new structure of feeling associated with rapid social changes in China. Besides, this study demonstrated that although the audience discourse appeared challenging, it was harnessed by the producer for commercial benefit. Meanwhile, as the audience's critical discourse did not directly threaten the political legitimacy, the Party-State allowed it for political and economic purposes. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-05T08:04:49Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241268092
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Authors:Sean P. Smith Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. Influenced by social media and COVID-19, human relations with ‘nature’ are increasingly shaped by media infrastructures and logics, leading to a global surge of interest in nature tourism and outdoor activities. This article examines the mediatization of relations with nature—or, the more-than-human world—in the Arabian Gulf country of Oman, where nature tourism has developed in the past decade. Through a mixed-methods approach involving fieldwork and interviews between 2022–2024, relations with nature in Oman are shown to be informed by global social media logics, as with the trend of ‘viral landscapes’ in which a nature destination is popularized due to its high value in social media attention economies. However, local practices are also platformed, as Instagram users in Oman exploit three affordances to address the environmental problem of litter. Mediatization may thus entail a circulation of global discourses and practices as well as the emergence of syncretic sociocultural formations. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-05T08:04:20Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241268090
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Authors:Olivia M. Copeland Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. In critique of Habermas's public sphere, Nancy Fraser offered the ‘subaltern counterpublic’ – arenas of refuge from and counter-organizing against the wider public. But does this (re)configuration of the public sphere hold in the age of extremism on the internet' I examine the trajectory of incel as a community, interrogating whether this extremist contingent follows Fraser's subaltern counterpublic or if they exemplify a new counterpublic – the ultra altern, or ‘ultern’, counterpublic. I explore the ways that the ultern counterpublic differs from the subaltern and its relationship to the general public sphere, particularly within the critical intervention of the internet. I finally offer a brief analysis of another movement – the KKK – within my new framing, to further detail the differences between the ultern and subaltern counterpublic. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-08-02T05:04:02Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241268161
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Authors:Mariela Morales-Suárez Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article studies the digital-cultural labor of three Cuban Instagram comedians and the worldmaking they promote. The comedians, Marlon, Chupetin, and Kende, immensely popular among Cuban audiences, create content that centers their Black working-class and street-smart identity. Through a close analysis of how these comedians utilize performance as rhetorical tools, I examine the entanglements and possibilities that marginalized content creators face when making symbolic and embodied meaning not sanctioned by the nation-state's meta-narratives of normative identity. I draw on theories of performance studies, media anthropology and Caribbean studies, to conceptualize the political, cultural, and personal stakes that come with the ‘world-making’ labor of Cuban Instagram comedians. I argue performances of estranged ways of being, distributed through transnational digital networks, enact aspirations of redressing long-standing desires and anxieties about national identity and personal agency. Ultimately this article situates social media platforms as vital spaces of worldmaking in a digital era. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-07-22T12:54:45Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241263604
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Authors:Xinying Yang Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. The deconstruction of celebrity persona reflects public concerns within rapidly changing societies. Bringing perspectives from de-legitimation and anti-fandom, this paper investigates how Wanwan, a controversial Chinese Internet celebrity (wanghong), was de-celebrified as a bragger, sugar baby, and two-faced traitor by her anti-fans. Anti-fans condemned Wanwan for her self-glorification, sex trading for material goods, and immorality as an elite. Despite demonstrating anti-fan efforts to seek representative justice online, their discourses are problematic for bolstering classist, neoliberal feminist, populist, and moral perfectionist ideologies. A more serious concern pertains to the politicization of personal animosity through de-celebrification, wherein anti-fans try to exploit state power to cancel the celebrities they dislike. In addition to validating a discursive approach that fleshes out (de-)celebrification studies, this paper refines our understanding of the politics of dislike by unraveling the complex socio-political dynamics behind anti-fandom and de-celebrification. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-07-21T11:41:30Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241260842
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Authors:Tugce Bidav Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article examines precarious working conditions for YouTube content creation in Turkey. Creator studies have extensively examined creator precarity within the context of platform architectures and the broader social media entertainment industries. Instead of applying this lens to YouTubing in Turkey to highlight shared precarity experiences of Turkish creators with other YouTube production cultures, I focus on localised precarity to examine how creator labour is made less stable by geographical context. Drawing on in-depth interviews with creators, the research findings demonstrate that there are multiple sources of precarity associated with localised YouTube revenues in an unstable national economy, restrictive internet governance at nation-state level, and culturally situated creator–audience relations. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-06-11T08:16:19Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241258491
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Authors:Tommaso Trillò, Avishai Green Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. While the term “values” is widely invoked to construct identities, set boundaries, and justify decisions, its use has evaded systematic analysis. This is particularly intriguing in the context of social media, where the term simultaneously reflects and shapes what is cherished by people worldwide. Addressing this void, we analyzed how Instagram users from different language communities – English, German, Italian, Korean, and Japanese – frame the term. Surprisingly, we found that “values” is used not for ethical or political arguments, but as a marketing tool. Across countries, professionals promise to assist individuals in discovering their “authentic” values and leveraging them for material success and a sense of meaning. Instagram, a commercially oriented platform promoting neoliberal values, serves as a powerful agent that appears to outweigh cultural differences. We propose the “funnel” as a metaphor to depict a process where platforms direct varied interpretations of complex concepts into ones that serve their own interests. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-06-06T01:21:47Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241257531
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Authors:Ignacio Siles, Vanessa Valiati, Luciana Valerio-Alfaro, Amanda Ferreira Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This short article critically examines the growing body of research on algorithms and platforms in Latin America. Drawing on an analysis of articles published in Portuguese or Spanish in journals of the region, we discuss the main analytical approaches that shape Latin American platformization research. We reveal a tension between two dominant analytical orientations. On one hand, there is a tendency to directly apply concepts and theories from the global North to interpret Latin American experiences, a phenomenon we call “tropicalization.” On the other hand, research from the region also produces context-specific knowledge that questions established theoretical frameworks or bridges the study of the local and the global. While both orientations are valuable, we emphasize the importance of developing analytical approaches tailored to address the specific realities of Latin America. These approaches underscore the significance of regionally grounded scholarship in understanding contemporary cultural practices. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-23T06:08:11Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241256376
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Authors:Ergin Bulut Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. About a decade ago, Turkey's television drama makers believed that streaming platforms would expand markets and create an uncensored space. Platforms did partly reform working conditions and enable drama creatives globally to produce quality shows. Yet creatives remain politically restrained because of platforms’ compliance with state regulations. Drawing on platform studies’ emphasis on how platforms have both restraining and enabling features, and extending this towards the contradictions around creative freedom and state control, I conceptualize drama creatives’ working experiences with national and global streaming platforms through platform ambiguity. Platform ambiguity allows a grasp of how platforms exert power over cultural producers by both enabling and restraining their creative work. Dewesternizing platforms and cultural production scholarship by highlighting how drama makers are not only creative but also geopolitical subjects dependent on the state, I show that their imaginaries and labour practices are always embedded in national contexts and shaped by regulatory structures. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-23T06:07:52Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241254541
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Authors:Alessandro Gandini, Gaia Casagrande, Giulia Giorgi, Gianmarco Peterlongo, Marta Tonetta Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. In relation to work, the term ‘platformisation’ has gained popularity to indicate the various ways in which a digital platform gets to mediate, organise, intervene in, or otherwise facilitate some work activity. Yet, the intervention of digital platforms into work today increasingly involves activities that are not immediately related to the digital sphere, where different kinds of platforms have become part and parcel of the cultures and practices of work. There is a necessity, in other words, to develop a clearer framework to identify what it means when work activity gets to be ‘platform-ised’, the conditions under which this takes place, and what the main implications are deriving from this process. Using the case of ‘neo-craft’ work in the European Union, we propose and illustrate a theoretical conceptualisation of platform-ised work, critically discussing the distinctiveness of this process and highlighting its key features. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-23T06:07:12Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241253624
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Authors:Roslina Ismail, Mengye Liu Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. Punk culture, with its hallmark rebellious aesthetic, often stands in stark contrast to the modesty prescribed by Islamic traditions, particularly regarding women's attire. This article explores the sartorial practices of female Muslim punks in Malaysia, investigating the complex interplay of gender, religion, and subcultural identities within the Malaysian context. Employing an ethnographic approach, we examine how these women use dress for self-expression, empowerment, and resistance, challenging the historic oversights in punk discourse. Introducing the conceptual framework of ‘the localization of subculture’, our research provides a theoretical model for understanding how global subcultures, like punk, adapt to local contexts, leading to unique cultural expressions. Examining individual approaches to dress practices, our findings demonstrate the ability of the Malaysian punk community to deconstruct conventional norms and actively construct meanings of its own. This article invites a re-evaluation of subculture studies and advocates rethinking what we know about subcultures by considering local influences. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-22T12:33:30Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241253294
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Authors:David C. Oh Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. The derogatory label “Koreaboo,” used to stigmatize Korean popular culture fans, suggests Korean media's movements are treated as a contaminant rather than a welcome presence. In this research project, I conducted focus group research and analyses of Reddit threads to understand the ways women fans of color in this study interpret and navigate taste hierarchies that mock women's interests in celebrities and texts from a racialized Asian nation. Korean popular culture fans of color reject “Koreaboo” for themselves, but they project the label onto “bad” White fans, who are perceived as having inappropriate fannish interests that deviate from popularly held standards of intercultural and interracial fan interest. The self-disciplining within fandom distances itself from the Western patriarchal gaze by re-directing its focus. Even when fans of color seek Korean media to escape White hegemony and heteronormative patriarchy, they internalize and react to its gaze in their fan practice. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-20T08:59:51Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241251863
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Authors:Anna Cristina Pertierra, Ahtziri E. Molina, Bianca Garduño Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. In recent years, we have experienced a renewed public awareness of the importance of creative and cultural work for personal and national wellbeing. Contributors to this special issue turn their attention to the diverse experiences of creative and cultural workers, to understand how creative work has been disrupted, abandoned, transformed or reinvented across distinct cultural and economic contexts. In various circumstances reshaped by the pandemic, creative and cultural workers soon realized that paid work as they knew it would no longer be possible, and they had to quickly recalibrate their breadwinning strategies, in turn affecting their understandings of labour and value. This special issue considers the experiences of workers across Europe, Latin America, Africa and Australia, adding still-needed geographic diversity as part of ongoing efforts in research on creative and cultural work in pandemic times. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-16T05:41:30Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241247286
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Authors:‘Gbenga Adeoba, James Yékú Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. The Instagram content of Nigerian digital creator Olalekan Olaleye illustrates how cultural netizenship stresses the centrality of platformization to the articulation of new genres of African popular representations. This article develops the argument by examining how platform aesthetics shape the trajectories and performative acts of cultural producers, something Olaleye's Nigerian context also modulates. By lingering on the digital and aesthetic labors of the cultural netizen, the article pinpoints the interactions between creative adaptations and social media texts. Olaleye's Instagram content demonstrates the way digital platforms have become integral to the production and circulation of popular forms and genres and the artistic responses everyday digital subjects make to institutions of the state. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-16T05:40:32Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241252997
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Authors:Maja Jerrentrup Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. Artificial intelligence (AI) can create works deceptively resembling paintings, graphics, or photographs. This article examines how to treat these works, and under what circumstances, if any, they should be understood as art. The focus is placed on the work itself in the l’art-pour-l’art-tradition, on the reception, on the skills involved in the creation, and on the authors themselves. Besides looking at literary sources touching on the aforementioned aspects, the evaluation considers the perspective of people with an affinity for art through in-depth interviews. Most interviewees revised their initial reaction after learning that the works were AI generated, being more skeptical about their status as art. It then becomes obvious that the role of the artist is undergoing change. The confrontation with the artificial brings the human creator into the foreground and makes them inseparable from the work. The new technical-cultural situation leads to a new, more contextual evaluation of art. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-08T05:31:26Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241252664
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Authors:Ylva Ågren, Pål Aarsand Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article focuses on young people as producers of cultural heritage and, in particular, on their drawing practices. Based on ten in-depth interviews with youth (aged 11–20) living in Sweden, we explore young people's digital drawing practices and what these mean to their everyday lives. This is relevant to the production of descriptive metadata when young people's pictures become a part of cultural heritage. Our analysis illustrates how young people engage with pictures that circulate across time, space, relationships and mediums, challenging the idea of pictures and meaning-making as fixed and final. This analysis offers valuable insights into cultural heritage by approaching it as a process and extending our ideas of how tangible and intangible heritage may interact. Furthermore, this article contributes to our understanding of young people's digital drawing practices from their own perspectives. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-06T06:05:06Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241248843
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Authors:Milan Đorđević, Nina Mihaljinac Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article suggests a new model for artist engagement by analysing challenges independent visual artists face in Serbia due to the shift to neoliberal capitalism. The aim is to address the alienation of independent visual artists from broader socio-political issues and to improve their social status through a socio-emancipatory mission of artistic practice. The methodology involves analysing international working conditions for artists, different cultural policy models, and alternative modes of artistic engagement, as well as case study of a community art project in Stara Pazova (Serbia). The significance of studying Serbia rests in its historical experience of self-management when culture was considered an integral part of the socialist society, fostering emancipation and creative freedom. The proposed model emphasizes the horizontality of decision-making and the need for progressive cultural policies that foster experimentation, autonomy, and freedom from bureaucratic requirements. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-05-01T05:14:09Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241247225
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Authors:Bianca Garduño, Ahtziri E. Molina, Anna Cristina Pertierra Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. The Mexican state has been an active agent in the construction of cultural institutions and infrastructure for more than a century. But the symbolic and political currency of the cultural sector is not reflected in stable conditions for creative workers who exist precariously. In this article, we explore a manifestation of the simultaneous state of prominence and precarity in procurement regimes implemented by federal government agencies before the Covid-19 crisis, and support programmes from the federal and local government of Mexico City to employ creative workers during the early phases of the pandemic. We examine the content and arguments of these programmes to highlight how cultural policies and institutional structures developed by the government are a continuation, and even a deepening, of the already precarious work opportunities in the cultural sector. Through policy analysis and qualitative interviews, we contrast the officially stated goals of government institutions with the lived experiences of creative workers. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-04-22T07:55:49Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241245728
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Authors:Lorena Caminhas Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. The article addresses labour precarity in platform-based cultural production from the perspective of Brazilian camming work, examining it through cammers’ perceptions and experiences. Precarity has been a framework for assessing work conditions in platformised cultural industries. This framework stems from a normative standpoint of standard work and employment, which neither represents labour markets nor marginalised cultural labour in the majority world. This article tackles precarity from marginalised Global South cultural producers’ perspectives. Drawing on 15 in-depth interviews with cisgender female cammers, I show that local work and employment realities, and the positionality of platforms within them, are critical to cammers’ sense-making of labour precarity. For the cammers, the parameters for evaluating quality and precarity are unstable and adjusted according to their position within and outside platform economies. Conclusions suggest that precarity is situated and derives its meaning from a complex articulation of workers’ experiences and positions across various economies. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-04-22T07:55:20Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241244410
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Authors:Angela Longo Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article delves into the collaborative efforts that unfolded in the creation of the 2012 exhibition ‘TOKUSATSU: Special Effects Museum – Craftsmanship of Showa and Heisei Eras Seen through Miniatures’, which in turn paved the way for the establishment of institutional facilities for popular culture. Specifically, this article explores the collaborative dynamics of two recently established facilities: the Anime Tokusatsu Archive Center in Tokyo (2017) and the Sukagawa Tokusatsu Archive Center (2020) in Sukagawa, Fukushima. Sukagawa, Tsuburaya Eiji's hometown, has played a pivotal role in mobilising artists and communities to engage with these cultural spaces. Artist groups dedicated to tokusatsu and anime began to consider preservation and exhibition strategies to convey these art forms to other generations. This article analyses the building process, and the social cooperation in building these facilities, connecting them to broader popular culture movements in Japan. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-04-18T07:11:21Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241244401
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Authors:Zhen Ye, Qian Huang, Tonny Krijnen Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. To mediate the tensions between state regulation and content-creator incentives, Chinese social media platforms have developed an interesting practice of using platform official accounts to communicate their rules to the creator community. These accounts anthropomorphize platforms, enabling platforms to represent their regulatory bodies using fictional human characters or animated figures. The phenomenon of platform anthropomorphization in the Chinese context stems from a different ontological understanding of platform governance. The first part of this article discusses the logic of platform governance in China, and highlights a different state–platform relationship in comparison to the US and European countries. In the second part, the article turns to focus on Douyin as a case study to further investigate how Chinese social media platforms establish rules and govern content creators. By analysing Douyin's public-facing policy documents and its platform official account, Douyin Safety Centre, we reveal a mechanism of playful governance. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-04-17T08:01:10Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241247065
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Authors:Kellynn Wee Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. Transmedia storytelling is a strategy adopted by media franchises and brands to create participatory story-worlds for their consumers; it incorporates a range of forms, actors, and texts, all of which have varying degrees of narrative authority in determining the events that occur. This article focuses on tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons to show how play cultures in Singapore are shaped by transmedia storytelling techniques. In doing so, it makes two contributions to existing research: first, it shifts scholarly focus from game texts to player practice, showing how communities of play are created through players’ emergent usage of transmedia storytelling techniques. Second, it describes a player practice of soft canon, which I theorise as an approach to shared world-making that prioritises the emotional resonance of narrative details over a positivist accounting of narrative events. The concept of soft canon reveals a new perspective on how communities create and sustain intersubjectively imagined worlds. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-04-13T09:23:37Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241244407
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Authors:Robert Prey, Seonok Lee Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. There is a major blindspot regarding our understanding of different structural models of platformization beyond the dominant Anglo-American markets. This article develops a typology of political economic models of platformization by using the case of music platformization. In order to generate such a typology, the article proposes that we start by identifying variables present in any music market around the world. Three different variables are proposed: (1) platform dependence; (2) dominance of ‘global’ platforms; and (3) the degree of platform and recording industry integration. To illustrate how these variables result in structurally distinct models of platformization, the article briefly discusses the cases of South Korea, the Netherlands and Nigeria. In doing so, a framework is provided through which to interpret the experiences and conditions of musicians, and other cultural producers, in diverse platform ecosystems. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-04-13T09:23:34Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241244399
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Authors:Dasol Kim Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article investigates the influence of YouTube's monetization metrics on content creation practices and their reflection of geopolitical and economic factors. Using the case study of “Team Azimkiya,” a Bangladeshi YouTube channel primarily targeting South Korean viewers, the study introduces the concept of “global CPM arbitrage.” CPM, or cost per 1000 impressions, estimates advertising revenue for channels. Global CPM arbitrage characterizes content creators’ strategic approach to leverage varying CPM rates across geographic regions, optimizing their advertising revenue within the YouTube ecosystem. While CPM is often seen as an objective metric, the analysis of Team Azimkiya's strategies reveals its role in constructing audiences and directing higher-revenue viewers. In a platform that exhibits a preference for content from more affluent regions, self-Orientalization emerges as an effective content creation approach. This article argues that this approach can perpetuate the inter-Asian dynamic and the Orientalist gaze. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-04-11T09:17:58Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241240780
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Authors:Jindong Leo-Liu, Anthony Fung, Han Fu Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. The short-video platform TikTok/Douyin becomes a space not only for individuals to express and articulate their interests, but also for the authorities to negotiate with the public on various ideological boundaries. This article specifically examines a Douyin campaign in which the platform attempts to prescribe a standard of body exposure that falls within the tolerance level of the authorities and, meanwhile, favours users’ interests to gain support. To conceptualize such discursive negotiations and the relevant tactics, we propose the term ‘discursive concession’ to describe the process of compromise by temporarily challenging, obscuring, and rearticulating the discursive boundary, eventually legitimizing the subordinated discourse by aligning it with the dominant ideological logic. By analysing discourses of representative short videos and comments, we identified three tactics of discursive concession: cooptation, hijacking, and normalization. They respectively describe how dominant, subordinated, and middle powers leverage each other to push the discursive boundary forward. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-03-28T08:15:03Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241239681
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Authors:Jean Burgess, Louisa Bartolo, Joanne Gray, Jonathon Hutchinson, D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernandez, Kylie Pappalardo, Patrik Wikstrom Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. ‘Diversity’ is a heavily freighted and multivalent keyword in the global digital media environment. The recommender systems used by platforms are particularly acute sites of development and debate around the political, cultural and technical issues ‘diversity’ signifies. Drawing on a review of computer science publications on recommender systems in media and entertainment as well as a survey of recent advances in media and cultural policy scholarship, this short article performs a pragmatic close reading of diversity in these intersecting fields. We note that attention must be paid to the specific challenges and politics of diversity not only in particular cultural fields but also in local cultural contexts, drawing on examples from music and SVOD platforms to flesh out these questions and the practical possibilities that arise from them. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-03-28T07:26:23Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241239342
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Authors:Jingyan Elaine Yuan Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. Focusing on intermediation in cultural production in a digital ecology consisting of multiple platforms mediating simultaneously converging and diverging industries, this study critically engages with the thesis that platforms act primarily as a disintermediation vector in a linear value chain within a single industry. With two empirical cases of intermediation in the emerging virtual celebrity sector – one organizing the recursive loop of prosumption, the other articulating authenticity against technological standardization and overproduction, the study shifts the focus away from questions of labor and agency of individual creators and unpacks the conditions of intermediation in the context of new industrial models of value creation, commodification, and division of labor. The empirical cases demonstrate that the implications of platforms for digital cultural production are paradoxical – while their business models lead to a centralized process of value capture, their flexible organizational forms may afford new distributed patterns of value creation. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-02-07T06:35:31Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779241230564
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Authors:Kyong Yoon, Camila Alexandra Labarta Garcia Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. Drawing on qualitative interviews with K-pop fans in Lima, Peru, this study explores how Latin fans think about and negotiate K-pop industries’ citations of Latin pop music tropes. It addresses the ways in which K-pop's practices of citing other cultures are perceived by the audience whose culture is cited. The Peruvian fans in this study suggest that the citations of other cultures observed in K-pop offer versatile entry points for them to easily engage in the cultural genre. For them, K-pop is a novel cultural genre that has become an alternative yet intimate cultural resource, especially compared to hegemonic American pop music. By providing an analysis of Latin K-pop fans’ lived experiences through the lens of cultural hybridity and appropriation, this audience study contributes to the field of transcultural media research. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-01-23T07:16:31Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779231224474
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Authors:Katerina Girginova Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. There is a growing effort to locate metaverse developments within the purview of platform research. However, the majority of English-language studies take Horizon Worlds, Meta's US-centric prototype of a metaverse, as the starting point. This critical reflection argues that since the fate of the metaverse is far from settled, and its building blocks exist in a colorful array of global visions, we need to divorce discourses of the metaverse from Meta's hype cycle and multiply our frames of reference by engaging with international developments. In turn, this article proceeds by scoping out metaverse visions emanating from different parts of the world and drawing out common themes as entry points for future research. This article contributes to a re-orientation of metaverse studies toward critical and embodied global perspectives of socio-cultural production, while simultaneously reconsidering the very notion of the metaverse as a platform. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-01-10T06:58:09Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779231224799
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Authors:Marc Steinberg, Lin Zhang, Rahul Mukherjee Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article argues for a pluralization of the “platform capitalism” framework, suggesting we should think instead in terms of “platform capitalisms.” This pluralization opens the way to a better account of how platforms work in different geocultural contexts, with our focus being on China, India and Japan. The article first outlines several roles the state has taken on in mediating platform capitalisms. We then signal three main axes around which to consider the implications of platform capitalisms for cultural production: state–platform symbiosis; platform precarity; and the informal–formal relation in cultural production. This short provocation, we hope, will help foreground the crucial role of the state in platform capitalisms, such that the state–culture–capitalism nexus might be better acknowledged in research on platforms and cultural production now and into the future. This is particularly important as states themselves increasingly become platform operators. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-01-04T07:24:34Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779231223544
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Authors:Godwin Iretomiwa Simon Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article explores the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Nigerian film industry (Nollywood) and the local responses of filmmakers to the precariousness engendered by the pandemic. This research adopts the critical media industry studies framework and relies on interviews with 30 Nollywood filmmakers who provided insights on the impact of the pandemic on labour in Nollywood. Theorizing the Covid-19 dynamics as reflective of the ambivalence of informality, this article submits that although informality was central to Nollywood's industrial structure and sustainability, the pandemic triggered unprecedented tensions associated with those informal practices and highlighted existing precarity which had been largely masked by constant availability of jobs. Accordingly, a significant legacy of the pandemic for the industry is the unprecedented gravitation of industry players towards more formalized industrial structures and practices. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-01-04T07:24:14Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779231222029
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Authors:Mark Kretzschmar, Mel Stanfill Abstract: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. In this article, we examine songs that reuse decades-old Japanese media, in which the Japaneseness is both important and attenuated. While there is clear desire for and pleasure in the Japaneseness of source materials in vaporwave (electronic music featuring manipulated sounds and images from the 1980s and 1990s) and future funk (which commonly samples 1980s Japanese music and speeds it up), actual sources matter primarily as a signifier of Japaneseness. Conversely, game sounds (songs that sample or mimic 1990s and 2000s video game music) and chiptunes (songs made with 1980s and 1990s video game hardware) have a direct relationship with either specific video games or material hardware that highlights a direct tie to transnationally distributed culture. Overall, these ways of engaging with Japanese media have significant implications for theorizing cross-cultural exchange. Citation: International Journal of Cultural Studies PubDate: 2024-01-04T07:24:13Z DOI: 10.1177/13678779231220399
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