Journal of Creative Communications, Ahead of Print.
We did an exploratory investigation of the transmission of language memes using the meme concept. Using 62 Chinese language memes as an example, we mined the emotions of netizens’ posts containing these languages on Weibo, a Chinese social platform and successfully demonstrated language memes’ potential for eliciting both positive and negative emotions. By comparing the features of emotional changes with the features of the four different language meme transmission processes (bursty, continuous expansion, continuous decline and steady) classified in this study, the results of correlation analysis objectively illustrate the existed connection between emotion and language meme transmission. Specifically, we discovered that the positive emotion ‘good’ and the negative emotion ‘disgust’ are the most obvious emotions elicited by language memes. Additionally, 79% of language memes’ transmission processes were correlated with emotions (positive or negative). And most language memes’ transmission process belongs to the bursty type, especially the latency → burst mode.
‘Never have they had any chance to spread their wings’: The construction of agency and socio-gender identity of Iranian women
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
This paper intends to study how the agency and social-gender identity of Iranian women are constructed through social-cultural-political structures. To this end, we conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with Iranian citizens, both men and women in the context of the Zan-Zendegi-Azadi (Women-Life-Freedom) movement in Iran. This study is grounded upon the main tenets of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), seeking to give voice to the oppressed and minorities and reverberate the alternatives to make the world a better place. Findings suggest that certain suppressive social-political-cultural structures in the course of history have largely confined women’s agency in practising their fundamental civil rights and have given them a subordinate position in society, thereby preventing them from constructing independent social-gender identity and status both at social and familial terrains. Analyses also indicated that such structures are constructed and naturalised in the course of history with political systems buttressing domination over women.
This paper intends to study how the agency and social-gender identity of Iranian women are constructed through social-cultural-political structures. To this end, we conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with Iranian citizens, both men and women in the context of the Zan-Zendegi-Azadi (Women-Life-Freedom) movement in Iran. This study is grounded upon the main tenets of Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA), seeking to give voice to the oppressed and minorities and reverberate the alternatives to make the world a better place. Findings suggest that certain suppressive social-political-cultural structures in the course of history have largely confined women’s agency in practising their fundamental civil rights and have given them a subordinate position in society, thereby preventing them from constructing independent social-gender identity and status both at social and familial terrains. Analyses also indicated that such structures are constructed and naturalised in the course of history with political systems buttressing domination over women.
‘Delicate ironies quite imperceptible on its surface’: Henry S. Whitehead’s weird tales and American empire in the Caribbean
Abstract
This article mounts an initial exploratory engagement with the weird fiction of Henry S. Whitehead, framed by American imperial expansion into the Caribbean in the interwar years. It situates Whitehead and his work within the wider historical context and shows how Whitehead himself used and played with history as part of his fiction. The article considers the role of light in Whitehead's fiction and imperial projects, as well as the way that Whitehead's work, as horror fiction, both shapes and seeks to dispel notions of the Caribbean as a space of horror. As well as offering some initial conclusions, the article seeks to open further lines for future investigation.
Screenness in Google Maps navigation: An agential realist analysis
Convergence, Ahead of Print.
This article articulates screenness to comprehend the agency of screens in the postmedia condition. Being a common element in different kinds of media, screens contribute towards medial collaboration and relationality in postmedia where they do much more than display. Screenness, understood in Karen Barad’s agential realist framework, is performative and contingent upon the relations of the postmedia assemblage, considered here as an arrangement of technical, medial and human components brought together by the transferability and exchange across different media. The unstable, ever-changing relations in postmedia assemblages help in understanding the various operations of screens in image-making, display and dissemination practices. If screens can be understood in and through practices in which they emerge then their agency too is not static but changes as per the relations screens are in. To demonstrate the performative agency of screens – screenness – I will discuss intra-actions that can be gleaned via the activity of navigation using Google Maps application on a smartphone.
This article articulates screenness to comprehend the agency of screens in the postmedia condition. Being a common element in different kinds of media, screens contribute towards medial collaboration and relationality in postmedia where they do much more than display. Screenness, understood in Karen Barad’s agential realist framework, is performative and contingent upon the relations of the postmedia assemblage, considered here as an arrangement of technical, medial and human components brought together by the transferability and exchange across different media. The unstable, ever-changing relations in postmedia assemblages help in understanding the various operations of screens in image-making, display and dissemination practices. If screens can be understood in and through practices in which they emerge then their agency too is not static but changes as per the relations screens are in. To demonstrate the performative agency of screens – screenness – I will discuss intra-actions that can be gleaned via the activity of navigation using Google Maps application on a smartphone.
Platform-based diffusion-proofing: Digitally mediated discursive practice and China’s prevention of protest spillover during Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill Movement
Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
Based on the example of mainland China’s online diffusion-proofing practices against Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill Movement, we identify a platform-based tactic of diffusion-proofing. We argue that this tactic manifested the orchestration of top-down statist governance and bottom-up grassroots practices, as well as within-border and cross-border discursive dynamics. Facilitated by the technical affordances of social media platforms, a faction of netizens both from mainland China and Hong Kong followed the state and its agents online to co-construct discourses for preventing the potential spillover of the Movement to mainland China. We further suggest that this tactic was enabled by the hybridization of both technical logic and discursive logic. The platform affordances, especially different types of hashtags, allowed the state and its agents to practice digitally mediated discursive production, reacting to the momentum of the Movement. As a result, a discourse was constructed, which delegitimatized protest actions and ignited nationalistic sentiment for the purpose of diffusion-proofing.
Based on the example of mainland China’s online diffusion-proofing practices against Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill Movement, we identify a platform-based tactic of diffusion-proofing. We argue that this tactic manifested the orchestration of top-down statist governance and bottom-up grassroots practices, as well as within-border and cross-border discursive dynamics. Facilitated by the technical affordances of social media platforms, a faction of netizens both from mainland China and Hong Kong followed the state and its agents online to co-construct discourses for preventing the potential spillover of the Movement to mainland China. We further suggest that this tactic was enabled by the hybridization of both technical logic and discursive logic. The platform affordances, especially different types of hashtags, allowed the state and its agents to practice digitally mediated discursive production, reacting to the momentum of the Movement. As a result, a discourse was constructed, which delegitimatized protest actions and ignited nationalistic sentiment for the purpose of diffusion-proofing.
Book review: Joseph Comer, Discourses of Global Queer Mobility and the Mediatization of Equality
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
Making virtual celebrity: Platformization and intermediation in digital cultural production
International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print.
Focusing on intermediation in cultural production in a digital ecology consisting of multiple platforms mediating simultaneously converging and diverging industries, this study critically engages with the thesis that platforms act primarily as a disintermediation vector in a linear value chain within a single industry. With two empirical cases of intermediation in the emerging virtual celebrity sector – one organizing the recursive loop of prosumption, the other articulating authenticity against technological standardization and overproduction, the study shifts the focus away from questions of labor and agency of individual creators and unpacks the conditions of intermediation in the context of new industrial models of value creation, commodification, and division of labor. The empirical cases demonstrate that the implications of platforms for digital cultural production are paradoxical – while their business models lead to a centralized process of value capture, their flexible organizational forms may afford new distributed patterns of value creation.
Focusing on intermediation in cultural production in a digital ecology consisting of multiple platforms mediating simultaneously converging and diverging industries, this study critically engages with the thesis that platforms act primarily as a disintermediation vector in a linear value chain within a single industry. With two empirical cases of intermediation in the emerging virtual celebrity sector – one organizing the recursive loop of prosumption, the other articulating authenticity against technological standardization and overproduction, the study shifts the focus away from questions of labor and agency of individual creators and unpacks the conditions of intermediation in the context of new industrial models of value creation, commodification, and division of labor. The empirical cases demonstrate that the implications of platforms for digital cultural production are paradoxical – while their business models lead to a centralized process of value capture, their flexible organizational forms may afford new distributed patterns of value creation.
‘They Know What It’s Like’: Exploring Facebook Groups for Digital Coping
Journal of Creative Communications, Ahead of Print.
Informed by the Digital Coping Model, this article explores the use of social network sites among chronically ill patients and caregivers. In particular, it focuses on the use of Facebook (FB) groups among patients diagnosed with cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and their caregivers in the Philippines. Situated in a country with a high prevalence of CVD, it explores the communication technology affordances and digital coping activities of members belonging to a private FB group for CVD. Using in-depth interviews with members, this article found that digital coping engages with polymedia, that is, patients and caregivers use the private FB group together with other platforms. Members likewise engaged with praying as an emergent digital coping activity. Moreover, they characterised the private FB group as an epistemic community critical for creating, sharing and challenging CVD-related information. Taken together, the results extend the conversations about the ways patients and caregivers continue to repurpose communication and technology for managing their chronic illness in the larger backdrop of polymedia, limited access to healthcare, and the ongoing pandemic. Implications to moderators of health groups, healthcare professionals and health associations are discussed.
Informed by the Digital Coping Model, this article explores the use of social network sites among chronically ill patients and caregivers. In particular, it focuses on the use of Facebook (FB) groups among patients diagnosed with cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and their caregivers in the Philippines. Situated in a country with a high prevalence of CVD, it explores the communication technology affordances and digital coping activities of members belonging to a private FB group for CVD. Using in-depth interviews with members, this article found that digital coping engages with polymedia, that is, patients and caregivers use the private FB group together with other platforms. Members likewise engaged with praying as an emergent digital coping activity. Moreover, they characterised the private FB group as an epistemic community critical for creating, sharing and challenging CVD-related information. Taken together, the results extend the conversations about the ways patients and caregivers continue to repurpose communication and technology for managing their chronic illness in the larger backdrop of polymedia, limited access to healthcare, and the ongoing pandemic. Implications to moderators of health groups, healthcare professionals and health associations are discussed.
Book review: Robert Poole, Corpus-Assisted Ecolinguistics
Discourse &Society, Ahead of Print.
COVID-19 and figures of blame: Discursive representations of blame for COVID-19 and its impacts in UK online news
Discourse &Communication, Ahead of Print.
As publics have attempted to make sense of the COVID-19 crisis and its longer-term impacts there has been an inevitable search for blame. Emergent research on the attribution of blame has focussed exclusively on the initial outbreak, with insufficient attention paid to how countries have responded to the pandemic. Our study adopts a longitudinal approach, examining the figures of blame that emerged across the UK’s experience of COVID-19, including subsequent waves of COVID-19. By sampling articles from three online UK news outlets (BBC; The Guardian; Mail Online), we analyse the linguistic elements and discourse strategies that contribute to the representation of specific actors as figures of blame in news coverage of COVID-19. To identify actors and their representations we focus on three elements: (1) direct, indirect or implied reference to an actor; (2) an expression of anger, resentment or frustration towards this actor; (3) textual and discursive features that nominate agency for their actions or inaction for a negative outcome. Our analysis shows that three prominent figures of blame emerged across the period of analysis. The primary actor represented as a figure of blame was the UK government. This, we argue, differs from the initial phases of the outbreak where there was an emphasis on externalising blame. We also found, however, that the public and the individual were constructed as figures of blame. For the latter it was through an emphasis on personal responsibility in the adoption of preventative behaviours and in following COVID-19 restrictions. We conclude the paper by exploring the significance of these findings for the communicative dynamics of the pandemic.
As publics have attempted to make sense of the COVID-19 crisis and its longer-term impacts there has been an inevitable search for blame. Emergent research on the attribution of blame has focussed exclusively on the initial outbreak, with insufficient attention paid to how countries have responded to the pandemic. Our study adopts a longitudinal approach, examining the figures of blame that emerged across the UK’s experience of COVID-19, including subsequent waves of COVID-19. By sampling articles from three online UK news outlets (BBC; The Guardian; Mail Online), we analyse the linguistic elements and discourse strategies that contribute to the representation of specific actors as figures of blame in news coverage of COVID-19. To identify actors and their representations we focus on three elements: (1) direct, indirect or implied reference to an actor; (2) an expression of anger, resentment or frustration towards this actor; (3) textual and discursive features that nominate agency for their actions or inaction for a negative outcome. Our analysis shows that three prominent figures of blame emerged across the period of analysis. The primary actor represented as a figure of blame was the UK government. This, we argue, differs from the initial phases of the outbreak where there was an emphasis on externalising blame. We also found, however, that the public and the individual were constructed as figures of blame. For the latter it was through an emphasis on personal responsibility in the adoption of preventative behaviours and in following COVID-19 restrictions. We conclude the paper by exploring the significance of these findings for the communicative dynamics of the pandemic.