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COMS 401 Unit 2 Mind Map by Zilin Kwok and Anna Fawcett - Coggle Diagram
COMS 401 Unit 2 Mind Map by Zilin Kwok and Anna Fawcett
Week 5 Concepts
Postfeminist Media Cultures
Femininity: seen as feminized aesthetic reliant on traditional femininity
Gill 2009:
an identifier as subject to change
Levine 2015:
iteration of many gendered identities
Gender as Performance
Butler 1990:
Most scholarship views gender from poststructuralist perspective
Performative Acts
Butler 1990:
identity tenuously constituted in time
Postfeminist Nirvana
mediatized ideal about successful women finding balance between work/home life while perpetuating ultra-feminized aesthetic
Postfeminism
Gill 2007:
generalized sentiment towards feminist politics produced/circulated through consumer culture
Postfeminist conditions of visibility
Mainstream: Gay man = postfeminist
Chen, & Kanai, A. (2022): gay men's femininity = femininities
No 100% right way of femininity. Only socially-acceptable way.
Instagram for postfeminist visibility
Increase in self monitoring and discipline
Admire and respect for individuality and authenticity
beautified everything and emphasize individual freedom
Your body is a way to perform femininity
Girlfriendship and the gynapticon
Chen, & Kanai, A. (2022): "Just your aspirational and ordinary girlfriend"
"I am flawed just like you! (But just mildly, still pretty)
Create "authentic" image for their audience that they are "relatable" and is just your everyday friend
Chen, & Kanai, A. (2022): "Authenticity is performed" (p. 101) to create deep connection between the influencers and their audiences
Postfeminism and post-queer
Postfeminism is not only about white women
Self-made feminist beauty influencers are accepting some types of gay men only
Seeing queers = seeing women = job is done = gender equality is achieved
Gay man and femininity
Queer culture: gender ≠ sexuality
Gay man + femininity = tastemakers by mainstream consumer culture
Tastemakers = neoliberalism
Post-queer: queerness is visible = job is done = can be depoliticized
Visibility and privilege
Chen, & Kanai, A. (2022): Privileged gay men used strategies to perform authenticity
Gay man is more successful than queer women (not in the "girlfriendship group" because they don't like men)
Their visibility oppressed the non-neoliberal queers
Week 6 Concepts
Popular Feminism
Meritocracy
Banet-Weiser 2018:
pop feminism easily circulated due to
economy of visibility
, source of currency in
neoliberal capitalist logic
"Sharenting:"
parents sharing intimate/sensitive moments of children's lives on social media without their consent
Calibrated Amateurism
Stratiegically fosters feelings of authenticity w/ audience via performance. Creates feelings of, "they're just like us!"
Both practice and aesthetic
Goffman:
Strategic interation
MacCannell:
Staged autheticity
Abidin:
highlights attempts of influencer families to justify digital labour of own children
Mysogynist logic:
gender symmetry is always zero-sum; if women are empowered, men are disempowered
Banet-Weiser 2018:
...entry point to larger considerations of larger cultural hostilities towards the visibility of women and feminism
Precarity and Twitch's legitamacy
Titty stremer: girls who uses their body to gain views and attention on Twitch
Titty streamer = not legitimate?
Titty streamers is "not legitimate" and is "threatening" the other "legitimate" gamers
Labor and Meritocracy
"Camgirl" and "titty streamer": these labels downplay the labour and skills of these girls on running a smooth streaming
"titty streamer": sexualized these women to make their works seem to be easier
Twitch = meritocracy = best streamers = good gaming skills
Women with no good gaming skills = played the meritocracy system
Week 9 Concepts
Intersection of Race and Influencer Culture
Critical Race Theory:
race as cultural/historical category to signify differences based on skin colour
no evidence suggesting biology of race
used to produce/maintain power hierarchies (racism)
Kanai and Gill 2021 on Woke-ism:
signifying corporate extraction of value from struggles of recognition led by historically oppressed populations
Hollow representation
Example of
Shudu
and
Digital Blackface:
virtual black woman influencer designed by white man
Kanai and Gill 2021:
allows brands to engage in contemporary discussion about diversity without dealing with diverse people, performative
Kanai and Gill 2021: Racial Exploitation
Digital influencers capitalize on racial capital by normalizing the commodification of Blackness, exploitation reliant on dehumanizing Black people
Example of
Saartje:
Black woman in 1810 from South Africa brought to England exploited as a spectacle, viewed as "Other"
Representations of Black women reliant on 'exoticization' and objectification of their bodies
Portrayed in media in exploitative and contradictory ways
Intended to allow brands to use an "agentless/impersonated form of Blackness" to market as they see fit
Cultural Appropriation
Dominant culture adopts basic specific cultural elements from other culture without appropriate recognition of said elements
Ignores history and existence of power
Hooks:
Race/ethnicity are "spice" in commodity culture
History of hashtag activism
Hopkins & Louw (2019): #BringBackOurGirls: "ultimately ephemeral and superficial" act by white female celebrities in the western world
Celebrity & attention economy
Hopkins & Louw (2019): Activism became an attention economy for these celebrities and it is westernized and consumerism
Influencer and credibility
Wellman (2021): Credibility is important to influencers
Trustworthiness
Perceived expertise
Attractiveness and aesthetics
Impression management
in the attention economy
Wellman (2021): Influencers are keeping up and meeting their audience's expectation
Wellman (2021): Influencers are "maintaining brand friendliness"
Wellman (2021): Influencers are using #BLM to align with their brand
Wellman (2021): #BLM in 2020 is about influencers brand and their image to the public
The privilege of escapism
Wellman (2021): to avoid political discussions (like posting #BLM) is a privilege
Wellman (2021): Black creators cannot avoid discussions on race
Wellman (2021): Black wellness influencers: wellness, self-care and race is connected, always
The aesthetics of activism
Always so pretty in images and fonts
Pastel coloured
Need to be pretty and aesthetically pleasing so people may actually read about the campaign
The role of platform
Wellman (2021): Instagram rewards those who participate in trends (can be activism's hashtag) with more visibility
Colored influencers' contents will have less attention and visibility due to the algorithm
More white influencer's aesthetic contents and less black and colored influencers' contents
Platformed activism
Banet-Weiser (2018): Visibility = politics
Platforms are not neutral = you need to fit in a certain ideology to be "correct"
Wellman (2021): Feminism are glammed up on social media = avoid deep conversation
Week 10 Concepts
Gendered Authenticity Policing
Discursive Formations
Bring certain subjects into being
Prescriptive in conflict-avoidance by means of behaviour
Constrictive from limiting types of self-presentations we engage with
Duffy, Miltner, Wahlstead:
Hateblogs act as discursive sites of gendered authenticity policing
Fakery and Legitimacy
Hateblogs/Snarking places constriction on self-expression by labelling certain influencers as "fake"
Attempts to dismantle facade of
entrepreneurial femininity
Curation of various relationships are often critiqued as being 'performative'
Digital Horizontal Violence
Individual influencers are targets of broader discontent w/ patriarchy, narrow femininity, and disillusionment with "Having it All"
Displaced rage takes form of one marginalized group critiques another under same overarching oppression
Ways to express collective anger about overarching oppression
Gossip/Callout Culture
Callout strategies
Platform affordances
Lawson (2021): Engineered limitations dictate our online interaction
Things like video length or words limit is restricted by the platforms and influencers need to follow that
= what people can and cannot do on platforms
Built to make users do certain things and follow certain paths
Platform vernacular
From platform affordances. Gibbs et al (2014): "when users appropriate aspects of existing affordances with
shared convention"
Fluid as technology is evolving daily = users need to adapt
Lawson (2021): Shape callout culture in beauty influencer space
Curating callout
Lawson (2021): Screenshots as "receipt" to call someone out
People's old tweets, comments or just any online activity can be used against them in the future
Risky content
No one is safe. Nonrelated company or person can get dragged into the drama too
Everything you say/post online will be remember and archive by the internet
People have screenshots so you cannot deny anything
Lawson (2021): community critique and accountability measures
Lawson (2021): reframe after apologies