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Media, Culture & Society
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.846  Citation Impact (citeScore): 2 Number of Followers: 45  Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)ISSN (Print) 0163-4437 - ISSN (Online) 1460-3675 Published by Sage Publications  [1176 journals]
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- Fake news on social media: Understanding teens’ (Dis)engagement with
news-
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Authors: Florence Namasinga Selnes
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This article takes a qualitative approach to examine the role of fake news in shaping adolescent’s participation in news. Instead of experimental approaches that are common with similar research, the current study expands our understanding of teenagers’ engagement with news on social media using focus groups, interviews in addition to reviewing research reports by the Norwegian Media Authority. The study found that fake news is positively related to teens’ engagement with news. Contrary to reports that younger audiences have weak ties with news brands, this study shows that teens in Norway are led back to mainstream media to corroborate and fact-check news. This negates my initial assumption that fake news was bad because teens’ perspectives show fake news as positively triggering discussions around news encountered on social media. Teens engage with fake news for verification, which drives them off social media toward conventional media. This is good for news and for journalism
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-09-21T11:59:20Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231198447
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- Flying the skies to wire the seas: Subsea cables, remote work, and the
social fabric of a media industry-
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Authors: Iago Bojczuk, Nicole Starosielski, Anne Pasek
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Since the commercial aviation boom in the 1960s and 70s, the subsea cable industry has relied on global air travel for network development, infrastructure maintenance, and market penetration. However, COVID-19 disruptions forced a shift to remote work, challenging traditional travel practices and presenting an opportunity for carbon emission reduction. This study investigates the industry’s response to the “new normal” and its implications for mobility and sustainability. We employ a media industries approach and conduct open-ended interviews with industry leaders to examine the potential balance between remote work benefits and essential in-person aspects, questioning whether the industry should return to pre-pandemic travel levels or embrace remote work’s ecological and financial benefits. Our findings indicate that remote work suitability varies depending on project stage, involved personnel, and the existing social fabric. To facilitate travel-related carbon footprint monitoring for cable consortiums, we developed a calculator to determine the industry’s emissions when adopting remote work. Our interdisciplinary study also emphasizes mobility’s intricate role in subsea cable systems and broader media infrastructure studies. By scrutinizing corporate cultures, communication practices, and transportation infrastructures, we enhance the scholarly comprehension of the social fabric underpinning global digital networks and investigate potential shifts toward a more sustainable media industry.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-09-19T08:34:30Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231198423
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- On the Wire: Analysing the evolution of BBC Local Radio, music radio and
public service broadcasting-
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Authors: James Ingham
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This paper examines the significance of On the Wire, a BBC local radio programme, that provides a unique lens through which to examine changes in local radio, music radio in general and public service broadcasting. The paper provides a concise history and an account of the On the Wire, along with an explanation of its impact. The paper offers reasons for the programme’s enduring appeal, including its ability to change and adapt, its emphasis on the local in a global context and its innovative approach to audience participation. The paper concludes by positing that the history of On the Wire provides valuable insights for broadcasters in general, highlighting key aspects that radio programmes can learn from its approach. By showcasing the possibilities of what local radio, music radio and public service broadcasting can be, On the Wire sets a positive example for what radio can achieve.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-09-13T11:10:12Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231199636
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- ‘Up to you’: Self-help books, depression and the
reconstruction of reading-
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Authors: Amber E Gwynne
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Like other consumers of ‘low-brow’ genres, self-help readers elicit polarized views in the literature. While little research to date has focused specifically on self-help readers with a history of mental illness, existing commentary reveals a particular tension: on the one hand, clinical researchers report positive outcomes for depressed readers engaged in bibliotherapy programs using self-help books, similar or superior to medication or talk therapy; on the other, scholars of media and culture express misgivings about the quality of self-help texts and highlight the negative potential of therapeutic discourse for individual readers and audiences more generally. By asking what actual readers do with self-help books, however, my research suggests an altogether more complex interaction between readers and the books they choose and use – especially as they navigate experiences of mental illness. Leveraging a reader-response heuristic in which I interviewed a cohort of Australian readers, this paper details some of the ways in which habitual consumers of self-help books describe their own interpretive activities, problematizing previous research that either emphasizes or downplays the significant expertise of vernacular audiences.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-09-11T11:57:17Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231198431
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- Metaphors at work: Reconciling welfare and market in Danish digitalisation
policies-
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Authors: Rikke Frank Jørgensen, Sille Obelitz Søe
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
The way in which we describe processes of automation, the digital society and the technology companies that deliver many of its services carry implicit and sometimes contradicting values and ideas about the society envisioned. In this paper, we are interested in unfolding some of the metaphors that guide political discourses on digitalisation in Denmark, particularly those related to the nexus between the welfare state and the market. We propose that metaphorical analysis of policy documents serves to tease out and confront the implicit values and tensions related to how welfare ideologies are reconciled with market logics. This carries important messages about the Danish government’s imaginary of digitalisation and citizens, such as which role citizens are expected to play vis-à-vis digital services and welfare provisions. This paper argues that in contrast to the EU’s declared goal of human-centric digitalisation, the Danish government relies on metaphors that are technology-centric rather than human-centric.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-08-22T11:54:33Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231188463
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- Attention, ambivalence and algorithms publishers in the era of ubiquitous
connectivity and expanding platforms-
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Authors: Kari Spjeldnæs, Faltin Karlsen
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This article scrutinizes how digitalization influences fiction and non-fiction literature publishers in the era of ubiquitous digital connection. The analysis states how a lack of attention is triggering a sense of urgency for the future of literary reading. Further, the digital transition entails an overarching ambivalence. Key stakeholders in literary publishing are experiencing how media on platform-based streaming services is competing with traditional reading. They perceive a battle for time and question the future of reading. From the perspectives of Bourdieu’s theory, the article reveals how penetrating connectivity is leading to a change in the professional habitus. Continuous busyness and increased professional presence are triggering ambivalence between work-related duties and personal well-being. Moreover, the publishing stakeholders reveal an ambivalence in voicing future expectations. While worried about the future of reading, the professional habitus leans on a promising future for the industry.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-08-12T11:56:25Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231191361
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- Re-meme-bering Tiananmen' From collective memory to meta-memory on
TikTok-
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Authors: Seth Seet, Edson C Tandoc
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
The 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre has been enshrined in the collective memory of different social groups globally in various ways, while the Chinese government enforces its own memory of Tiananmen through censorship and revisionism. These result in numerous memories of Tiananmen. Through a qualitative analysis of 27 TikToks posted on 3–5 June 2022, this study examines how Tiananmen is commemorated on TikTok on Tiananmen’s anniversary and what is remembered about Tiananmen. This study found that commemoration posts on TikTok remember the protests, casualties, the Chinese Communist Party leaders’ role, and the historical contexts, oft using the Tank Man image. The posts also remember the remembrance and memory formation of Tiananmen. Through commemorations, memes, and humor, some posts remember the Chinese government’s attempts to recreate the collective memory and other commemoration events. This is best described as meta-memories, where people remember the remembering and possess memory of the memory of events.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-08-12T09:59:05Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231191413
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- Happiness in newsroom contracts: communicative resistance for digital work
and life satisfaction-
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Authors: Errol Salamon
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Digital-era newsworkers in the United States have steadily joined trade unions since 2015. This article examines all 22 collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) of one such union, the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), which were ratified between April 2015 and June 2022, with an eye toward better understanding employee digital job and life satisfaction. Bringing together critical political economy of media, industrial relations, and labor research, the article argues that the collective bargaining agreement is a communicative means through which digital newsworker unions express employee resistance to particular labor issues. It is also a legal mechanism articulating solutions to these issues that could provide the basis for employee life satisfaction. Grounded in a content analysis, this article finds that the WGAE CBAs incorporate language on workplace rights, newsworkers’ benefits, and limits on management rights, revealing the relative weight of different union solutions to newsworkers’ digital-era grievances. The CBAs also communicatively constitute the conditions for digital newsworkers’ happiness and subjective well-being. By proposing a relational model of digital newsworkers’ CBAs, researchers and practitioners could better understand the language that is needed to communicatively constitute and facilitate happiness in newsrooms, supporting digital job and life satisfaction among newsworkers.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-08-07T11:22:58Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231191353
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- Marry or not for democracy and love: Dialogic framing in the Taiwan
marriage equality movement and countermovement-
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Authors: Yidong Wang, Xiaomei Sun
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Dialogic framing means that the frames are constructed through interaction among multiple parties in a discursive system with socio-cultural specificities. The meaning of a frame is articulated through such dialogic interaction and under constant contestation. We used the marriage equality movement in Taiwan as a case study and demonstrated how dialogic framing could advance the understanding of framing in the digital mobilization of collective actions. Analyzing Facebook posts by opposing advocacy groups, we identified “collective identity” and “rights” as two dominant frames. Marriage equality activists framed legalizing same-sex marriage as a testament to the democratic progress of Taiwan and a validation of gay and lesbian people’s right of love. The countermovement challenged this framing by arguing that equalizing gay love to heterosexual marital love violated the civil rights of the silent majority. The queer critique of marriage as state-sanctioned regulation of sexual citizenship and the very state power being critiqued are also constitutive of the dialogic framing of collective actions for or against same-sex marriage on social media.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-08-07T10:50:11Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231188462
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- The value and price of digital media commodities
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Authors: Jang-Ryol Yun
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Focusing on the fact that digital media commodities are easily reproduced once initially produced, this paper explains, against the backdrop of Marxist insights, just how these commodities are produced, distributed, and consumed in the current digital media environment. Working with Marx’s definition of the value of commodities as the social labor time required for their production, we can thereby define the value and price of reproduced digital media commodities as zero, but the market price of these commodities as in fact constituting the Marxist monopoly price. These determinations are then supported by a review of the ways valueless digital media goods are commodified in a monopolistic real world. The approach here, borrowing from Marx’s research methods, starts from commodity analysis to explain comprehensively the wider political and economic system of capitalism. This viewpoint of the inherent value of media products is foreign to neoclassical economics as well as to mainstream media and communication studies embracing the utility theory of value.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-08-01T05:30:34Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231188464
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- Media research and proposals for media change: Notes on a key variable
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Authors: John Corner
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
A significant body of media research internationally involves suggestions for planned change, often as a key point of conclusion. The suggested changes or reforms are placed in the context of perceived deficits in media performance, which may be seen as longstanding or as a result of recent shifts in the broader economy, the political frame or a major disruption such as that brought about by COVID-19. Some research restricts itself to documenting the deficits with possible remedies largely implied. However, other work seeks to go further. Recommendations for change in media structures and practices differ widely in their scale, specificity and also in their level of engagement with the surrounding political, economic and social settings. These settings are the consequence of various planned and unplanned factors interacting over time. This note looks at a number of variables around ideas of planned change in the contexts of current media inquiry, including that of media historiography, taking a few illustrative examples to examine the frameworks within which they are placed. It reviews connections made with levels of the political and economic system and of public evaluations and media uses as well as with the levels of the media industries themselves and their workforces.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-31T11:07:40Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231189599
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- The political uses of memory: Instagram and Black-Asian solidarities
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Authors: Rachel Kuo, Sarah J. Jackson
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This study investigates how activist organizations wield collective memory as they advance cross-racial solidarity on Instagram. We center digital memory-making in political work by Black and Asian activist organizations as a contribution to understanding social movement communication and online organizing. We study Instagram content from local organizations in Minneapolis (and the Midwest region), Atlanta (and the Southeast region), and national digital organizing collectives between the end of May 2020 to June 2021. This corpus of material includes the summer uprisings for Black liberation following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as well as the increased visibility of incidents of anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, including a mass shooting at massage parlors in Atlanta. Among our findings is the centrality of memories of internationalist feminist movements to contemporary cross-racial politics.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-27T06:10:15Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231185963
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- Eating alone as psychological self-care: How the younger generation in
Let’s Eat survives in neoliberal South Korea-
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Authors: Hojin Song
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
TV dramas that focus on food and eating reflect the popular trend of single culture, with a rising number of single-person households among the younger generation in South Korea. Analyzing Let’s Eat (tvN), the South Korean food drama series that specifically focus on eating scenes, this paper uses the framework of survivalism and the popular discourse of healing to examine how eating alone as a social and cultural phenomenon represents the psychological turn in neoliberalism. In its three seasons, Let’s Eat reflects how eating alone becomes a practice of endurance and resilience that encourages the younger generation to stay positive, even during an enervated state of mind, to bounce back, and to ultimately spring forward. I argue that Let’s Eat reflects how survivalism especially requires the marginalized population of women in precarious employment to reflect and grow confidence without considering the problems of structural inequality. Let’s Eat shows the younger generation’s struggle and lack of societal support, perpetuating neoliberalism’s focus on individual effort and blaming individuals for their enervation.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-26T09:06:15Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231188445
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- “I want to be a bridge”' The digital identity positioning of
transnational bloggers on Chinese social media platforms: Between ethnic
differences and cultural affinities-
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Authors: Yuting Liu
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
How do transnational bloggers position their digital identities on Chinese social media platforms' To answer this question, this study builds a coordinate system of digital identity positioning with intensity of ethnic differences and cultural affinities as the horizontal and vertical coordinates. Four digital identities are found: culturalists, individualists, cultural otherness, and cultural admirers. Transnational bloggers may have overlapping or changing digital identities rather than a single, defined identity. This reflects the process and multiplicity of identity formation, which involves negotiation and flow between ethnic differences and cultural affinities. This study traces transnational bloggers in local digital cultural spaces, raises awareness about the types of split identities in the digital age, and provides an analytical framework for digital identities. Considering the transformation of digital society, researchers should continue to investigate new forms of digital identity building in global and local digital cultural spaces: linking actions, ideologies, and experiences in Internet spaces to broader social, cultural, and political contexts.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-26T06:01:17Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231188451
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- Ritual check-in, shocked immersion, regained stability: A sequential
typology of news experiences in crisis situations-
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Authors: Hallvard Moe, Torgeir Uberg Nærland, Brita Ytre-Arne
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This short paper discusses people’s news experiences before, during and after societal crisis situations, contributing with a sequential typology outlining the three phases ritual check-in, shocked immersion and regained stability. Theoretically, we draw on classical contributions to media studies and sociology, particularly the concepts of ritual communication and ontological security. Empirically, we build on qualitative interview studies with news audiences in Norway, spanning 5 years and different crisis cases including political turmoil, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. We underline the significance of emotional distancing to regain stability, and identify crises lacking start- and endpoints as particularly difficult to navigate. These insights should instigate further debate about our understanding of news audiences in a tumultuous world, particularly relevant to scholarship on news use and avoidance.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-26T05:58:06Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231187967
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- The erosion of media freedom in Ghana: A signal democratic
backsliding'-
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Authors: Paul Achonga Kabah Kwode, George Asekere, Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Ghana is a poster child of the consolidation of liberal democracy in Africa, the signal evidence of which is the freedom of the Ghanaian media as the fourth estate of the realm. However, recent developments in the media landscape of the country, such as sustained death threats, assaults, use of unwarranted brute force, suspicions and murder of journalists seem to mar the democratic image of Ghana. These incidents have raised concerns about the erosion of freedom and independence of the media in Ghana, a situation that is worrying enough to ignite a debate on whether the dark days of the culture of silence are returning to the country under democratic governance. Drawing on qualitative data collected through personal in-depth interviews and grey literature of media attacks and intimidations, the article examines the extent of the erosion of press freedom in Ghana. We argue that media freedom seems to be under increasing threat by elements of the state, despite public rhetoric of freedom of the press. Specifically, the threats are coming from officials of state such as national security operatives, the police and political party supporters. Concluding, the article calls for sustained civic activism against these threats.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-26T05:54:57Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231185933
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- ‘You’re too smart to be a publicist’: Perceptions, expectations and
the labour of book publicity-
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Authors: Alexandra Dane, Millicent Weber, Claire Parnell
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
The representation of publicists in popular culture appears to have a direct relationship with how publishing sector publicity staff are perceived by their colleagues and peers, having a distinct knock-on effect to work practices and labour conditions. In this article, we explore these perceptions and, through interviews with eight publicists working in publishing houses in Australia, explore how the work of publicity is commonly misrecognised and undervalued. In framing publicists as cultural intermediaries who contribute to the shaping of cultural tastes, we further illuminate the significant gap between the common gendered perceptions of publicists and the realities of their professional practice.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-24T07:14:32Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231188447
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- Day of Rage: Forensic journalism and the US Capitol riot
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Authors: Kelly Gates
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This article examines how video journalism produced by the elite press is using forensic techniques and aesthetics as part of the effort to reinvent journalistic authority in a fragmented media and political sphere. I first discuss some earlier moments in which news coverage of events adopted a media-forensic epistemology and style, and then turn to the formation of the New York Times Visual Investigations team, a group at the leading-edge of this type of journalism today. I provide an analysis of one of the team’s investigative reports, a 40-minute account of the January 6 Capitol riot assembled from vernacular video, surveillance footage, police bodycam video, and other non-news source materials. In both its formal aspects and its subject matter, the piece represents an important example for understanding an emerging form of forensic journalism. While the January 6 Capitol riot was not the first time news coverage of a violent event adopted a forensic style and epistemology, the forensic-media coverage of the riot represents a unique conjuncture. A new convergence of media-technological developments and journalist practices shaped how the storming of the Capitol was experienced, investigated, and covered as a media event.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-24T07:11:32Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231188449
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- Moderating for a friend of mine: Content moderation as affective
reproduction in Chinese live-streaming-
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Authors: Fan Xiao
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Bridging the theory of affective labor and reproductive labor, this paper proposes “affective reproduction” as a critical framework to analyze the unpaid work of volunteer content moderation. Findings from this study problematize the one-sided focus on streamers in the extant literature on platform labor vis-à-vis live-streaming. It contends that fan moderators help streamers reproduce the live-streaming atmosphere as friendly, pleasant, and relevant, facilitating Internet celebrities’ money-making. This study contributes to studies of digital labor in two ways: 1) it expands the labor and work perspective to the study of content moderation and discloses the indirect value-generating nature of this work; 2) the designation of moderator in Chinese live-streaming platforms reveals a new form of work organization that exploits digital intimacy, transforming platform users into non-professional, secondary cultural workers. The proposed framework is applicable to various forms of participatory media, in which users are encouraged to manage and regulate their peers.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-24T07:08:50Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231188465
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- Theorizing and mapping media ownership networks in authoritarian-populist
contexts: a comparative analysis of Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Turkey
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Authors: Gerhard Schnyder, Marlene Radl, Fanni Toth, Melek Kucukuzun, Tjaša Turnšek, Burçe Çelik, Mojca Pajnik
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing discussions on authoritarian populism and the media, from the lens of the political economy of ownership. In contrast to studies that consider the link between media and authoritarian populism by focusing on the discursive structures of populist communication, this study analyses changes in the structure of news media ownership in four European countries that have been subject to authoritarian populism. By employing social network analysis, a methodology rarely used in media ownership research, we reveal how news media ownership concentration as well as changes in ownership structures have provided favorable conditions for the rise and endurance of authoritarian populism. Our study covers ownership developments during the period 2000 to 2020, in Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Turkey where authoritarian populist tendencies have been evident, albeit to varying degrees. Conclusions are drawn to illustrate how authoritarian populist actors in the sample countries not only capitalize on prevailing news media ownership structures, but also proactively intervene in ownership relations in order to increase influence over the diffusion of information.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-17T10:13:56Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231179366
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- Media practice and class-making: The anticipation of stigma and the
cultural middle-class habitus-
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Authors: Johan Lindell, Aleksandra Dominika Kas
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
The relationship between media practices and social inequality has been studied within a range of sub-disciplines in media and communication studies and cultural sociology. In various, more or less direct, ways these studies point to the fact that habitus – the socially formed class specific relations to the social world – generates certain tastes, lifestyles, practices and preferences. When social groups form relatively distinct media practices, and distance themselves from the practices of other groups, they reproduce their social position, and ‘make’ their class. By analysing in-depth interviews with members of an emerging cultural middle-class, this study shows how class-making also manifests in the ways in which people expect that others would ‘look down’ on their media practices. By anticipating stigma from imagined others, the cultural middle-class stays in line with class-specific lifestyles and media practices, thus cementing their distinct character in the social space.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-12T10:10:18Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231185966
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- “An out gay man in the parliament”: New aspects in the study of LGBTQ
politicians’ media coverage-
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Authors: Gilad Greenwald, Sharon Haleva-Amir, Amit Kama
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This study identifies how three prominent Israeli online newspapers frame gay Members of Knesset (Israeli parliament) and cabinet ministers. 2019 was chosen since the number of gay MKs reached a historic milestone of representation. The study employed a mixed-methods design, combining descriptive statistics, based on a quantitative content analysis, with a thematic qualitative analysis. 1015 retrieved news items constituted the initial database. They were divided into two categories: “Gay relevant” (items explicitly referring to, or mentioning the politician’s sexual orientation); or “Gay irrelevant” (all other items), to thematically focus on the Gay relevant items (N = 159). Six themes were then identified: Novelty; LGBTQ Political Representation; Private Sphere; Homophobia; Community Recognition and Rights; and Incongruity. Findings revealed that elite newspaper coverage is similar to popular ones; cabinet ministers’ framing is more neutral compared to junior MKs; and liberal MKs are framed differently than conservative ones.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-12T09:49:18Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231185946
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- Media representations of naturalized athletes: Sentiment variations and
trends in Turkish media-
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Authors: Elçin Istif Inci, Cem Tinaz, Umit Kuvvetli, Nefise Meltem Turgut
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Turkey has received consistent criticism from international media for having many naturalized athletes in its national squad, both in the Olympic Games and other major international sporting events. Similar criticisms have also been a feature of debates for a long time in domestic media, varying in views toward these athletes. This research focuses on media representations of naturalized athletes in Turkey between 2008 and 2020. We investigated the sentiments of news items from four major Turkish newspapers (Milliyet, Cumhuriyet, Sabah and Fanatik) on their stances toward naturalized athletes over the timespan of 2008–2020. Beside analyzing the sentiment of the media content both cumulatively and fragmentedly, we also identified the yearly trends and most featured sports in this context, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques. Our findings showed that sentiments in Turkish media toward naturalized athletes are mostly neutral and negative as well as with differences varying on the basis of the newspapers and news item types. The most criticism underlined pursuing “shortcut” success with naturalized athletes representing Turkey in the international arena. Among the featured sports, basketball, football, and track and field have been the most discussed ones in the naturalization context.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-10T08:13:27Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231185940
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- Analyzing gender capital in Grand Theft Auto social media conversations
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Authors: Steven Dashiell, Andy Phelps
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This research looks at the role of gender capital in sensitive topics in game studies. Grand Theft Auto is a game that has been linked to negative portrayals of women and glorification of violence. With the potential release of Grand Theft Auto 6, a rumor was leaked concerning the possibility of a woman as the main playable character. We examine posts on a tweet discussing the potential of the lead character in Grand Theft Auto 6 being a woman (n=182). We note three ways how masculine gender capital is employed to manipulate masculinity via discourse. When used by men, linguistic gender capital is used to either affirm support or to lament the possibility. For women, masculine gender capital is used to diminish the masculinity of those men who have a problem with the potential of a woman as the lead character. Even those who support the idea utilize homophobic and belittling language to dismiss and ridicule others, weaponizing masculinity. In short, even attacks on a “toxic” masculinity are themselves harmful, demonstrating how the damaging utilization of masculine gender capital – from whatever source – is the crux of the problem.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-07-08T06:31:45Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231185949
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- Why to regulate Netflix: the cross-national politics of the audiovisual
media governance in the light of streaming platforms-
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Authors: Antonios Vlassis
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Today, at a time of major downturn in the audiovisual sector, several regions and countries are reconsidering the scope and reach of domestic or regional audiovisual media governance and are developing policy instruments in order to involve transnational Video on Demand (VOD) platforms, such as Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, in the financing, distribution and visibility of local, national and regional audiovisual content. A key issue that emerges from this backdrop is to provide convincing answers about why public authorities are feeling the urge to develop new regulations towards global VOD streamers in a specific sequence and temporality and to focus on variables, which are expected to understand this cross-national policy momentum for regulating VOD services. In addition, even though transnational VOD services represent disruptive new actors, creating industrial, technological and institutional shock, this disruption does not lead to the same political issue cross-nationally and to the same kind of policy responses. Firstly, the article explores the key outlines that the academic literature highlights in order to understand the regulation of online platforms in the media sectors. Secondly, it provides a cross-national portrayal of policy initiatives towards the VOD streamers, focusing on the EU Member States, Australia, Canada, Mexico and South Africa. Thirdly, the article argues that political struggles over VOD platforms are expected to be framed and fought simultaneously by two crucial variables, dealing with state-society relationships and global interdependence.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-30T11:24:31Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231182565
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- Streaming culture and a new wave of institutionalisation of audience
measurement in China-
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Authors: Elaine Jing Zhao
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This article examines the unfolding re-institutionalisation of audience measurement as the streaming culture reshapes the television industry in China. Following a brief introduction of the institutionalisation of the ratings culture, I examine how streaming platforms are reconfiguring audience measurement by tracing how various metrics are defined, used and valued by different platforms, in different contexts and across time. The analysis reveals continuing and new forms of informalities despite signs of convergence towards the use of algorithmic metrics, which are closely connected to streaming service providers’ self-serving interest in a multi-sided market. Next, I discuss how the disruption of the state’s near-monopoly in audience measurement in the traditional television industry breaks the regulatory inertia. I explain the dual-approach to institutional intervention by the state – the regulation of metric commodities through mandated calibration, and the launch of an official system as market alternative and policy instrument. I argue that the state intervention – through governance of and with algorithms – constitutes adaptive cultural governance serving ‘mass’ audience construction, and the regulation doubles up as a market response to serve the state’s intention to reclaim power in and over the market.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-30T11:19:31Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231182017
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- Innovation through anachronism: the Pony Express, media, and American
modernities-
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Authors: Christina Corfield
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Historically, the relationship between innovation and technology has formed an important element of Euro-American identity. However, such a view ignores older or alternative media forms and practices, contributing to a conception of modernity as future-oriented, obscuring the importance of transitional moments during which the value and meaning of new media develop and new senses of community identity can be defined. As we live through a transitional moment with new forms of technological media emerging in shortening cycles of time and with American identity in conflict and flux, re-assessing the relationship between innovation, technological media, and modernity is urgent. The mid-19th century likewise was a time of social, technological, and cultural change. Following a media archeological method, I focus on a messaging system from the 19th century, the Pony Express, which was in operation for only 18 months, but became a media phenomenon whose imaginative influence lasted into the 21st century. The Pony Express’s success as a messenger demonstrates how an anachronistic communications system solved a problem of American modernization – the need for networked connection across long distances – and shows how such a system provided imaginative and iconographic frameworks for maintaining a sense of American identity at a time of change.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-30T11:14:26Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231182009
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- Hashtag nationalism: a discursive and networked digital activism
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Authors: Renyi He
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s former and longest-serving prime minister was assassinated on 8 July 2022. As the world expressed sorrow of the human tragedy, nationalists in China were celebrating the disappearance of a hardline Chinese hawk with great enthusiasm. When a Chinese journalist sobbed for Abe’s death during a live report of the assassination, the surging anti-Japan sentiment exploded and soon developed into a hashtag-based nationalist protest attacking Abe and the journalist. Drawing from cyber nationalism and hashtag activism literature, the author coined a concept ‘hashtag nationalism’ to analyze this protest, the interactions between state-led nationalism and popular nationalism, and the role of digital media in the public-state relation. This article also generalized three affordances of hashtag – interconnectivity, intertextuality, and interdiscursivity – to approach the role of social media in digital activism from a relational perspective. Finally, the analysis revealed the discursive and networked nature of hashtag nationalism.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-28T10:24:28Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231169917
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- Share with care: negotiating children’s health and safety in
sharenting practices-
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Authors: Morena Tartari, Anita Lavorgna, Pamela Ugwudike
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Sharenting – a new term emerged over the past 10 years – refers to the practice of sharing textual and audiovisual contents concerning children online by their parents or guardians, potentially impacting the construction of children’s digital identity before they can reach the age of consent. Based on a passive virtual ethnography carried out comparatively in Italian-speaking and English-speaking virtual communities focusing on children’s wellbeing and health, this paper offers an empirical contribution to the study of sharenting. While contributing to the wider debates on the practices and discourses about sharing in digital media, this paper provides an analysis of how online and offline parenting cultures affect sharenting practices; how the consequences of sharenting are addressed in online communities; and how the privacy vs openness tension about sharing contents is negotiated by parents with regards to their own and children needs even in terms of digital security.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-26T05:20:28Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231182002
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- Japan’s retreat to the metaverse
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Authors: Paul Roquet
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
As in much of the world, interest in Japan surrounding the ‘metaverse’ quickly arose in response to Facebook’s embrace of the term and rebranding to Meta in October 2021. While Meta’s own vision focused on blending virtual spaces with existing office environments, prominent Japanese metaverse approaches focused instead on the production of alternate worlds that could more fully substitute for this one. This essay turns to trade paperbacks from metaverse developers and proponents released in Japan in the wake of Facebook’s rebranding, exploring the emphasis on physical and social withdrawal that characterizes these metaverse appeals. Examining the conservative ‘otaku’ politics that underwrite this retreat to more comfortable, more controllable forms of media immersion, I offer a critical examination of these Japanese proposals to outsource the space of everyday social interaction to for-profit American technology platforms.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-26T05:14:50Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231182001
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- Situating #MeToo: a comparative analysis of the movement in Catalonia and
Portugal-
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Authors: Marta Roqueta-Fernàndez, Sofia P Caldeira
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Since its re-emergence in 2017, the #MeToo movement has been adopted across the globe. #MeToo has a transnational dimension, transcending its initial US context and placing international issues alongside national concerns. This article aims to contextualize and situate #MeToo, providing a critical review of the movement in two local contexts – Catalonia (Spain) and Portugal. The analysis is grounded on empirical observations on social media, drawing as well on previous scholarship on the topic produced both internationally and in the contexts of study, and on the engagement with relevant national media sources. By focusing on national expressions of #MeToo in Portugal and Catalonia, this article explores how #MeToo took shape in (and was shaped by) the local contexts and existing feminist practices. It presents the different temporalities and dynamics of the movement in these two contexts, exploring the roles of both social media and traditional press in the local developments of #MeToo, and also briefly exploring the local legislative implications of the movement. This article thus presents #MeToo as common and easily recognisable frame used in local contexts to approach different issues of sexual and gendered violence, yet flexible enough to allow for national specificities.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-12T11:19:58Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231179351
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- Rural media studies: making the case for a new subfield
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Authors: Geoffrey Hobbis, Marc Esteve-Del-Valle, Rashid Gabdulhakov
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
It is time for a rural turn in media studies. Media studies are deeply imbricated in urban life. It is where most universities are located. It is where many media scholars live and work. Media workers, too, predominately exist in the urban – at least for now. Embedded in these urban settings, media studies have too often focused on urban perspectives and considered rural dimensions largely from a ‘divides’ perspective, wherein the rural has somehow less than the urban; or media studies have treated the rural as seemingly utopic areas evoking the idyllic and romantic where city dwellers travel or the wild is preserved. But the rural is more than that. Key works on media in the rural do exist but the field lacks articulation. This article is a step towards addressing this weakness. Drawing on examples from three rural areas, those of Europe, Central Asia and Oceania, this article shows how rural media studies have the capacity to question ‘common sense’ assumption in media research and to demonstrate the complexities of contemporary mediascapes. The problems we see include issues of mediated representation and perception, issues of communication and the myriad of societal challenges that come, in particular, with digital transformations.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-12T11:15:07Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231179348
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- Poland as Gilead. Pop culture fiction and performative protests in the era
of the pandemic-
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Authors: Przemysław Żukiewicz, Denis Gerlich
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
The use of iconic popular culture symbols is an increasingly common strategy applied by social protest organizers. The Guy Fawkes mask from the ‘V for Vendetta’ comic book became a symbol of the Anonymous group, and later of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The Salvador Dalí mask, popularized in the ‘La casa de papel’ Netflix series, was used in street protests in Spain and Italy. Motifs taken from the HBO adaptation of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ novel gained high visibility in thousands of women’s protests against the introduction of the de facto abortion ban in Poland. Basing on images documenting the Polish protests published in social media, we demonstrate how popular culture symbols are transformed into cultural codes which bridge on-street and online protest actions. This connection has become crucial in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using qualitative visual content analysis, we prepared a classification of the symbols employed. Our contribution to the theory of performative protests is to reveal the importance of analogies with the political series that Polish protesters have used by means of the general connotation: Poland is Gilead.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-09T05:57:12Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231179350
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- Refugees versus ‘refugees’: the role of Islamophobia in Swedish
alternative media’s reporting on Ukrainian asylum seekers-
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Authors: Amanda Palmgren, Mathilda Åkerlund, Lisen Viklund
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This paper analyses how immigrants are understood by Swedish alternative media and the role that Islamophobia plays, if at all, in these representations. What is remarkable is that although all articles were sampled explicitly to discuss Ukraine, the analysis showed that Muslim immigrants figured with unexpected frequency throughout. The value of these two immigrant groups were antagonistically contrasted through arguments of alleged differences in culture and geographical origin, perceived legitimacy as asylum seekers, and in terms gratitude and supposed level of threat to Swedish society. With this, the unity that is formed around Islamophobia trumps any nationalist views of the Swedish nation state as particularly superior or white and the social and economic consequences which are usually believed to be at risk due to immigration. By extension, the war in Ukraine is articulated as a matter of whiteness and works to exploit war for strengthening the transnational far right.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-08T08:44:26Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231179363
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- ‘Something else’': international co-production, postcolonial crime
fiction and the representation of sexual orientation in The No. 1
Ladies’ Detective Agency TV series-
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Authors: Melissa Anne Beattie
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is both a successful series of novels and a television series which ran for one series on the BBC in 2008. While the books have been criticised on a number of aspects, including its representation of Botswana, the television series has received very little academic attention at all. The television series was an international co-production between the United States, United Kingdom and South Africa, using a mix of American and South African actors in regular and recurring roles with British guest artists and production team despite being shot in Botswana. While the main features of the adaptation were primarily related to a reordering of vignettes from the books into the series, the television series added in a new character, the camp, gay hairdresser BK. At the time the series was airing, same-sex sexual activity was illegal in Botswana though that has since been changed. As such, this paper will discuss the addition of this liminal character into the series through close reading of the text and paratexts (including industrial context). Ultimately the paper will contextualise the addition with regard to both national and sexual identity and debates surrounding African queer identities.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-06T06:30:10Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231179367
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- ‘There’s a lot of freedom you can have with that kind of thing’:
vinyl and cassette split releases in the digital age-
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Authors: Benjamin Duester
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
Releasing music on cassettes and 7-inch singles has been a part of DIYmusic scenes for a long time. As music production, distribution and consumption have been subjected to a substantial digital shift within the past two decades, one might expect cassette tapes or vinyl records to be a thing of the past, yet they persevere as indicated by thousands of new DIY releases every year. This article investigates the cultural and economic significance of split releases in contemporary DIY music scenes. In contrast to music streaming or digital downloads distributed online, it argues that the technological limitations and material idiosyncrasies of cassette tapes and vinyl records used for split releases allow for creative collaboration and intentional dissociation that contextualise people throughout various cultural and geographical domains. As a result, split releases are specifically used to contrast the overwhelming possibilities that digital music production and distribution pose.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-06-03T05:42:34Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231179347
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- Media, digital sovereignty and geopolitics: the case of the TikTok ban in
India-
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Authors: Anilesh Kumar, Daya Thussu
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
TikTok, one of the most downloaded apps in the world, has been banned in India since June 2020, following military clashes on the India-China border. This article focuses on government narratives of the TikTok ban in the Indian media and situates the issue within the broader geopolitical framework of deteriorating Sino-Indian relations and attempts for digital sovereignty. At a time of strong nationalist discourses dominating the political and social communication in India, it is perhaps unsurprising that the narratives have been seen outside India as protectionism. However, this paper argues that the digital sovereignty in the Indian context is not exclusionary but aims to create a robust digital infrastructure that is critical for economic development and self-reliance. Highlighting the lessons from India, this paper concludes the following: (i) digital sovereignty is a form of discourse which does not imply any specific policy, (ii) digital sovereignty relates to user control over their data, however, the role and limits of the State is not clearly defined and (iii) digital platforms are highly vulnerable to changing geopolitics in which their existence is not determined by user-platform interactions but by international relations.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-05-22T04:50:27Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231174351
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- Creative compliance and selective visibility: How Chinese queer uploaders
performing identities on the Douyin platform-
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Authors: Qi Ai, Yuchen Song, Ning Zhan
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
The growth in video-sharing social media platform use has changed modes of communication, which has helped to improve the visibility of gender and sexual minority groups. This tendency became evident given the social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, the use of these platforms empowers LGBTQ individuals living in China to share knowledge and experiences, receive social and emotional support and so on. Previous studies rarely interrogate Chinese queer groups’ socially sanctioned performance of identities on popular video-sharing platforms such as Douyin. This article undertakes a preliminary discussion of that research gap. It examines the conditions that enable such activities and concludes with a discussion of the strategies and methods that Chinese queer uploaders use in the process. Simply put, this article explores how the queer uploaders accommodate and negotiate their identity performances within a heterosexual and mainstream popular social media environment.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-05-18T08:57:46Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231174345
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- Compelled TikTok creators' The ambivalent affordances of the short video
app for Filipino musicians-
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Authors: Jeremy Tintiangko, Anthony Y.H. Fung, Jindong Leo-Liu
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This study is concerned with the incorporation of TikTok by Filipino musicians in their performances, promotion strategies, and other career-related endeavors. As the music artists are compelled, whether consciously or otherwise, to adhere to the logics of the platform, we critically evaluate its implications on their experiences as creative workers. As revealed, the use of TikTok by Filipino musicians fosters the construction of a new cultural logic and format that enhances music content and narratives as they engage in novel creative pursuits as well as participate in nascent forms of audience relations. Yet the prevalence of TikTok use within the music industry also engenders a new range of obligations that reinforce existing pressures on musicians. This study sheds light on the ambivalent role of TikTok as a platform that could potentially liberate and amplify independent and creative cultural production while also generating new sources of tension for creative workers.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-05-16T05:12:36Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231174356
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- The use of animation in NGOs’ audio-visual communication about
solidarity and migration-
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Authors: Guglielmo Scafirimuto
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
One of the latest transformations of humanitarian communication in recent years has certainly been the growing adoption of the language of animation, especially in online media. Looking at the effects of this new trend, this article intends to reflect on how NGO communication has concretely changed on a visual and discursive level through the use of animation. The corpus analysed, selected from YouTube, consists of a series of examples of animated online videos of NGOs that deal with a recent and influential phenomenon: the refugee crisis. Since 2015, an increasing number of new NGOs have emerged in order to contribute to aid for migrants, as opposed to European policies: what kind of representation of migrants do NGOs convey in their communication campaigns that employ animation' What kind of solidarity discourse is adopted through this audiovisual language' The analysis of these examples will serve as a basis for introducing the theorisation of numerous characteristics specific to animation, which make it an effective medium for the promotion of humanitarian missions and for the transmission of the testimonies of migrants.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-05-05T10:45:16Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231169908
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- “Re-stratifying” women: female images in China’s state media from
the perspective of social stratification (2011–2020)-
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Authors: Min Wang, Qiushui Li
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
In the 2010s, feminism thrived in China amid a transformation in social stratification and a rise in women’s social status. The focus of this study is on the representation of the images of women of various social strata in national news reports. Taking Xinwen Lianbo, a national news program produced by China Central Television, as an example, we analyzed visual representations of 360 female figures from 2011 to 2020. The findings revealed that, rather than reflecting China’s Tǔ-shaped stratification structure, the program depicted an “olive-shaped” pseudo-society in which women of what we term the “middle” stratum constituted the largest portion and served as multifaceted role models, women of the “prominent” stratum served as bellwethers of socioeconomic development, and women of the “ordinary” stratum did not participate in social development. The program’s imagery also created a double standard for domestic duties: Women of the prominent stratum were depicted as disembedded from the social role of housewife and breaking through the career “glass ceiling,” though not achieving equality with men in terms of their positions in society or politics, while women of the ordinary stratum as bearing the ideological reshuffle of conservative gender values. This study suggests a fresh perspective on the great disparities in the representation of women in different strata, which differs from the status of gender and stratum in real society.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-05-02T08:58:34Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231169912
-
- The manufacture of militarized masculinity in Chinese series You Are My
Hero (2021)-
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Authors: Roxanne Tan Yu Xian
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
The entertainment industry is driven to sell certain commodities transnationally, particularly in a world where borders are becoming increasingly diffused through the access afforded by the Internet. Media content is easily consumed, making cultural exporting fast and easy. Similar tropes and plot have been replicated in the East Asian film and TV industry, perhaps in hopes of replicating the success. This paper looks at the manufacture of ideal masculinities within East Asia, particularly China. From ex-members of K-pop group EXO to the successful TV series, cross-influence of East Asian popular culture is prominent. Through this paper, I look at the influence of K-dramas on the Chinese TV industry and particularly the manufacturing of a militarized masculinity on Chinese TV. Far from portraying brute and fearsome soldiers, ideal masculinity on TV is portrayed as “steely exterior but gentle internally” and thus desirable romantic partners to heterosexual women. By exploring the basic conception of Chinese masculinity, I then discuss representations of militarized masculinity on the silver screen (Wolf Warrior II) and C-dramas, with particular focus on the series, You Are My Hero (2021).
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-04-29T12:28:57Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231172307
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- Deplatforming “the people”: media populism, racial capitalism, and the
regulation of online reactionary networks-
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Authors: Reed Van Schenck
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This essay contributes to a materialist theory of media populism by criticizing America First, an influential U.S. American reactionary live-stream hosted by Nicholas J. Fuentes, and its Groyper fans. Fuentes has expanded his online presence despite the deplatforming, or administrative suspension, of his social media accounts on account of his antisemitic, antiblack, and sexist hate speech. To understand the ideological ramifications of deplatforming populist influencers, I read clips from America First into the economic and infrastructural context of U.S. far-right subcultures. I argue that media studies must attend to bourgeois digital platform management as a technology which reproduces the undemocratic conditions of racial capitalism. The deplatforming of Fuentes facilitates the ascent of reactionary populism by reinforcing possessive individualism, or a white masculine fantasy of unmediated access to the public. “The people” of populism functions as media whose lost presence naturalizes sovereign violence against marginalized people. Media populism illustrates the need for to move beyond the dichotomy of “mainstream” versus “fringe” platforms to consider the material affinity of bourgeois digital publics and white nationalist provocation.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-04-20T06:01:11Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231169909
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- Borderline practices on Douyin/TikTok: Content transfer and algorithmic
manipulation-
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Authors: Chunmeizi Su, Bondy Valdovinos Kaye
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
TikTok continues to be the top downloaded app in many countries around the world as the short video consumption craze continues. But TikTok has also come under harsh scrutiny for its Chinese origins and data security. For TikTok, the journey of globalization has involved a painful contest with governments, geopolitical manoeuvrers, and, ultimately, finding platform regulation loopholes. TikTok’s sister app, Douyin, shares identical digital architectures, but follows different trajectories of development in China. Through interviews with Chinese influencers and media practitioners, along with a content analysis of policy documents and industry reports, this paper identifies and analyzes the borderline practices that have occurred on Douyin – including content transfers, and algorithmic platformization – and evaluates the potential for these practices to be replicated on TikTok.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-04-15T05:23:43Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437231168308
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- Understanding the popularity and affordances of TikTok through user
experiences-
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Authors: Andreas Schellewald
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
In this paper I discuss the affordances and popularity of the short-video app TikTok from an audience studies point of view. I do so by drawing on findings from ethnographic fieldwork with young adult TikTok users based in the United Kingdom that was conducted in 2020 and 2021. I trace how using the app, specifically scrolling through the TikTok For You Page, the app’s algorithmic content feed, became a fixed part of the everyday routines of young adults. I show how TikTok appealed to them as a convenient means of escape and relief that they were unable to find elsewhere during and beyond times of lockdown. Further, I highlight the complex nature of TikTok as an app and the active role that users play in imagining and appropriating the app’s affordances as meaningful parts of their everyday social life. Closing the paper, I reflect on future directions of TikTok scholarship by stressing the importance of situated audience studies.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-03-21T12:26:55Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437221144562
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- The platformization of misogyny: Popular media, gender politics, and
misogyny in China’s state-market nexus-
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Authors: Sara Liao
Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
This study aims to map out the popular phenomenon of misogyny in the specific techno-social configuration buttressed by China’s state-market nexus. With a case study of a controversy involving the standup comedian Yang Li and the luxury car brand Mercedes-Benz on the microblogging platform Weibo, I highlight the ‘platformization of misogyny.’ The conceptualization refers to the way that a platform is evoked as tools to manufacture and amplify misogyny. Weibo has this effect both through its design, features, and algorithmic shaping of sociality and through its users’ appropriation of its affordances. On top of that, the platform also engenders a form of governance that is deeply enmeshed in the commercialization of internet opinion, suggesting a techno-nationalist mode of state control that is exercised from afar and deeply imbued with patriarchal and misogynistic characteristics.
Citation: Media, Culture & Society
PubDate: 2023-01-16T05:16:21Z
DOI: 10.1177/01634437221146905
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