YouTube videos document the purchase and “unboxing” of status goods, highlighting the intense emotional fervor that follows. Commenters respond with praise while expressing envy for the goods on their person. Taken together, online videos and the comments that attend them raise a number of questions about how we evaluate fashion purchases and the boundaries and inequalities these purchases bring to light. Using a sample of 10 widely viewed online videos and over 2,700 public comments in reply to these, I provide an analysis of boundary work in a context of extreme privilege. I do this with a critical eye towards the ways in which commenters leverage envy and aspiration to both bridge boundaries and draw distinctions online.
{"title":"“My Money and My Heart”: Buying a Birkin and Boundary Work Online","authors":"J. Foster","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcab033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab033","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 YouTube videos document the purchase and “unboxing” of status goods, highlighting the intense emotional fervor that follows. Commenters respond with praise while expressing envy for the goods on their person. Taken together, online videos and the comments that attend them raise a number of questions about how we evaluate fashion purchases and the boundaries and inequalities these purchases bring to light. Using a sample of 10 widely viewed online videos and over 2,700 public comments in reply to these, I provide an analysis of boundary work in a context of extreme privilege. I do this with a critical eye towards the ways in which commenters leverage envy and aspiration to both bridge boundaries and draw distinctions online.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"122 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124415844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How have anti-caste commentators in mainstream English news in India participated in media discourses on caste? In this article, I draw attention to a digital space of contestation where anti-caste writings have gained prominence—the opinion column in online news platforms. I am particularly interested in how anti-caste writings, bearing the imprint of authorial agency, have emerged in the digital sphere through structural linkages between caste, linguistic formations, and formal politics. The article considers how and in what ways historically marginalized Dalit-Bahujan commentators and their news public’s concerns are rendered visible within the space of mainstream digital news.
{"title":"Democratizing the Op-Ed: Anti-Caste Counterpublics & the Mainstream News","authors":"P. Rao","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcab041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab041","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 How have anti-caste commentators in mainstream English news in India participated in media discourses on caste? In this article, I draw attention to a digital space of contestation where anti-caste writings have gained prominence—the opinion column in online news platforms. I am particularly interested in how anti-caste writings, bearing the imprint of authorial agency, have emerged in the digital sphere through structural linkages between caste, linguistic formations, and formal politics. The article considers how and in what ways historically marginalized Dalit-Bahujan commentators and their news public’s concerns are rendered visible within the space of mainstream digital news.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"4 7 Pt 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125945309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article proposes the metaphor of “shadow” to examine two interrelated aspects of digital politics in India: online surveillance of politically inclined actors and datafied shadow texts aimed at managing front stage politics. The specificity of “shadow politics” emerges from ongoing transformations that are deeply interwoven with the digital, first with the data driven confidence around the “total certainty” of tracking and calibrating voter sentiments, and second, with the ideology of digital participation and related claims that data machines are merely tapping into people’s sovereign expressions online.
{"title":"Shadow Politics: Front Stage and the Veneer of Volunteerism","authors":"Sahana Udupa","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcab034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab034","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article proposes the metaphor of “shadow” to examine two interrelated aspects of digital politics in India: online surveillance of politically inclined actors and datafied shadow texts aimed at managing front stage politics. The specificity of “shadow politics” emerges from ongoing transformations that are deeply interwoven with the digital, first with the data driven confidence around the “total certainty” of tracking and calibrating voter sentiments, and second, with the ideology of digital participation and related claims that data machines are merely tapping into people’s sovereign expressions online.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"5 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134588037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article draws on a political economy approach to examine the politics of censorship that undergirds the current Indian online audio-visual sector. Through our analysis of interviews with media creators, government policies and trade press literature, we probe the implications of censorship on India’s burgeoning online production culture and we contest the Indian government’s ideological motives in spearheading the censorship process. We conclude that the current measures for regulating online content reflect the government’s ongoing agenda to curb freedom of expression and promote Hindu nationalism through policy interventions.
{"title":"Media Censorship: Obscuring Autocracy and Hindutva-ideology in Indian Governance","authors":"Smith Mehta, D. Kaye","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcab036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab036","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article draws on a political economy approach to examine the politics of censorship that undergirds the current Indian online audio-visual sector. Through our analysis of interviews with media creators, government policies and trade press literature, we probe the implications of censorship on India’s burgeoning online production culture and we contest the Indian government’s ideological motives in spearheading the censorship process. We conclude that the current measures for regulating online content reflect the government’s ongoing agenda to curb freedom of expression and promote Hindu nationalism through policy interventions.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130038835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In September 2019, young people in India led a series of protest events, taking inspiration from a digital campaign for a series of Climate Strikes. Our article explores these events in the context of “millennial India,” particularly in terms of the networks that emerged in the course of climate action in two different regions. By using evidence from Delhi in the north and Bengaluru in the south, we also develop a comparative sociology of digital-first environmental movements and show how the significance of Twitter can only be understood in relation to the formations of social capital on the ground.
{"title":"Climate Strikes in Millennial India: Social Capital and “On-Ground’ Networks in Digital-First Movements","authors":"Aasim Khan, S. Natarajan, S. Bhalla","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcab035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab035","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In September 2019, young people in India led a series of protest events, taking inspiration from a digital campaign for a series of Climate Strikes. Our article explores these events in the context of “millennial India,” particularly in terms of the networks that emerged in the course of climate action in two different regions. By using evidence from Delhi in the north and Bengaluru in the south, we also develop a comparative sociology of digital-first environmental movements and show how the significance of Twitter can only be understood in relation to the formations of social capital on the ground.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127810028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Telecocooning in the age of (im)mobility","authors":"E. Cabalquinto","doi":"10.1093/CCC/TCAB024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CCC/TCAB024","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124816452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editor’s Statement","authors":"Melissa A. Click","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcaa036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa036","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"2448 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130928278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand culture, making it visible as a for-profit business rather than a utility. A critical lens is turned on the macroscopic economic and micro-social processes of the geospatial industry that result in the hegemonic relations and discursive regimes that legitimize and naturalize a common geospatially equipped, data-driven world. The annual user conventions and platform marketing of Esri, the global market leader in geographical information systems (GIS), acts as a site to observe how an imagined geospatial community of practitioners and investors is constructed. Branded content is unpacked to understand how the company’s image-making cultivates power relations between the public at large while negating itself as gatekeeper. These symbolic processes and collective practices help influence the uncritical investment and growth of the geospatial industry.
{"title":"Branding the Geospatial Industry","authors":"Laura Beltz Imaoka","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcaa025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa025","url":null,"abstract":"This study situates geospatial technology within the platform economy and constructs its brand culture, making it visible as a for-profit business rather than a utility. A critical lens is turned on the macroscopic economic and micro-social processes of the geospatial industry that result in the hegemonic relations and discursive regimes that legitimize and naturalize a common geospatially equipped, data-driven world. The annual user conventions and platform marketing of Esri, the global market leader in geographical information systems (GIS), acts as a site to observe how an imagined geospatial community of practitioners and investors is constructed. Branded content is unpacked to understand how the company’s image-making cultivates power relations between the public at large while negating itself as gatekeeper. These symbolic processes and collective practices help influence the uncritical investment and growth of the geospatial industry.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127711763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the ongoing effort to “take down” Vani Hari’s activism-cum-lifestyle brand, the Food Babe, with particular attention to the viral success of Yvette “SciBabe” d’Entremont’s 2015 Gawker post, “The Food Babe Blogger Is Full of Sh*t.” Popular discourse pits the two babes against each other. However, by examining both babes’ multiplatform branded personas as technologies of self-governance under postfeminist, neoliberal brand culture, I show that the Food Babe/SciBabe case is more than a struggle over “science versus pseudoscience.” This case study illuminates a gendered double bind that is intensifying in the so-called “post-truth” era as obligations to maximize oneself and one’s family come into conflict with longstanding and deeply classed anxieties about feminized media culture.
这篇文章考察了正在进行的“拿下”Vani Hari的激进主义和生活方式品牌Food Babe的努力,特别关注了Yvette“SciBabe”d 'Entremont 2015年在Gawker上发布的文章“the Food Babe博主Is Full of shit”的病毒式成功。大众话语将这两个宝贝对立起来。然而,通过将这两个宝贝的多平台品牌角色作为后女权主义、新自由主义品牌文化下的自我管理技术进行研究,我表明,Food Babe/SciBabe案例不仅仅是一场关于“科学与伪科学”的斗争。这个案例揭示了在所谓的“后真相”时代,一种性别双重束缚正在加剧,因为最大化自己和家庭的义务与长期以来对女性化媒体文化的深刻阶级焦虑发生冲突。
{"title":"“The Food Babe Blogger Is Full of Sh*t”: Gender, Class and Branding the “Expert” Self","authors":"H. Zimmerman","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcaa021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa021","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines the ongoing effort to “take down” Vani Hari’s activism-cum-lifestyle brand, the Food Babe, with particular attention to the viral success of Yvette “SciBabe” d’Entremont’s 2015 Gawker post, “The Food Babe Blogger Is Full of Sh*t.” Popular discourse pits the two babes against each other. However, by examining both babes’ multiplatform branded personas as technologies of self-governance under postfeminist, neoliberal brand culture, I show that the Food Babe/SciBabe case is more than a struggle over “science versus pseudoscience.” This case study illuminates a gendered double bind that is intensifying in the so-called “post-truth” era as obligations to maximize oneself and one’s family come into conflict with longstanding and deeply classed anxieties about feminized media culture.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"148 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132834905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, I propose the theory of imperial play as a tool with which scholars can expose ideologies embedded into video games and video game culture and industry. While representation-oriented theories and methodologies help scholars think about the visual and narrative components of a game, analysis of representation fails scholars when we examine video games as simulations. With imperial play, I reimagine Laura Mulvey's male gaze through the lens of post-colonial theory and through Ian Bogost's concept of procedural rhetoric. While I acknowledge two key participants in the practice of imperial play, the game developer and game player, within this article, I demonstrate the framework by focusing on the experience of the player. Using examples from popular console and PC video games, I analyze embedded colonial attitudes within game missions, within the nature of the avatar, within the construction of the gamescape, and in regard to non-playable characters (NPCs).
{"title":"Imperial Play","authors":"Rachel Lara van der Merwe","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcaa012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa012","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this article, I propose the theory of imperial play as a tool with which scholars can expose ideologies embedded into video games and video game culture and industry. While representation-oriented theories and methodologies help scholars think about the visual and narrative components of a game, analysis of representation fails scholars when we examine video games as simulations. With imperial play, I reimagine Laura Mulvey's male gaze through the lens of post-colonial theory and through Ian Bogost's concept of procedural rhetoric. While I acknowledge two key participants in the practice of imperial play, the game developer and game player, within this article, I demonstrate the framework by focusing on the experience of the player. Using examples from popular console and PC video games, I analyze embedded colonial attitudes within game missions, within the nature of the avatar, within the construction of the gamescape, and in regard to non-playable characters (NPCs).","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122037301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}