Pub Date : 2022-04-13DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2062252
Robin Steedman, Ana Alacovska, Thilde Langevang, Rashida Resario
ABSTRACT This article examines imaginaries of platform entrepreneurship in film industries in Ghana. To understand how these imaginaries are spatially shaped and locally defined, we carried out in-depth qualitative research with fifty filmmakers in four regions of Ghana. Digital and platform technologies have long been optimistically celebrated as a way for marginalized creative entrepreneurs, particularly in Africa, to break into global markets and reach unprecedented levels of business success. However, far from being universally adopted by African creative entrepreneurs, these global techno-optimistic imaginaries are continually reworked, contested and subverted in practice. In this article, we show how Ghanaian filmmakers mobilized, deployed and resisted imaginaries of platform entrepreneurship in their efforts to make sense of their situated entrepreneurial practices and to imagine the future of their creative businesses. We found that rather than naïvely adhering to techno-optimist imaginaries, through their practices, Ghanaian filmmaking entrepreneurs challenged the power geometry of the current platform ecosystem dominated by major Silicon Valley players. We contribute empirically rich data on how filmmaking entrepreneurs use and imagine platform technologies, as is necessary when African digital entrepreneurs are surrounded by hype but inadequate data. We also contribute to the literature about how individual platforms and platform types have unique affordances and how these affordances are shaped by the location and socio-economic position of the entrepreneur.
{"title":"Imaginaries of platform entrepreneurship in the creative industries: techno-optimism and subversion in Ghanaian filmmaking","authors":"Robin Steedman, Ana Alacovska, Thilde Langevang, Rashida Resario","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2062252","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2062252","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines imaginaries of platform entrepreneurship in film industries in Ghana. To understand how these imaginaries are spatially shaped and locally defined, we carried out in-depth qualitative research with fifty filmmakers in four regions of Ghana. Digital and platform technologies have long been optimistically celebrated as a way for marginalized creative entrepreneurs, particularly in Africa, to break into global markets and reach unprecedented levels of business success. However, far from being universally adopted by African creative entrepreneurs, these global techno-optimistic imaginaries are continually reworked, contested and subverted in practice. In this article, we show how Ghanaian filmmakers mobilized, deployed and resisted imaginaries of platform entrepreneurship in their efforts to make sense of their situated entrepreneurial practices and to imagine the future of their creative businesses. We found that rather than naïvely adhering to techno-optimist imaginaries, through their practices, Ghanaian filmmaking entrepreneurs challenged the power geometry of the current platform ecosystem dominated by major Silicon Valley players. We contribute empirically rich data on how filmmaking entrepreneurs use and imagine platform technologies, as is necessary when African digital entrepreneurs are surrounded by hype but inadequate data. We also contribute to the literature about how individual platforms and platform types have unique affordances and how these affordances are shaped by the location and socio-economic position of the entrepreneur.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"1979 - 1995"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46316123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-06DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2056499
Isha Bhallamudi
ABSTRACT How do gender and class work together to shape adolescent girls’ unequal access to mobile phones within the family in Mumbai, India? What are the everyday practices and cultural logics upon which these inequalities are built? This paper addresses these questions by using a mixed-methods study of 59 group interviews and 268 surveys with adolescents aged 13–15 in Mumbai. Taking an intersectional analytical framework, the findings show how gender and class together create varying standards of ‘respectable femininity’ and class distinction that families aspire to and cultivate in adolescent girls. The mobile phone can be seen as both a threat and a necessity to the maintenance of these standards of respectability, resulting in families variously enabling or constraining access to mobile phones by girls. Rather than interpreting the findings through binaries of low-income/high-income or empowered/constrained, I instead consider how classed ideals of ‘respectable femininity’ create different aspirational conditions for girls belonging to each class group, and form the cultural frames of everyday life.
{"title":"Daughters, devices and doorkeeping: how gender and class shape adolescent mobile phone access in Mumbai, India","authors":"Isha Bhallamudi","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2056499","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2056499","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT How do gender and class work together to shape adolescent girls’ unequal access to mobile phones within the family in Mumbai, India? What are the everyday practices and cultural logics upon which these inequalities are built? This paper addresses these questions by using a mixed-methods study of 59 group interviews and 268 surveys with adolescents aged 13–15 in Mumbai. Taking an intersectional analytical framework, the findings show how gender and class together create varying standards of ‘respectable femininity’ and class distinction that families aspire to and cultivate in adolescent girls. The mobile phone can be seen as both a threat and a necessity to the maintenance of these standards of respectability, resulting in families variously enabling or constraining access to mobile phones by girls. Rather than interpreting the findings through binaries of low-income/high-income or empowered/constrained, I instead consider how classed ideals of ‘respectable femininity’ create different aspirational conditions for girls belonging to each class group, and form the cultural frames of everyday life.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"25 1","pages":"851 - 867"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44698661","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-04DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2027501
Jennifer Nilsen, Joan M. Donovan, Robert Faris
ABSTRACT This paper describes a 2020 disinformation campaign promoting the unsubstantiated claim that the novel coronavirus is the product of a Chinese bioweapons program. Exploiting a vulnerability in open-access scientific publishing, the campaign was based on papers posted to an online preprint repository designed to accelerate the diffusion of scientific knowledge. This provided the campaign with an air of scientific legitimacy, helped it reach millions of Americans, and muddied public discourse over the origins of SARS-CoV-2. This case study offers insights into the tactics and practices of media manipulation, the contested nature of modern epistemic systems, the interplay of technical and social systems, and the vulnerability of open systems to manipulation.
{"title":"Cloaked science: the Yan reports","authors":"Jennifer Nilsen, Joan M. Donovan, Robert Faris","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2027501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2027501","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper describes a 2020 disinformation campaign promoting the unsubstantiated claim that the novel coronavirus is the product of a Chinese bioweapons program. Exploiting a vulnerability in open-access scientific publishing, the campaign was based on papers posted to an online preprint repository designed to accelerate the diffusion of scientific knowledge. This provided the campaign with an air of scientific legitimacy, helped it reach millions of Americans, and muddied public discourse over the origins of SARS-CoV-2. This case study offers insights into the tactics and practices of media manipulation, the contested nature of modern epistemic systems, the interplay of technical and social systems, and the vulnerability of open systems to manipulation.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"25 1","pages":"598 - 608"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47040960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-04DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2048050
Jenny L. Davis, D. Kidd, Muyang Li, Rachel Aalders, Tyler Burgese
ABSTRACT The current period of disruptive social change is inextricably bound up with new means and modes of communication, information, and media streams. The Communication, Information Technologies & Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS) locates these factors at the center of our collective interests, investigating them through a plethora of methods, theories, and empirical cases. Each year, CITAMS runs a special issue in ICS showcasing select works presented at the previous year’s American Sociological Association conference and the affiliated Media Sociology preconference. Papers in the 2022 CITAMS Special Issue reflect a social context defined by a prolonged global pandemic and wrought by democratic uncertainty. Across these social circumstances, technology and media loom large. Simultaneously, everyday life continues and classic CITAMS scholarship sustains relevance for the ways people interact, construct identity, consume, and mobilize. All of this and more are contained in the pages of this year’s Special Issue, from which readers can get a sense of what CITAMS has to offer and consider how their own work may fit within the broad CITAMS umbrella.
{"title":"Information technology & media sociology in a (still) pandemic world","authors":"Jenny L. Davis, D. Kidd, Muyang Li, Rachel Aalders, Tyler Burgese","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2048050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2048050","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The current period of disruptive social change is inextricably bound up with new means and modes of communication, information, and media streams. The Communication, Information Technologies & Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS) locates these factors at the center of our collective interests, investigating them through a plethora of methods, theories, and empirical cases. Each year, CITAMS runs a special issue in ICS showcasing select works presented at the previous year’s American Sociological Association conference and the affiliated Media Sociology preconference. Papers in the 2022 CITAMS Special Issue reflect a social context defined by a prolonged global pandemic and wrought by democratic uncertainty. Across these social circumstances, technology and media loom large. Simultaneously, everyday life continues and classic CITAMS scholarship sustains relevance for the ways people interact, construct identity, consume, and mobilize. All of this and more are contained in the pages of this year’s Special Issue, from which readers can get a sense of what CITAMS has to offer and consider how their own work may fit within the broad CITAMS umbrella.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"25 1","pages":"587 - 590"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43506228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2050417
Ceri Ashwell, P. Reilly
ABSTRACT Social media may have amplified the Black Lives Matter movement, but companies like Facebook are often accused of not doing enough to address online hate speech. These platforms nevertheless have the potential to facilitate informal learning about the color blind racism through which whites rationalize the inequalities and injustices experienced by People of Color (PoC). This paper adds to the emergent literature in this area by exploring a high-profile Twitterstorm in February 2018 following a tweet from Cambridge University Professor Mary Beard about the sexual misconduct of Oxfam aid workers in Haiti. Academics like Dr Priya Gopal faced much criticism for suggesting the tweet was evidence of the white fragility and privilege to which they were frequently subjected. A qualitative content analysis of 1718 unique tweets containing ‘Mary Beard’, posted between 16 and 20 February 2018, was conducted to assess whether there was much evidence of agonistic debate between critics and supporters of Beard about whiteness. Results indicate that there were twice as many tweets criticizing Beard for her performative white privilege and frailty than those defending her. While the framing of the Twitterstorm was generally agonistic, there was little evidence of informal learning, with PoC conspicuously under-represented. Indeed, the burden of talking about racism and whiteness fell on the few PoC in the corpus, in much the same way as the ‘pre-social media’ era.
{"title":"Exploring discourses of whiteness in the Mary Beard Oxfam-Haiti Twitterstorm","authors":"Ceri Ashwell, P. Reilly","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2050417","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2050417","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Social media may have amplified the Black Lives Matter movement, but companies like Facebook are often accused of not doing enough to address online hate speech. These platforms nevertheless have the potential to facilitate informal learning about the color blind racism through which whites rationalize the inequalities and injustices experienced by People of Color (PoC). This paper adds to the emergent literature in this area by exploring a high-profile Twitterstorm in February 2018 following a tweet from Cambridge University Professor Mary Beard about the sexual misconduct of Oxfam aid workers in Haiti. Academics like Dr Priya Gopal faced much criticism for suggesting the tweet was evidence of the white fragility and privilege to which they were frequently subjected. A qualitative content analysis of 1718 unique tweets containing ‘Mary Beard’, posted between 16 and 20 February 2018, was conducted to assess whether there was much evidence of agonistic debate between critics and supporters of Beard about whiteness. Results indicate that there were twice as many tweets criticizing Beard for her performative white privilege and frailty than those defending her. While the framing of the Twitterstorm was generally agonistic, there was little evidence of informal learning, with PoC conspicuously under-represented. Indeed, the burden of talking about racism and whiteness fell on the few PoC in the corpus, in much the same way as the ‘pre-social media’ era.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"1933 - 1953"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45791358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-03DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2056498
R. Prasad
ABSTRACT This article connects the Indian state’s regulation of the digital economy, exemplified by the 2019 draft of the e-commerce policy, to its regulation and control of bodies, specifically through the biometric ID, Aadhaar, and its proliferating uses. It argues that the thrust of India’s emergent project of digital sovereignty is not merely geopolitical, but also biopolitical, a process through which the Indian state is engaged in altering what it is to be sovereign and its subject.
{"title":"People as data, data as oil: the digital sovereignty of the Indian state","authors":"R. Prasad","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2056498","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2056498","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article connects the Indian state’s regulation of the digital economy, exemplified by the 2019 draft of the e-commerce policy, to its regulation and control of bodies, specifically through the biometric ID, Aadhaar, and its proliferating uses. It argues that the thrust of India’s emergent project of digital sovereignty is not merely geopolitical, but also biopolitical, a process through which the Indian state is engaged in altering what it is to be sovereign and its subject.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"25 1","pages":"801 - 815"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48530066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-28DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2055487
Mallika Khanna
{"title":"The Digital Frontier: Infrastructures of control on the global web","authors":"Mallika Khanna","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2055487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2055487","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"1693 - 1694"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47792048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-28DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2022.2050415
U. Klinger, W. Lance Bennett, C. Knüpfer, F. Martini, Xixuan Zhang
ABSTRACT Many liberal democracies have witnessed the rise of radical right parties and movements that threaten liberal values of tolerance and inclusion. Extremist movement factions may promote inflammatory ideas that engage broader publics, but party leaders face dilemmas of endorsing content from extremist origins. However, when that content is shared over larger intermediary networks of aligned supporters and media sites, it may become laundered or disconnected from its original sources so that parties can play it back as official communication. With a dynamic network analysis and various-time series analysis we tracked content flows from the German version of a global far-right anti-immigration campaign across different media platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, and collections of far-right and mainstream media sites. The analysis shows how content from the small extremist Identitarian Movement spread over expanding networks of low-level activists of the Alternative for Germany party and far-right alternative media sites. That network bridging enabled party leadership to launder the source of the content and roll out its own version of the campaign. As a result, national attention became directed to extremist ideas.
许多自由民主国家见证了激进右翼政党和运动的兴起，这些政党和运动威胁到宽容和包容的自由价值观。极端主义运动派系可能会促进煽动性的思想，吸引更广泛的公众，但政党领导人面临着支持极端主义内容的两难境地。然而，当这些内容在由一致的支持者和媒体网站组成的更大的中介网络上共享时，它可能会被洗白或与原始来源脱节，以便各方可以将其作为官方通信播放。通过动态网络分析和各种时间序列分析，我们跟踪了全球极右翼反移民运动的德国版本在不同媒体平台上的内容流，包括YouTube, Twitter以及极右翼和主流媒体网站的集合。分析显示，来自小型极端主义“身份认同运动”(Identitarian Movement)的内容是如何在德国新选择党(Alternative for Germany)低级活动人士和极右翼另类媒体网站不断扩大的网络中传播的。这种网络桥梁使政党领导层能够清洗内容的来源，并推出自己版本的竞选活动。结果，全国的注意力转向了极端主义思想。
{"title":"From the fringes into mainstream politics: intermediary networks and movement-party coordination of a global anti-immigration campaign in Germany","authors":"U. Klinger, W. Lance Bennett, C. Knüpfer, F. Martini, Xixuan Zhang","doi":"10.1080/1369118X.2022.2050415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2050415","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Many liberal democracies have witnessed the rise of radical right parties and movements that threaten liberal values of tolerance and inclusion. Extremist movement factions may promote inflammatory ideas that engage broader publics, but party leaders face dilemmas of endorsing content from extremist origins. However, when that content is shared over larger intermediary networks of aligned supporters and media sites, it may become laundered or disconnected from its original sources so that parties can play it back as official communication. With a dynamic network analysis and various-time series analysis we tracked content flows from the German version of a global far-right anti-immigration campaign across different media platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, and collections of far-right and mainstream media sites. The analysis shows how content from the small extremist Identitarian Movement spread over expanding networks of low-level activists of the Alternative for Germany party and far-right alternative media sites. That network bridging enabled party leadership to launder the source of the content and roll out its own version of the campaign. As a result, national attention became directed to extremist ideas.","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"1890 - 1907"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44331655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-28DOI: 10.1080/1369118x.2022.2055486
Shailendra Kumar Singh
{"title":"Exploring digital humanities in India: pedagogies, practices, and institutional possibilities","authors":"Shailendra Kumar Singh","doi":"10.1080/1369118x.2022.2055486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2022.2055486","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48335,"journal":{"name":"Information Communication & Society","volume":"26 1","pages":"1492 - 1493"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49164519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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