scholarly journals Idols of Promotion: The Triumph of Self-Branding in an Age of Precarity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Erin Duffy ◽  
Jefferson Pooley
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Precarious Employment ◽  
Talk Show ◽  
Popular Magazine ◽  
Contemporary Media

By analyzing the “mass idols” (Lowenthal, 1944) of contemporary media culture, this study contributes to our understanding of popular communication, branding, and social media self-presentation. Leo Lowenthal, in his well-known analysis of popular magazine biographies, identified a marked shift in mass-mediated exemplars of success: from self-made industrialists and politicians (idols of production) to screen stars and athletes (idols of consumption). Adapting his approach, we draw upon a qualitative analysis of magazine biographies (People and Time, n = 127) and social media bios (Instagram and Twitter, n = 200), supplemented by an inventory of television talk show guests (n = 462). Today's idols, we show, blend Lowenthal's predecessor types: they hail from the sphere of consumption, but get described –and describe themselves –in production terms. We term these new figures “idols of promotion,” and contend that their stories of self-made success –the celebrations of promotional pluck –are parables for making it in a precarious employment economy.

scholarly journals Idols of Promotion: The Triumph of Self-Branding in an Age of Precarity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Erin Duffy ◽  
Jefferson Pooley
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Precarious Employment ◽  
Talk Show ◽  
Popular Magazine ◽  
Contemporary Media

By analyzing the “mass idols” (Lowenthal, 1944) of contemporary media culture, this study contributes to our understanding of popular communication, branding, and social media self-presentation. Leo Lowenthal, in his well-known analysis of popular magazine biographies, identified a marked shift in mass-mediated exemplars of success: from self-made industrialists and politicians (“Idols of Production”) to screen stars and athletes (“Idols of Consumption”). Adapting his approach, we draw upon a qualitative analysis of magazine biographies (People and Time, n=127) and social media bios (Instagram and Twitter, n=200), supplemented by an inventory of television talk show guests (n=462). Today’s idols, we show, blend Lowenthal’s predecessor types: They hail from the sphere of consumption, but get described—and describe themselves—in production terms. We term these new figures “Idols of Promotion” and contend that their stories of self-made success—the celebrations of promotional pluck—are parables for making it in a precarious employment economy.

Anti-fandom in the Xiaxue empire: A celebrity blogger and her haters

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hattie Liew
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Video ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Online Presence ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Contemporary Media

The advent of the Internet and user-generated platforms has facilitated the rise of a new breed of celebrity. Bloggers, YouTubers and Instagram stars, armed with their laptops and smartphones, represent an important part of the contemporary media landscape. This article will investigate Singaporean social media influencer Wendy Cheng, known by her pseudonym, Xiaxue. Starting her Internet career as a blogger in 2003, Xiaxue has built a massive online presence over multiple platforms and is arguably one of the most commercially successful Internet celebrities in her country. Her thriving Internet career implies the presence of a large follower and fan base. However, we will look at the other side of the coin ‐ the anti-fans ‐ an often-neglected segment of users in the study of Internet celebrity. These anti-fans, individuals who strongly dislike Xiaxue, can be just as engaged and committed as fans, albeit in different ways. This article will analyse user comments on Xiaxue’s online video channel Xiaxue’s Guide to Life, and anti-fan platform Guru Gossip’s Abhorred Bloggers (Xiaxue) forum. Findings show that Xiaxue’s anti-fandom is driven by a moral economy related to her self-presentation, femininity and nature of her celebrity.

scholarly journals The Line Between Politics and Conspiracy Theories: Tracking Disinformation using #StopTheGreatReset

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashli Au
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Research ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
Ongoing Project

Have you heard? In today’s pandemic, the Trudeau administration has been using the widespread lockdowns to impose socialism in Canada. This conspiracy theory has been mobilized under the hash tags #StopTheGreatReset, #Scamdemic and #CancelTheLockdown amongst others. With the COVID-19 pandemic, as with previous major events, there has been an influx of dis-and mis- information on social media platforms. This rapid spread of information can have strong influences on people’s behaviour which can impact the effectiveness of public health measures taken by governments (Cinelli et al. 2020; González-Padilla andTortolero-Blanco 2020). My research is part of an ongoing project that aims to identify and map the spread of  disinformation, and its effects on Canadian society. For this sub-project, I created a database of social media posts from Twitter accounts that promote or spread disinformation narratives directed towards Canadian politics and public health measures. From this, we were able to identify some of the most common narratives of disinformation in circulation on Twitter; the hash tag #StopTheGreatReset was chosen as the focus of the project to study the fine, and often blurred, line between legitimate politics and conspiracy theories. Going forth, my aim is to conduct a qualitative analysis on the links attached to social media posts fueling disinformation to understand what kinds of information are being circulated and identify common themes. This project has been an opportunity for me to learn about how social media research is conducted and allows me to engage with urgent issues in contemporary media culture.

scholarly journals Den tværmediale serialitet

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (79) ◽  
pp. 103-115
Author(s):  
Helle Kannik Haastrup
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Television Drama ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Transmedia Storytelling ◽  
Film Series ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
The Mind

This study investigates how serial storytelling in fiction film and television drama are connected through transmedia relations with a focus on aesthetics and the analysis of narrative, character and title sequences and how they are establishing seriality. The analysis is concerned with two main tendencies apparent in contemporary media culture representing different forms of transmedia seriality: ‘multi-protagonist transmedia storytelling’ as it unfolds in the Marvel fictional universe between the film series and the tv-series and ‘the mind game serial drama’ in the tv-series Westworld with connections to the official website and social media.

scholarly journals “We don’t get to stay the same way we started”: The walking dead, augmented television, and sociological character-building

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-304
Author(s):  
Matthew Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Interactive Television ◽  
Media Industries ◽  
Talk Show ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
Character Building ◽  
Walking Dead

AbstractThe dominant turn towards transmediality across the contemporary media industries has brought a range of emerging digital innovations and new possibilities for telling stories, be it in interactive television experiences, apps, social media, and so on. Despite such rich possibilities, the transmedia phenomenon has also arguably led to a kind of indirect flattening out of how we now understand different media forms, platforms, stories, and even characters. This article will explore the character-building practices that have been employed in augmenting the televisual experience of The walking dead (2010–present) across platforms. It looks at The walking dead: Red machete (2017–2018), a six-part webisode series available on AMC’s website, the AMC Story Sync facility (2012–present), a double-screen application designed to enable audiences to post live comments about the episodes, respond to surveys, and talk to other audiences via a chat platform, and finally AMC’s Talking dead (2011–present), a 30-minute accompanying talk show. I demonstrate how these three examples of what I call augmented television draw on sociological and anthropological notions of communication, modern social life, and environment in ways that present chances for what I call sociological character-building.

scholarly journals Editorial

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maja Klausen ◽  
Anette Grønning ◽  
Carsten Stage
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Self Care ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Digital Learning ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Care Processes ◽  
Contemporary Media

This special issue, entitled “Health, Media and Participation”, consists of seven articles that explore some of the different ways that media participation and health participation intertwine in contemporary media culture. In these seven articles, participation in health and media is addressed in the analysis of a variety of practices: Patients that use media to become participants in co-decision and self-care processes, patients and citizens being more or less able to use media to engage in (patient) communities, patients communicating with (and affecting) institutions and authorities in new mediated ways, health professionals using social media to create public awareness about politically urgent issues and health professionals co-designing digital learning technologies. The contributions are in this way united by taking an interest in the democratic potentials and dilemmas of participating in health through media participation. The issue also includes one open section article by Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier. The special issue is edited by Maja Klausen, Anette Grønning and Carsten Stage.

scholarly journals Ugly media feelings: Negative affect in young cancer patients’ experiences of social media

First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten Stage ◽  
Lisbeth Klastrup ◽  
Karen Hvidtfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Support Networks ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Online Support ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Serious Illness ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
Health Institutions

In contemporary media culture, social media have become important publics of care for young people with a serious illness. While much previous research has focused on the positive aspects of online support networks, this article investigates the affective experience of what we call ‘ugly media feelings’, such as envy, shame, annoyance, irritation and scepticism, based on an in-depth interview study of 25 young Danish cancer patients’ (aged 15–29) experiences of social media. We argue that ugly media feelings can be analysed, firstly, as indirect revelations of the communicative ideals and media investments that young cancer patients make when they turn to social media during their illnesses and, secondly, as entangled with media cultural changes that have created new affectively unpredictable spaces for interacting about serious illness outside home and health institutions.

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