The Labor of Visibility on Social Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 105-134
Author(s):  
Jennifer McClearen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Female Athletes ◽  
Job Description ◽  
Bullet Point ◽  
Female Fighters

The fourth chapter of Fighting Visibility analyzes interviews with female UFC fighters to consider how they navigate social media in their jobs. Building followers online, engaging with fans, and promoting sponsors as micro-influencers is an undercompensated and often invisible form of labor that leverages a gendered tax on female athletes, particularly those who do not perform the traditional forms of femininity that are more valued in popular culture. Female fighters freely undertake this aspirational labor because they hope the exposure online will convince the UFC to promote them or that their efforts to engage fans will appeal to sponsors. Instead, visibility on social media remains an unwritten and unpaid bullet point on the UFC fighter job description that often fails to deliver the assumed benefits that athletes seek.

scholarly journals How Popular Culture Prompts Youth Collective Political Expression and Cross-Cutting Political Talk on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110088
Author(s):  
Ioana Literat ◽  
Neta Kligler-Vilenchik
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Cross Platform ◽  
Symbolic Resource ◽  
Political Differences

Adopting a comparative cross-platform approach, we examine youth political expression and conversation on social media, as prompted by popular culture. Tracking a common case study—the practice of building Donald Trump’s border wall within the videogame Fortnite—across three social media platforms popular with youth (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram), we ask: How do popular culture artifacts prompt youth political expression, as well as cross-cutting political talk with those holding different political views, across social media platforms? A mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis of around 6,400 comments posted on relevant artifacts, illuminates youth popular culture as a shared symbolic resource that stimulates communication within and across political differences—although, as our findings show, it is often deployed in a disparaging manner. This cross-platform analysis, grounded in contemporary youth culture and sociopolitical dynamics, enables a deeper understanding of the interplay between popular culture, cross-cutting political talk, and the role that different social media platforms play in shaping these expressive practices.

Entertainment publics in the Philippines

2021 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2098596
Author(s):  
Anna Cristina Pertierra
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Political Capital ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The Media ◽  
Entertainment Television

Since the late 1980s, Filipino entertainment television has assumed and maintained a dominance in national popular culture, which expanded in the digital era. The media landscape into which digital technologies were launched in the Philippines was largely set in the wake of the 1986 popular movement and change of government referred to as the EDSA revolution: television stations that had been sequestered under martial law were turned over to family-dominated commercial enterprises, and entertainment media proliferated. Building upon the long development of entertainment industries in the Philippines, new social media encounters with entertainment content generate expanded and engaged publics whose formation continues to operate upon a foundation of televisual media. This article considers the particular role that entertainment media plays in the formation of publics in which comedic, melodramatic and celebrity-led content generates networks of followers, users and viewers whose loyalty produces various forms of capital, including in notable cases political capital.

Film as /and Popular Social Text: The Reception of John Trengove’s Inxeba/The Wound and Wanuri Kahui’s Rafiki

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-79
Author(s):  
Gibson Ncube
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
Global North ◽  
State Responses

This article is interested in popular and institutional or state responses to the representations of queerness offered in the films Inxeba/The Wound (South Africa, 2017) and Rafiki (Kenya, 2018). Aside from portraying the marked homophobia that continues to circulate on the African continent, the institutional and state responses to the films have overshadowed the positive popular reception which has  characterised conversations around the films on social media and public spaces. This article shows how social media functions as animportant space of contestation for diverse issues relating to non-normative gender and sexual identities. As these films circulate in different spaces and are viewed by diverse audiences, they elicit equally diverse reactions and responses. The article examines how viewers, in Africa and beyond, receive and engage with the queerness represented in the two films. It argues that the multifaceted reactions to Inxeba/The Wound and Rafiki are central to articulating important questions about what it means to be queer in Africa,and particularly what it implies for black queers to inhabit heteronormative and patriarchal spaces on the continent. Through an analysis of the reactions and receptions of the two films in Africa and the global North, it is argued that it is possible to trace important inter-regional, intra-continental and intercontinental dialogues and conversations regarding the representation of queer African subjectivities. The intra-continental and inter-continental dialogues bring to light questions of gaze and viewing that are inherent in the circulation of queer-themed films. Kewords: Inxeba/The Wound, Rafiki, reception, popular culture, queerness

Self-Presentation of Female Athletes: A Content Analysis of Athlete Avatars

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 460-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan B. Shreffler ◽  
Meg G. Hancock ◽  
Samuel H. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Female Athletes ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Athletic Competence

Unlike traditional media, which frames female athletes in sexualized manners and in socially accepted roles such as mothers and girlfriends, user-controlled social-media Web sites allow female athletes to control the image and brand they wish to portray to the public. Using Goffman’s theory of self-presentation, the current study aimed to investigate how female athletes were portraying themselves via their Twitter avatar pictures. A total of 207 verified Twitter avatars of female athletes from 6 sports were examined through a content analysis. The avatars from each player were coded using the following themes: athlete as social being, athlete as promotional figure, “selfie,” athletic competence, ambivalence, “girl next door,” and “sexy babe.” The results revealed that athletic competence was the most common theme, followed by selfie and athlete as social being. Thus, when women have the opportunity to control their image through social media they choose to focus on their athletic identities.

scholarly journals Grendizer Leaves for Sweden

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-71
Author(s):  
Omar Al-Ghazzi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Generational Identity ◽  
Media Globalization ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis ◽  
Media Practices

Abstract Exploring the post-March 2011 Syrian online sphere, in this article I focus on nostalgic videos and memes inspired by Arabic-dubbed Japanese anime series originally broadcast on Arab government TV stations in the 1980s. As part of a dissident social media culture, amateur videos that redubbed and edited childhood cartoons have appeared on YouTube since 2011—tackling themes of revolution, war and exile. These videos defied and mocked the Al-Assad regime, as well as the Islamic State. I argue that they are to be understood as empowering media practices for how they project political meaning onto childhood cartoons which are associated with a generational identity shared by now-adult Syrians. Highlighting an understudied aspect of media globalization—the influence of Japanese anime on Arab popular culture—in this article I examine a diverse body of social media clips and memes that recycle Japanese anime. I analyze their re-appropriation by Syrians, by offering a typology of nostalgic online practices in the contexts of war and the uprising. These can be summed up in three categories of nostalgic mediation: nostalgic defiance, as expressed in calls for political action; nostalgic mockery, as reflected in subversive nostalgic humor targeting authority; and nostalgic anguish, in reaction to the trauma of war and exile, for example, in relation to the Syrian refugee crisis.

Popularity

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-95
Author(s):  
Alberto Acerbi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Evolution Theory ◽  
Consumer Reviews ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Cultural Evolution Theory

The tendency to copy the majority is the topic of the fourth chapter. The fact that online popularity produces long-tailed distributions is often presented as an argument to show the power of online social influence. However, long-tailed distributions are a trademark of many cultural domains, from first names to dog breeds. In addition, these distributions do not necessarily imply the existence of an individual-level tendency to prefer popular things, but they can be the result of bare availability: the more examples of an item, the more likely we will encounter it, and the more likely we will become interested in it. Conformity is next considered: as defined in cultural evolution, conformity implies an effective tendency to copy the majority. As for celebrities, various experiments are reviewed, and the author defends a view for which conformity is far from automatic, as it interacts with many other psychological tendencies. How digital technologies permit radically new forms of popularity advertisements, from the real-time quantification of “likes” in social media to the explosion of consumer reviews, or top-lists of virtually everything, is also examined and discussed in relation to cultural evolution theory.

Blackness in Brown Times

Brown Threat ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumarini Silva
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
African Americans ◽  
General Public ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tv Show

The fourth chapter discusses the broad fabric that makes up the tenuous relationship between Black and Brown in post- 9/11 American culture and how its shift to identification intersects with historical race policies and politics. Through an analysis of popular culture (like the TV show Blackish) and political interventions, the chapter question what the racialized pathologies and medications of post-9/11 anxiety means to the Black-White binary that is often the popular historicized approach to race in the United States. Despite the attempts to educate the general public about the ways in which explicit and implicit violence impacts communities across the country, it has been unable to quell what seems to be a rising tide of increased and systematic violence against African Americans.

scholarly journals Of lizards and ideological entrepreneurs: Alex Jones and Infowars in the relationship between populist nationalism and the post-global media ecology

2019 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-59
Author(s):  
H Van den Bulck ◽  
A Hyzen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Business Model ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
The Relationship

This contribution analyses the nexus between contemporary US populist nationalism and the post-global media ecology through the case of US radio show host and ‘most paranoid man in America’ Alex Jones and his Infowars. It evaluates the role of Alt Right alternative/activist media and global digital platforms in the success of Jones as ideological entrepreneur. To this end, it looks at Jones’ and Infowars' message (mostly Falls Flag conspiracy theories and pseudo-science-meets-popular-culture fantasy), persona as celebrity populist spectacle, business model, political alliances with Alt Right and Trump, audience as diverse mix of believers and ironic spectators and, most of all, media. In particular, we analyse the mix of legacy and social media and their respective role in his rise and alleged downfall. We evaluate Jones’ efforts as effective ideological entrepreneur, pushing his counter-hegemonic ideology from the fringes to the mainstream.

'El Negro de WhatsApp' meme, digital blackface, and racism on social media

First Monday ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Black Bodies

This paper explores how structural racism encodes itself into social media. Through the examination of a popular WhatsApp meme in Spain, I show how everyday socio-technical practices on this platform perpetuate power hierarchies based on race. As a first step, the paper links “El Negro de WhatsApp” meme with the long racist tradition of commodifying black bodies in American popular culture and beyond. Second, I argue that encrypted services like WhatsApp facilitate and amplify what Picca and Feagin (2007) refer to as the “backstage” of racism. The article concludes outlining the challenges of private, encrypted services if we are to dismantle ‘platformed racism’.

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