{"title":"Provincializing “web traffic”: data imaginaries and vernacular construction of <i>liuliang</i> in China","authors":"Sheng Zou","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad021","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article dehomogenizes the concept of “web traffic” through a keywords-informed approach. It attends to how, in China, the term for “web traffic,” liuliang (流量), is utilized in rich and creative ways. Instantiating bottom-up epistemic practices, the taxonomies, collocations, and wisdom related to liuliang reveal alternative and locally relevant ways in which people imagine, apprehend, and deal with digital media and data in everyday life. They unleash a set of reinvigorating vocabulary for the theorization of web traffic—liquidity, manipulability, portability, socio-spatial differentiation, ideological valence, and mystified power, among others. These new lenses enrich a genuinely global understanding of digital media, enable those in the Global North to comparatively rethink their taken-for-granted experiences of datafication, and democratize the making of media knowledges by addressing the inequality between the Global North and South(s), between experts and non-experts.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135557491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Shared identity endorsement narratives: a framework for studying celebrity endorsements of minority political candidates in the US","authors":"Madhavi Reddi","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article introduces the concept of shared identity endorsement narratives (SIENs), or celebrity endorsements of political candidates that intentionally highlight shared social identities between the endorser and the endorsed. Scholars of celebrity endorsements in political contexts have primarily focused on the efficacy rather than the rhetorical content of these endorsements and what latent social structures make them effective. Through close readings of two SIENs of Vice President Kamala Harris by American celebrities of Indian descent, I draw upon social identity theory to elucidate the ways in which these endorsements create valuable networks of support for Indian Americans, but simultaneously create homogenizing articulations of Indian American identity that exploit caste, ethnolinguistic, and racial differences. Analyzing how Indian Americans and other minority groups present themselves/connect with their community provides insights into what it takes to succeed in America’s diversifying political and media landscape.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135325097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“How crazy is your maid?” Domestic workers in the “new India”","authors":"Sreela Sarkar","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcac050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcac050","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract India is celebrated as one of the largest emerging economies but domestic workers remain a large workforce that is unorganized and exploited. As the figure of the “maid” changes in contemporary popular culture, how do more elite, middle-class employers understand domestic workers in the “new India?” This article draws on inter-textual discussions on social media platforms such as Quora and Twitter where most discussants are urban, class and caste privileged, and display Hindu nationalist identities. It examines representation of recent conflicts at large condominium complexes to argue that new infrastructure projects become a crucial terrain on which class, caste and religion-based struggles are mapped, Second, it focuses on popular narratives of “entrepreneurship” for domestic workers and argues that these narratives worsen structural inequities. Finally, it studies new technology as a means of creating inclusion for domestic workers that serve to further mark them by class, caste and other marginalized identities.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"103 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135014614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Female Masculinity and Transgressive Temporality: How Orange is the New Black Recontextualizes Prisoner Agency","authors":"Jaspreet K Nijjar","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcab059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab059","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"11 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138509032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"News Fixers at the Digital Interface: Precarious Labor and International Journalism in the 21st Century","authors":"Lindsay Palmer","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcab062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab062","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article conducts a discursive interface analysis of World Fixer, the most visible online platform currently connecting foreign correspondents with local news workers who can help them translate interviews, navigate unfamiliar places, and stay safe in the field. Placing Johanna Drucker’s theory of the digital interface into conversation with the critical frameworks found in global communication studies, anti-colonial theory, and anti-racist communication scholarship, the goal is to illuminate both the opportunities that the World Fixer site provides its users, as well as the inequalities that the website still perpetuates.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"46 1","pages":"52-68"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138543126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond Benson: From Law & Order: SVU to Holland’s Grenslanders, Female Masculinity in Crime Dramas Fall Victim to Feminized Tropes","authors":"Lauren Alexandra Sowa","doi":"10.1093/CCC/TCAB063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CCC/TCAB063","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85681632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Coalitions of Socio-Technical Infrastructure: Platforms as Essential Services","authors":"A. Surie","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcab044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab044","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This commentary explores the experimental ways in which delivery platforms and local governments in India collaborated during the COVID19 lockdown in India in 2020. The case of one district government, which partnered with a large, corporate food delivery platform is explored here to investigate the platform functionalities that were the most useful to the local government. My exploration highlights how the developmental state mobilized commercial platforms for their constituent socio-technical infrastructural elements. What happens when corporate platforms are unexpectedly ushered into the realm of public values? Addressing this question, I argue that the government’s instrumental re-tooling of the private sector’s platforms to manage a public emergency contests absolute formulations of corporate platform power.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"10 13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85471833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital Pitfalls: The Politics of Digitalization in Bangladesh","authors":"A. Aziz","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcab037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab037","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The state-led investment in digital infrastructure under the ruling party’s political agenda of “Digital Bangladesh” has given rise to scholarly and policy debates, especially around issues of digital surveillance and media censorship. Such concerns have intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article analyzes contemporary Bangladesh in the context of emerging trends related to the digitalization of society. In particular, I employ the concept of “digital pitfalls” to explore the state’s use of surveillance and the politics of fear to limit freedom of expression and silence critical voices in the digital age.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80920493","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Talking Through Race: Two Raced Women’s Tinder Stories","authors":"Jin Lee","doi":"10.1093/CCC/TCAB030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CCC/TCAB030","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 While as an epitome of contemporary pairing culture Tinder has been reported as dangerous for its association with sex-centered post-feminist culture, including hook ups and toxic masculinity, an original case study exploring women of color (WOC) in the culture has not been undertaken yet. By inviting WOC Tinder users into an ethnographic study, I show the instability of race that mediates their lived experiences in line with gender in the culture of sexual intimacy. I focus on two female study participants living in the United States: Greek–Black biracial Betty and Korean-Asian Rose. By examining their processes of revisiting their Tinder episodes and developing their conclusive stories vis-à-vis their identities, I argue that they perform their race processed through ongoing negotiation with the social systems and their personal lived experiences, to respond to racialization, gendering, and sexualization in the pairing culture, mediated by the image-centered dating app, Tinder.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86516355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Angel as Wish Image: Justin Bieber, Popular Culture, and the Politics of Absolution","authors":"C. O’Connor","doi":"10.1093/CCC/TCAB031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CCC/TCAB031","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In the early 21st century, the angel became a recurrent image within the visual economy of pop music stardom. By considering the case of Justin Bieber (whose angel invocations give expression to his struggles with celebrity, faith, and the pathology of Whiteness), the author reveals how biographical factors alone cannot account for the angel’s contemporary resonance. Instead, and drawing upon Walter Benjamin’s concept of wish image, the author argues that this invocational pattern reflects a general desire for a one-to-one correspondence between being and doing—here understood as a manifestation of the ur-historical longing for absolution. Because this desire is ambivalent, the angel has historically been invoked to symbolize wishes as divergent as fascism’s ideal gender relations and radical utopia’s equality. In this way, the angel’s current ubiquity alerts us to the role resonant myths often play in the elaboration of collective desires, while pointing toward their implications for emancipatory strategy.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2021-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87306641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}