JournalTOCs

Media, Culture & Society
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.846

Citation Impact (citeScore): 2
Number of Followers: 47

Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 0163-4437 - ISSN (Online) 1460-3675
Published by Sage Publications

[1176 journals]

Editorial of crosscurrent themed section mediating gender in digital
China: Post-2020s discourse and representation
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  Authors: Eva Cheuk-Yin Li
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  This editorial introduces a themed section that focuses on the production of gender discourse and representations in the midst of tightening social and cultural control in China’s entertainment industry and digital media landscape. In various ways, the two articles featured case studies that exemplify how the production of gender discourses and representations in this context emerges from the interplay of state control, the market, and the digital realm and unfolds against the rise of platform capitalism and techno-nationalism. Both articles center on the intricate and sometimes contradictory configurations of gender within China’s state-market nexus.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-11-24T09:56:49Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231204795
Danish public service online weather from 2005 to 2022: From
meteorological data and information to leisurely commonality
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  Authors: Henrik Bødker, Sandra Simonsen
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  This article combines two neglected elements within the history of online news: public service news sites and weather reporting, and it does so by utilising web archives, which – surprisingly – do not figure very prominently in journalism history. The two elements have – in isolation and in combination – at least in Denmark, become increasingly important as the online news sections of the two public service institutions Denmark’s Radio (DR) and TV2 consistently are among the most visited news sites and since reporting on the weather has gained in prominence and more recently, at least on DR TV, has become increasingly educational in its linking to issues of climate change. This article focusses on online news and conducts a historical analysis of the weather reporting on DR.dk from 2005 to 2022. The analysis seeks to balance the coding of journalistic texts with considerations of the online form of journalism, which here broadly means reading the webpage as a text. A key focus in the analysis is how meteorological data have been woven into cultural and social narratives, some of which are linked to climate change.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-11-18T12:18:22Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231209425
Always-on authenticity: Challenging the BeReal ideal of “being
real”
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  Authors: Sarah J Snyder
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  This paper examines the mobile app BeReal, a popular social media platform, and challenges its claim to fame as a uniquely authentic platform. Through a critical analysis of the app’s user experience and an exploration of popular discourse among social media users regarding its design, I seek to assess this claim. BeReal promotes authenticity, or “being real,” through the act of users posting interesting content on demand and in real time. The app enforces this authenticity by imposing restrictions: users can only post once a day, at a specific time determined by BeReal, and in one take. Violating these rules triggers a judgment system that notifies other users when posts are made late or retaken. Despite the platform’s promise of enabling users to express their true selves through its restrictive functionality, I argue that its version of authenticity instead intensifies the need for external curation due to an “always-on” mentality.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-11-18T12:04:54Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231209420
Performative censorship: Why some free speech conflicts should be taken
seriously but not literally
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  Authors: Cherian George
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  In some speech-related disputes, censors do not gauge their success by whether the challenged cultural product or practice has been suppressed in accordance with their explicit demands. This article proposes a theory of performative censorship that can help explain this paradox. Building on the concepts of expressive laws and symbolic crusades from legal studies and social movement studies respectively, performative censorship disputes are defined as contentious episodes in which demands for or against speech regulation are expressed partly for the broader objective of gaining recognition for a group’s way of life, dignity or status. Case studies of two highly contentious conflicts are offered: over Confederate statues in the United States and cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. The case studies show that movements’ goals and tactics are neither uniform nor static, making them more complex but also presenting opportunities for de-escalation.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-11-18T06:36:50Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231203881
Online misinformation and everyday ontological narratives of social
distinction
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  Authors: Natalie-Anne Hall, Andrew Chadwick, Cristian Vaccari
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  Most research into online misinformation has investigated its direct effects—the impact it may have on citizens’ beliefs and behavior. Much less attention has been paid to how citizens themselves make sense of misinformation as a broader social problem. We integrate theories of narrative, identity, cultural capital, and social distinction to examine how people construct the problem of misinformation and their orientation to it. We show how people engage in everyday ontological narratives of social distinction. These involve making a variety of discursive moves to position one’s “taste” in information consumption as superior to others constructed as lower in a social hierarchy. This serves to enhance social status by separating oneself from misinformation, which is presented as “other people’s problem.” We argue that these narratives have significant implications not only for citizens’ vigilance toward misinformation but also their receptiveness to interventions by policymakers, fact-checkers, news organizations, and media educators.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-11-17T06:08:19Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231211678
The streaming industry and the platform economy: An analysis
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  Authors: Jean K Chalaby
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  As television is embracing a new set of internet-related technologies, the medium is transitioning from broadcasting to streaming. With it, a new mode of distribution has emerged: the streaming platform. This research makes a three-pronged effort to assess their impact on the TV industry: it analyses the way platforms monetize content; it distinguishes types of streaming platforms based on a set of criteria that includes supply-chain arrangements and the way they structure commercial transactions among different sets of participants, and it considers the ownership of streaming services. This article contributes to media and communication studies by combining the platform literature with global value chain (GVC) theory in order to foster our understanding of streaming platforms. It contextualizes streaming platforms in the history of television and analyses how they are transforming the medium.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-11-08T12:30:27Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231210439
Appearing to disappear: Ordering visibility in a Turkish border spectacle
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  Authors: Aslı İkizoğlu Erensü
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  This paper seeks to question whether and how instrumentalization of refugees by states impacts their media representations, based on the example of a border spectacle that took place in March 2020, when Turkey unilaterally opened its borders to the West, causing hundreds to flock to the land border with Greece and to the coasts of the Aegean Sea. In many ways, this ended up as a failed border spectacle, especially for international publics: Turkey appeared neither as a strong state nor as a benefactor of asylum-seekers. Yet, the paper claims, the spectacle nonetheless led to an ordering of the visibility of asylum-seekers that cannot be captured on the victim-threat spectrum across which they are usually represented. Examining Turkish mainstream TV evening news as well as state agencies’ Twitter accounts, the paper traces how Greece was made hypervisible through the use of three frames (humanitarian, legalistic and moralistic) and asylum-seekers were reduced to extras (figurants) in the process. Such an ordering of visibility facilitated the re-moralization of instrumentalization of refugees and may have accordingly shaped the response-ability of citizens. The figure of the extra enables us to link refugee visibilities to splintering moral geographies of asylum.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-28T10:56:11Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231207758
By sharing our loss, we fight: Collective expressions of grief in the
digital age
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  Authors: Valentina Proust
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  This essay explores the potential of digital mourning for activists and social movements, enabling them to navigate the injuries inflicted by hegemonic powers and harness these experiences as a meaningful force for social change. Through a literature review of scholarly works on mourning within digital platforms, the article identifies theories and characterizations that foster critical reflections on the significance of these online instances. Moreover, by presenting three examples of digital mourning activism (Black Lives Matter, COVID-19 protests, and the Arab Spring), the paper highlights the significance of digital platforms as spaces for collective mourning, shaping public opinion, building collective memory, and driving activism beyond the digital realm. Overall, this essay aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of digital mourning as an empowering tool for activism, shedding light on its role in facilitating meaning-making processes and fostering the potential for profound social change in the face of systemic challenges and injustices.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-27T01:13:38Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231207760
TikTok and the platformisation from China: Geopolitical anxieties,
repetitive creativities and future imaginaries
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  Authors: Jian Lin, Jeroen de Kloet
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  In this special issue, we explore the geopolitics, aesthetics and future potentiality surrounding TikTok to assess the possibility and implications of a new phase of digital globalisation. A phase in which China-based innovative platform technologies, infused with state power, generate and potentially disrupt digital cultures in places outside China. We will further explore this in the next part of this introduction, showing how the global rise of TikTok is feeding into increasing geopolitical anxieties worldwide. At the same time, we argue for the need to diversify our approaches to TikTok and platform studies – the latter field is very much dominated by questions around production, monetisation, data and political economy. More approaches, focusing on aesthetics, visual culture and users, are needed. In the second part of this introduction, we mobilise the notion of repetitive creativities as a way to engage with the aesthetic affordances of TikTok. This brings us to our conclusion, in which we allude to the possibility that TikTok can be seen as a kind of silly archive, offering glimpses of a future that is not yet here, but that may well come.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-25T11:39:20Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231209203
Authentic cult: media representations of cultural consumption and
legitimization of cultural hierarchies
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  Authors: Marie Heřmanová
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  The article explores legitimization strategies related to cultural consumption in the Czech media space by comparing the representations of cultural products in influencer communication on social media and in legacy (print and online) media outlets. Departing from the theoretical debate on the intersection of cultural omnivorousness and the emergence of algorithmic culture, the article poses the question: what strategies do influencers on social media and journalists in legacy media outlets employ to present consumption of cultural products as legitimate, interesting, and cool' Based on qualitative content analysis of 10 Instagram profiles of prominent Czech influencers and culture sections of 10 Czech legacy media, it discusses two main discursive legitimization strategies: (1) the notion of authenticity, used by social media influencers and (2) the notion of cult, used by legacy media in two distinctive ways – as (a) legendary, part of the pop cultural canon and (b) new, contemporary, part of up-to-date cultural savviness.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-24T12:42:32Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231203880
Making sense of murder: Characterizing stories in social media groups
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  Authors: Azi Lev-On
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  Social media platforms evolved into significant arenas for comprehending crises, hardships, violence, and murder. This paper contributes to the discourse within the intersection of social media and crime by delving into the narratives through which people pour meaning online into tragedies with personal significance. When people experience life-changing events, some go through a process of “sense-making” to fully understand the events and their implications, and reach closure. Processes of “sense-making” become increasingly public and collaborative through stories people tell on social media. Still, a dearth of literature exists that systematically examines these stories as conduits for infusing meaning into tragedies. This article bridges this gap by analyzing the narratives emanating from Facebook groups commemorating Tair Rada and advocating for justice for Roman Zadorov, who was convicted with her murder. These narratives not only challenge Zadorov’s culpability but also recount the sequence of events leading to the tragedy. Furthermore, they delve into the identity and motivations of the perpetrator(s), resuscitating neglected lines of police investigation and occasionally introducing alternative narratives. To establish their narratives’ credibility, authors employ a range of strategies such as integrating source materials, employing categorical language, and cultivating an atmosphere of personal witnessing or knowledge acquisition.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-16T06:32:53Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231202151
Public service television in the age of subscription video on demand:
Shifting TV audience expectations in the UK during COVID-19
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  Authors: Catherine Johnson, Lauren Dempsey
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  This article asks how the rise in use of SVOD in the United Kingdom during 2020 impacted people’s expectations of public service television (PSTV). Drawing on 56 qualitative interviews with 28 UK participants conducted in 2019 and 2020, the article uses the COVID-19 lockdown to explore how disruption to the context of viewing might shape the cultural meanings people attach to PSTV. Challenging dominant approaches that measure audience assessments of public service media (PSM) against normative criteria, this article focuses instead on the processes through which people’s cultural meanings about PSTV are formed. Examining the interplay of their encounters with, expectations and evaluations of television, it reveals the divergent meanings our participants brought to linear and on-demand television. The article concludes by examining the implications of these expectations for PSM policy and for the ways in which we research people’s viewing experiences and choices amidst the rise of VOD.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-11T09:45:31Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231203875
(Dis)Affordances: Publicness and the Question of Absence
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  Authors: Kusha Sefat
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  Recent works in media and communications studies have increasingly embedded the analysis of publicness within Science and Technology Studies (STS) and, interrelatedly, the new materialism. The result has emphasized the significant role that everyday objects play in engendering various publics. Yet, the uncritical incorporation of the new materialism and its bias toward present forms of materiality has led many scholars of the media to ignore the relationships between absent material objects and publicness. This is a key shortcoming since absent material realities are actively, and not so innocently, produced as non-thinkable alternatives to what exists, impeding externalized material worlds from becoming pronounceable as a need or an aspiration within the contexts of hegemonic globalization. In this essay, I draw on emerging works in media and communications studies, along with the social and political history of revolutionary Iran, as touchstones for a critical discussion on the linkages between publicness, materiality, and absence. I conclude with some observations and questions on publicness amid emergency climate change.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-09T11:21:08Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231202154
Selling rural China: The construction and commodification of rurality in
Chinese promotional livestreaming
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  Authors: Lizhen Zhao
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  With promotional livestreaming transforming the digital culture and e-commerce landscape in China, rural streamers take this opportunity to not only harvest economic rewards but also construct rural identities and associated imagery. Employing a digital ethnographic approach, this article closely explored how rural spaces and rural labor activities are constructed and commodified in Chinese promotional livestreaming. I argue that although rural streamers’ creative use of platform-afforded liveness and interactivity enriches Chinese digital culture by making everyday life in rural spaces visible, this constructed rurality is, however, flattened, decontextualized, and romanticized – thus, ready to be commodified and sold to the audience. In addition, agricultural labor is made hyper-visible, generating the possibility for demystifying said labor process, while other forms of labor, mainly affective labor and labor for negotiation with the platforms, are made invisible, undervalued, and exploited, deepening the precarious condition of such platform-dependent labor.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-06T11:07:46Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231203883
Theorising TikTok cultures: Neuro-images in the era of short videos
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  Authors: Jian Lin, Joëlle Swart, Guohua Zeng
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  Instead of viewing TikTok as a platform, in this article we borrow Dutch film theorist Patricia Pisters’s concept of neuro-images to approach TikTok as a cultural form that is deeply participatory, platform contingent, and algorithmically engraved. In the co-production between algorithms and users, TikTok becomes an enormous database and generates personalised narratives about individuals and the world onto and through its ‘brain-screen’ interfaces, which simulate our conscious and unconscious mind, and actualise the idea of creativity based on repetition. TikTok thus enables a quasi-automated cinema, whose non-stopping filming of everyday lives does not seek to reduce desires and tastes into a singular and coherent structure, but instead uncovers, releases and contains them in its vast database and interfaces, leading to a fluid and modulating categorisation of identities. It is within this quasi-automated, deeply participatory digital cinema that TikTok constitutes neuro-images, producing a distinctive experience of time, and unpredictable and unstable futures.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-06T11:02:57Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231202167
‘Block talk’ on Twitter: Material affordances and
communicative norms
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  Authors: Steffen Krämer, Isabell Otto
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  This article explores the phenomenon of block talk among Germanspeaking Twitter users, based on a subsample of 1700 tweets from a larger corpus of 380,000 block-related tweets collected between February and December 2021. Block talk refers to users publicly mentioning and conversing about the disconnective practice of blocking, which sometimes stimulates a debate about the legitimate use of blocking while at other times providing an outgroup marker for collective positioning. Through the example of block talk we demonstrate that the platform’s curatorial infrastructure for drawing boundaries between public and private is continuously negotiated, and that this negotiation transforms the meaning of some of the default communicative affordances of the platform but also creates its own routines of making public. On the one hand, we show how users adapt conversational devices such as hashtags, screenshots, and @-mentions in the context of block talk. On the other hand, we present examples of Twitter users’ normative reflections about blocking and discuss them as processes of metapragmatic enregisterment. In the final discussion, we propose to integrate processes of routinized adaptation as well as reflexive enregisterment into a joint process of ‘communicative infrastructuring’.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-10-06T10:58:18Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231202164
Interracial romances and colorblindness in Shondaland’s Bridgerton
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  Authors: Stephanie L. Hanus
  Abstract: Media, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print.
  Previous literature has considered Shondaland and portrayals of interracial romances for depicting post-racial and post-feminist utopias. Given mass media’s ability to create/reproduce ideologies, Shondaland’s most popular and most recent installment, Bridgerton, offers an opportunity for assessing narratives related to race and gender. The current study considers these narratives in Bridgerton, as well as the role of colorblind casting techniques for constructing those narratives. The current study uses a critical race theory approach, incorporating Black feminist thought and intersectionality. Season one of Bridgerton reveals three themes as they relate to race and gender, (1) romance, love, and who is worthy of love, (2) the body and historical context, and (3) dark corrupting light. Specifically, Black women are depicted in various positions of power that minimize racism and yet are simultaneously depicted in positions of oppression that serve to naturalize oppression of Black women, offering support for Bonilla-Silva’s colorblind racism in media.
  Citation: Media, Culture & Society
  PubDate: 2023-09-30T12:03:35Z
  DOI: 10.1177/01634437231198440
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
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
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
‘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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
‘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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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