Peta Wolifson, Chris Gibson, Christopher R Brennan-Horley, Nicole T Cook, Andrew Warren
{"title":"Precarious work and precarious urban spaces: Divergent experiences of pandemic creativity","authors":"Peta Wolifson, Chris Gibson, Christopher R Brennan-Horley, Nicole T Cook, Andrew Warren","doi":"10.1177/13678779231217111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231217111","url":null,"abstract":"How does the precarity of creative work iterate with the precarity of creative spaces? In answer, we examine Covid-19 pandemic experiences of workers across diverse creative sectors in Sydney, Australia, drawing upon qualitative mapping research. Our findings highlight divergent experiences of precarity before and during the pandemic: many suffered, others adapted, some even thrived, depending upon the nature of their work, access to socialisation and networking opportunities, plus whether livelihood precariousness was worsened and overlaid with additional geographic factors, including venue loss, tenure vulnerability, housing insecurity, and access to production spaces. Using conceptual insights from labour and feminist geography, we argue that for the creative sectors to flourish and support diverse, well-remunerated and satisfying work, there must also be discussions of the post-pandemic geography of creative work. Space and social relations within and beyond the work sphere are co-constitutive of precarity.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139200014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multimodal online dissident culture in Instagram: A critique of the Turkish economy","authors":"Balca Arda, Özen Baş","doi":"10.1177/13678779231213991","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231213991","url":null,"abstract":"Ever-present mass surveillance has blocked the flourishing of a traditional dissident culture in Turkey. Focusing on popular ‘just for fun’ Instagram accounts during the lira's freefall that began in the autumn of 2021, this study seeks to identify the creative strategies for digital social resistance embedded in multimodal content sharing of posts, which are composed of visuals, text, and sound. For this, we employed a multimodal-type analysis of Instagram posts regarding Turkey's economic crisis, followed by an interpretative content analysis aiming to (1) identify, categorize, and compile a typology of the main countersurveillance strategies inherent in multimodal posts, such as memes, edited videos, and animations, Photoshop-crafted still images, and (2) explore the contextual traits of the connected dissident culture. We discuss how these multimodal-type posts support connected dissident group formation while maintaining confidentiality while criticizing governmental conduct of economic policy making in Turkey.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"26 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139245549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mapping globalised Chinese webnovels: Genre blending, cultural hybridity, and the complexity of transcultural storytelling","authors":"Xiang Ren","doi":"10.1177/13678779231211918","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231211918","url":null,"abstract":"Recent years have seen a significant surge in the global popularity of Chinese webnovels as an emerging form of participatory transcultural storytelling. This research combines computational and interpretive textual analysis to map the cultural features embedded in webnovel content, aiming to identify the genre elements, common lexicon, and story themes of 4040 translated Chinese webnovels on global platforms. The analysis shows the hybridisation of Chinese cultures, digital cultures, and genre fiction elements in webnovel storytelling, contributing to the growing spectrum of diverse voices in international self-publishing. Simultaneously, webnovels depict a varied mosaic of imagined China, based on both cultural sharing and nonsharing within today's complex Chinese society and beyond the notion of ‘Chineseness’ rooted in common heritage or official values, amplifying diverse perspectives like subcultures and resistances in transcultural storytelling. While webnovels bear witness to China's cultural outreach and digital prowess converging in a new storytelling form, this research posits that their cultural production remains bound within a material process where borderless digital cultures collide with the imposed boundaries of platformed publishing and government control.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"19 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139260303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"#MournHub and @GrieveWatch: Mediating monarchy and mourning in the digital age","authors":"Laura Clancy","doi":"10.1177/13678779231213990","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231213990","url":null,"abstract":"Queen Elizabeth II's death in September 2022 prompted a predictable saturation of representations across all UK media. A lot of ‘traditional’ media, like the BBC, largely assumed, and hence attempted to reproduce, a hegemonic and unified response of national mourning. But some social media representations exposed a struggle over meaning, displaying ambivalence or even outright negativity towards the British monarchy and ‘national’ mourning practices. This article uses #MournHub and @GrieveWatch as two critical case studies to explore the complex meanings of the Queen's death across different communities and spaces. Doing so, this article illuminates the ambivalences of ‘national’ mourning, the intersectionality of class, race and national identity in shaping the tenor of people's responses to the Queen's death, the commercialisation and corporatisation of memorialising death and nationhood, the changing forms of royal mediations, and the careful staging of royal events.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139266556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"House-sharing as a staged and mediated practice: Representing self and home in Melbourne share-houses","authors":"Aneta Podkalicka, Meg Mundell","doi":"10.1177/13678779231210884","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231210884","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers how house-sharing – sharing a home with other, usually unrelated people – is mediated by digital technologies. Drawing on academic literature on house-sharing and self-(re)presentation in digital cultures, interviews with share-house residents in Melbourne, Australia, and user posts in house-sharing groups on Facebook, we identify a sequence of steps and stages integral to the process of (re)forming a share-house in the competitive private rental market. These include advertising, screening, vetting, digital interactions, interviews and house tours. Considering this multi-stage process from the dual perspective of ‘home-seekers’ (applicants) and ‘housemate-seekers’ (existing household), we analyse how both parties deploy representational and communicative strategies, explore the conventions and complexities underpinning these interactions, and present a conceptual framework that explicates the process. The article contributes to scholarly debates about mediated practices of self-(re)presentations, and about house-sharing as a significant practice in a housing market that renders home ownership increasingly unaffordable.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"52 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139271563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Illicit media, reflexivity and sociocultural change in North Korea","authors":"Youna Kim","doi":"10.1177/13678779231211919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231211919","url":null,"abstract":"Since the late 1990s the transnational spread of South Korean media, known as the Korean Wave or Hallyu, has filtered into North Korea through smuggling and black markets. The act of consuming or distributing foreign media contents is considered to be a grave crime against the state. Based on qualitative in-depth interviews with 60 North Koreans, this empirical study draws attention to North Korea's changing media culture in a digital age and addresses the sociocultural implications as the society is going through remarkable change from below at this important historical moment. The article argues for the significance of illicit media culture in the stimulation of everyday reflexivity and sociocultural change by demonstrating how reflexivity operates as an emotional and active mode of learning in North Korean society.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"15 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136351351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rethinking creative freelancers and structures of care in cultural policy and organisational practice: A case study of Dundee during the Covid-19 pandemic","authors":"Lauren England","doi":"10.1177/13678779231210883","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231210883","url":null,"abstract":"This article seeks to reposition freelance creative and cultural workers (CCWs) and conditions of creative work as the foundations of cultural policy making. Using a case study of Dundee, Scotland, in the immediate aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the article draws on focus groups and interviews with creative freelancers, representatives of cultural organisations and members of a cultural strategy development group in Dundee. It presents how freelancers were not only missing from policy (national and local), their precarity was also exacerbated by cultural organisations in their response to pandemic-induced uncertainty. The potential for more caring modes of engagement with freelance CCWs are identified. Crucially, the article argues that this support work must also be resourced to be effective and sustainable. The article presents opportunities for rethinking the position of freelancers in cultural policy and sector leadership, and reflects on the capacity for academic research to support such work.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"75 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135539691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Representations of mental health and mental health problems in content published by female social media influencers","authors":"Judith Lind, Anette Wickström","doi":"10.1177/13678779231210583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231210583","url":null,"abstract":"When social media influencers (SMIs) describe their experiences of mental health problems, they contribute to the circulation of representations of mental health. The aim of this article is to analyse the ways of talking about mental health problems that are made accessible to a wider audience through the YouTube videos published by four Swedish female SMIs. Our analysis shows that much content related to mental health contains traces of, and contributes to discourses informed by, positive psychology. Mostly, mental health problems are represented as manageable, if only the individual assumes responsibility for her mental wellbeing, but a few videos also contain displays of negativity and resignation. In addition to avoiding association with the unattractiveness associated with negativity, the four SMIs navigate expectations placed on them to encourage confidence and self-love while at the same time expressing modesty. The result is representations of mental health that are multi-layered and complex.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"184 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135371674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Breaking the chains of television: Streaming and the ‘Netflix effect’ in Turkey","authors":"Aslı Ildır","doi":"10.1177/13678779231202040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231202040","url":null,"abstract":"Scarcity is the defining characteristic of television's history in Turkey due to the late arrival of a multi-channel structure, and the experience of television in Turkey is shaped by the extensive involvement of the government and the high level of social control over broadcasting. The dissatisfaction during the pre-streaming era among the audiences in Turkey started to intensify by early 2010s because of the formulaic and similar stories with no diversity, strict regulation and censorship, and the tediousness of long, slow-paced series and extended ad breaks. The arrival of streaming services in 2016–17 was initially disruptive of the strictly regulated market due to the lack of necessary laws for regulating online streaming. Streaming continues to be a significant alternative for producers/creators and audiences in Turkey, with increased political and cultural diversity in local stories and the emergence of diverse genres and formats with different aesthetic tendencies.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136078637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Vacillating Imagination of ‘Us' in <i>Black Panther</i> (2018)","authors":"Dongwook Song","doi":"10.1177/13678779231202542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13678779231202542","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the cultural politics of the vacillating imagination of “us” represented in Black Panther, released in 2018. This popular cultural text centralizes Blackness in that it refers to instances of Black oppression in the early 1990s. Amid the contradiction between the film's Black-centered content and the form of the Hollywood superhero genre, the imagination of “us” in the film expands and shrinks. Drawing on concepts developed by Fredric Jameson and Étienne Balibar, including imaginary resolution, utopian potential, ideological containment, and equaliberty, this article critically examines the ideologies in the text. When it comes to the expansion of “us,” the article explores the utopian potential in the representation of the radical villain. In terms of the shrinkage of “us,” it investigates the function of ideological containment in the Hollywood superhero movie by focusing on the representation of the hero, and the portrait of South Korea as a spectacular background.","PeriodicalId":47307,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135739270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}