Journal Description
Media, Culture & Society provides a major international forum for the presentation of research and discussion concerning the media, including the newer information and communication technologies, within their political, economic, cultural and historical contexts.
The journal is interdisciplinary, regularly engaging with a wider range of issues in cultural and social analysis. Its focus is on substantive topics and on critique and innovation in theory and method.
All issues of Media, Culture & Society are available to browse on SAGE Journals.
Journal Feed
- by Bohyeong KimMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. This paper traces Kakao’s corporate strategies—with a focus on conglomeration and valuation—in order to trace how the company’s trajectory led to its current status as a near-monopoly. Starting as a chat app which now has 43 million active users in South Korea, Kakao became a conglomerate by expanding its operations across different business sectors such as transportation, entertainment, fintech, etc. Kakao’s diversification of businesses and conglomeration should be understood in relation to its corporate strategies and forms, not as the natural outcome of technological innovation. Aspiring to become an entertainment conglomerate, not just a […]
- by Monica CrawfordMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. Following Megan Rapinoe’s statement that she would not attend a White House visit under former president Donald Trump, she and the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) have become focal points of right-wing online abuse. To explore the connection between populist style common within right-wing media and the misogynistic treatment of women in sport, this study analyzes the intertwining logics of populist style and popular misogyny within media coverage of the USWNT on two conservative sports media outlets, Barstool Sports and OutKick. The findings indicate that the outlets utilize populist style to construct […]
- by Diego GarusiMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. This article introduces and applies a situational, interactional, and processual theoretical framework to explore how folk theories of journalism shape people’s news use and trust decisions in specific, real-life circumstances. Following the “episode method”, 48 semi-structured interviews conducted with Austrian young adults revealed that objectivity and impartiality are regarded as the two cornerstones of journalism, aligning with Austria’s traditional journalistic culture. Thus, for Austrian young adults, informing oneself is a search for the ultimate truth. Whether objectivity and impartiality are thought to be actually found in journalism shapes (dis)engagement with it. Different news […]
- by Cristina MiguelMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. The “digital nomad” (DN) neotribe includes professionals who work remotely from different locations. Despite the benefits of digital nomadism (e.g. work flexibility, high mobility, and leisure-centeredness) and opportunities for meeting like-minded people, one of the consequences of the lifestyle may be loneliness. By using 30 in-depth interviews, this study explores the interaction between digital nomadism and loneliness. We conceptualize the DN lifestyle as a continuum that may, but does not have to, lead to feelings of loneliness. External factors such as lack of social support, often related to the capacity to stay in […]
- by Kun TanMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. Drawing on the triple articulation framework, this study explores the “failed domestication” of online news consumption among young visually impaired people (YVIP), focusing on technological objects, symbolic environments, and individual texts. The findings suggest that “failed domestication” is not merely a consequence of limitations in technical design or social contexts but rather the result of “negotiation” between individuals and media. YVIP develop unique media usage strategies by simplifying operational procedures, foregoing updates, filtering out news irrelevant to their daily lives, and personalizing their interpretation of texts. In contrast to the notion of “failure” […]
- by Sarah Anne GanterMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. In this paper, we analyze and link (limited) versatility, emotionality, and agency in young adults’ pandemic entertainment consumption patterns. Pre-pandemic studies based their conceptualizations on an abundance context, where limited-time perceptions led to versatile and ideologically informed consumption decisions linked to overwhelmingly positive emotions, emphasizing free choice and convenience. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions provide a deep context of limited choice and unlimited-time perceptions, an unusual situation described by Christian Fuchs as the radicalization of time, space, and sociality. In this context, entertainment consumption played a central role in ordering complex […]
- by Aysha AgbaryaMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. This case study offers an understanding of the perception and use of social media among social activists as means of collective identity formation. It focuses on the case of a Palestinian anti-violence movement in Israel. To learn about the identity presented by the United Fahmawi movement, interviews with two of the movement’s leaders and its Facebook posts were analyzed. The findings show a multi-layered, complex identity. The identity is presented as Palestinian, mainly centered around the city of Umm al-Fahm. Otherness is a crucial aspect of this identity, as Palestinian identity stands in […]
- by Julian MatthewsMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. How does journalism communicate to audiences who are experiencing crisis? Existing literature suggests that journalists use reporting templates and related practices to report crises with elite narratives and myths (and some ‘disruptive factors’, on occasion). Their news audiences, it follows, are understood as observers of abstracted crisis rather than as those who are experiencing crisis impacts as immediate and affecting. Such thinking becomes challenged by the emerging UK energy crisis. Analysing the corresponding TV journalism shows its reporting responds to several unique disruptive aspects of the crisis (i.e. its ‘seriality’, ‘unpredictability’ and ‘impacts’) […]
- by Enzo ColomboMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. This article explores how the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is represented through videos circulating on TikTok and how the consumption of this content impacts young people’s imaginary of war. After 2 years since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the centrality of TikTok in the communication around this conflict has become apparent. In this study, we are interested in the ‘domesticating’ effect produced by the circulation and consumption of content circulated on TikTok and the effects this may have on young people – the larger segment of the platform’s user base. Using insights from the […]
- by Yeong Ran KimMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. This paper examines the emergence of queer counterpublics in South Korea through a case study on the opening ceremony of the Korean Queer Culture Festival (KQCF) in 2015. Due to an outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the organizers live-streamed the event via YouTube instead of inviting the participants to the Seoul City Plaza, where they set up the stage. During the opening ceremony, social media platforms momentarily became alternative spaces for queers to interact with each other on a real-time basis. In analyzing a series of concerted actions, such as […]
- by Evan BrodyMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. In the following article I analyze sports bars for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) communities via a combination of semi-structured interviews, field studies, and archival research. In particular, I examine how sports and non-normative sexual and gender identities influence, and are influenced by, media “in situ.” I also seek to better understand how LGBTQ+ sports cultures are constructed by the owners of these bars, by media technologies and rhythms, and by the patrons themselves. Within this approach I address how media and space overlap and inform one another, especially in relation […]
- by Daphne Rena IdizMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. The development of an online screen industry, dominated by a few American and Chinese streaming TV services and video-based platforms, triggers critical questions about the commercial and technological dependence of cultural producers within this industry. Drawing on research in media industries and platform studies, this paper develops a conceptual framework to systematically examine this dependence. Pursuing this aim, we propose to shift the focus from specific video platforms or streaming TV services as the starting point of the analysis to the perspective of cultural producers. Through a discussion of current research, we identify […]
- by Anirban K BaishyaMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. Popular discussions about the selfie have often centered on accusations of Narcissism and cultural decay. Alongside this, globally, the selfie has also been associated with accidents, injury, and death. Taking the case of India – the country most closely associated with selfie fatality statistics – this article examines how the equation between selfies and death is the result of the confluence of psychopathological and physio-pathological discourses, and virally circulating news. What medicalized discourse and sensational journalism often miss, is the fact that selfie fatalities are a symptom of technologically augmented spaces. Taking a […]
- by Jack Linchuan QiuMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. This response essay discusses the need to study global communication (GC) from different standpoints, the pitfalls therein, and strategies to overcome them. It starts with two reflections: from China, and on the uneven landscape of GC research and pedagogy around the world, where obstacles and opportunities co-exist. This is followed by a critique on comparative analysis that can be used productively, or it can lead to atheoretical comparativism that reproduces problems of the status quo. Two examples are given to showcase how critical GC pedagogies of power and counter-power can be carried out.
- by Armond R TownsMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. In late, 2023 the authors of “Global Communication as Standpoint” reached out for responses to their important article. This particular response engages in reconsidering the terms of the “global” in global communication. The authors of “Global Communication as Standpoint” have convincingly called for a stronger attention to the theorization of the global in communication and media studies. To add to this call, the authors here seek to link the concept of the global in communication and media studies to the long idea of Marxist internationalism. Building on the work of CLR James, this […]
- by Usha RamanMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. What does it mean, then, when we adopt and advocate a standpoint that is not tied to a single locus or body of experience, that in fact attempts to expand possibility rather than narrow it, that simultaneously values context while recognizing disconnection from it? What are the implications for thinking, teaching and doing, when the standpoint urges us to look outward and inward at the same time, demanding that we be rooted in the local even as we trace its threads to and from the global? In this essay, I respond to the […]
- by Katerina GirginovaMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. Grounded in the long tradition of embracing the global in communication and media studies and inspired by feminist standpoint epistemology, we argue that global communication can function as an epistemological standpoint. After summarizing the diverse and rich tradition of understanding the global in communication and media studies and beyond, we theorize that a global communication standpoint is characterized by a combination of four aspects that can be embraced across the discipline: contextualization, historical rootedness, attention to power, and engagement with issues of relationality and comparison. First, we offer examples of the four elements […]
- by Jussara RowlandMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. Digital identity has become a central concept in understanding how people’s online presence is shaped and made sense of. Although extensively studied, the prevailing focus has been on how online identities are shaped by digital platforms or how users curate and perform these identities. How users perceive and assess this concept, however, has received comparatively less attention. In this article, we take a qualitative, user-centric approach to the meaning of digital identity, drawing on insights from 17 online focus group discussions involving 86 participants in Portugal. We identify three distinctive understandings – digital […]
- by Manas Kumar KanjilalMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. Local voices carry tremendous weight during natural disasters, yet the possibilities for employing participatory communicative practices for disaster management in India have not been fully explored. Effective community-centred disaster communication garners participation in disaster management processes that reduce vulnerabilities. This paper examines how various community-based organisations used community radio to enhance community engagement and the effectiveness of the disaster management processes in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. The research relies upon case studies of disaster communication practices of two community radio stations during the ‘very severe cyclonic storm’ Yaas, which made landfall […]
- by Alice JunmanMedia, Culture & Society, Ahead of Print. Platforms are increasingly part of everyday life, but they remain opaque and impenetrable spaces for most users. To manage life on platforms, users thus need to engage with sense-making practices that help them understand and navigate online spaces. This paper studies how far-right populist activists interpret and navigate their presence on Twitter, using the concept of platform folklore, that is, unofficial and collective narratives aimed at relieving feelings of uncertainty associated with the opacity of platforms. The data consists of 20 life-history interviews with Swedish and American Twitter activists from right-wing populist communities, […]