The rise of highly curated networks is a pivotal dimension of social media history, yet its diver... more The rise of highly curated networks is a pivotal dimension of social media history, yet its diverse origins remain overlooked. Here, two inductive studies investigated the case of Path: a platform (2010-2019) designed around so-called "Dunbar's Numbers" and core networks (i.e., close friends). Study 1 conducted manual and automated text analyses using App Store archives via the Wayback Machine to evaluate changes in the industry presentation over time. Analyses showed how Path placed consistent emphasis on its ability to reinforce close ties and provide a curation-centered version of authenticity. Study 2 analyzed how users and commenters discussed Path over the same period via topic modeling of a Twitter corpus, revealing the centrality of rise-and-fall narratives to conversation about the platform. Together, the studies displayed how Path's growth foretold changes in the social media ecosystem and how online conversation diverged from industry logics. To conclude, we discuss how Path's history parallels theories on personal network changes, including the importance of userdriven versus algorithm-driven curation. To that end, we showcase the potential (and challenges) of using digital traces to uncover the evolution of platforms from the perspectives of different stakeholders.
This article reflects on translation practices engendered by location, disciplinary constraints, ... more This article reflects on translation practices engendered by location, disciplinary constraints, and Western hegemonies in the work of cultural studies scholars from the Global South. Focusing on issues of translation beyond language and text, the article tackles cultural translation practices at the levels of theory and analysis, which scholars engage in to render their research legible within academic contexts that continue to pay lip service to stretching the canons of cultural studies curricula and intellectual agendas. How does the labor of cultural translation – often unremarked and invisible – shape the scope and possibilities of cultural studies research that addresses media and technology in the Global South? The article goes behind the frontstage of visible knowledge production to critically examine the directionality and discursive power of specific mechanisms of cultural translation – bridge concept, analogy, and metaphor – which are grounded in historical and geopolitical conditions that constrain the transformational goals of de-Westernizing cultural studies.
This article analyzes the significance of linguistic and cultural regions for the global expansio... more This article analyzes the significance of linguistic and cultural regions for the global expansion and localization of digital platforms. Bringing issues of globalization and cultural difference to bear on the study of platforms, we explore the industrial and cultural logics at work when digital platforms like YouTube navigate new markets. We first map YouTube's trajectory in India and outline how the company came to recognize and value southern India's linguistic and cultural diversity as crucial for its national and global expansion. Through close readings of videos produced by a leading channel (Put Chutney), we then outline how 'region' emerges as the dominant scale for localization and examine different conceptions of the region that are mobilized to secure an online audience. More broadly, we argue that platform localization is the contingent outcome of the interaction of algorithmic and representational logics that structure the operations of digital platforms.
This article analyzes the significance of linguistic and cultural regions for the global expansio... more This article analyzes the significance of linguistic and cultural regions for the global expansion and localization of digital platforms. Bringing issues of globalization and cultural difference to bear on the study of platforms, we explore the industrial and cultural logics at work when digital platforms like YouTube navigate new markets. We first map YouTube's trajectory in India and outline how the company came to recognize and value southern India's linguistic and cultural diversity as crucial for its national and global expansion. Through close readings of videos produced by a leading channel (Put Chutney), we then outline how 'region' emerges as the dominant scale for localization and examine different conceptions of the region that are mobilized to secure an online audience. More broadly, we argue that platform localization is the contingent outcome of the interaction of algorithmic and representational logics that structure the operations of digital platforms.
This article examines how catchy sounds (“Why This Kolaveri” [“Why This Murderous Rage”]) can fun... more This article examines how catchy sounds (“Why This Kolaveri” [“Why This Murderous Rage”]) can function as sonic cues for political participation. Exploring the sonic dimensions and aural imaginaries at play in mediated public spheres, we show how #Kolaveri became a sound bridge that enabled potent encounters among journalists, politicians, and citizens embroiled in heated debates about corruption in India. Tracing #Kolaveri’s movement across media platforms, we analyze three dimensions of the sonic cue―its availability, performativity, and resonance―that gave it a catalytic charge. Suggesting that sound technologies and practices constitute vital cultural and material infrastructures on which a bridge between the popular and the political can be built, we argue that cases like #Kolaveri disclose new ways of listening for the political and new modes of participation―the expression of sonic citizenship―in a digital era.
The paper aims to capture the synthesis and popular reconstruction of one of independent India’s ... more The paper aims to capture the synthesis and popular reconstruction of one of independent India’s earliest instances of large-scale violence over the emotive issue of language, i.e., the January 1965 Madurai riots that occurred on the day before the fifteenth anniversary of India becoming a republic, against the imposition of Hindi as the sole official language of the union of India. The seeds of the anti-Hindi protests in the state of Madras were sown in the 1930s and its revival in the 1960s had widespread social, cultural and political ramifications. This paper seeks to explore how culture, identity, ideology and power relations weighed in on the socio-ethnic unity of the nation state at that time, from the perspective of lived experience (oral histories) and through an analysis of the media representation of the riots and its outcomes.
The article seeks to offer an understanding of the politics and presence of this increasingly vis... more The article seeks to offer an understanding of the politics and presence of this increasingly visible, informal online political formation in India, whose members are referred to as the Internet Hindus. Used to describe young, often urban, middle-class/ upper-middle-class followers of Hinduism residing in India (and abroad), the term has come to be associated almost entirely with those who aggressively voice their right-wing political views and support for Narendra Modi on social media platforms. The article explores the politics espoused by some of these " Internet Hindus " and frames them vis-à-vis the larger themes foregrounded by the electoral victory of the Hindu nationalist political outfit, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In doing so, the article attempts to locate " Internet Hindus " in a democracy, which has the third largest Internet user base in the world, and seeks to deconstruct their ethno-nationalistic online posturing, while reflecting on what this may mean for the online collective itself.
This Spring 2018 seminar examines the emergence and development of online cultures, and more broa... more This Spring 2018 seminar examines the emergence and development of online cultures, and more broadly, the unfolding impacts of digitization animating our global and digital present. The course explores how these digital cultures mark a global shift with different yet connected histories and inevitably different forms, meanings, and effects, depending on which part of the world one looks from.
The goal of this course is to equip students with the analytical tools to understand and critique how digital media infrastructures, platforms, and users/publics relate to (and often reshape) cultures, politics, identities, labor, business, and the environment, across the world. Students will have the opportunity to apply and hone critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, and emerge with deepened understanding of the socio-political and economic dimensions of global digital cultures. The course will also encourage them to collaborate meaningfully with peers, and to present their arguments clearly.
TL; DR? Spend spring term with other smart people thinking about how crazy the interwebz really is.
The rise of highly curated networks is a pivotal dimension of social media history, yet its diver... more The rise of highly curated networks is a pivotal dimension of social media history, yet its diverse origins remain overlooked. Here, two inductive studies investigated the case of Path: a platform (2010-2019) designed around so-called "Dunbar's Numbers" and core networks (i.e., close friends). Study 1 conducted manual and automated text analyses using App Store archives via the Wayback Machine to evaluate changes in the industry presentation over time. Analyses showed how Path placed consistent emphasis on its ability to reinforce close ties and provide a curation-centered version of authenticity. Study 2 analyzed how users and commenters discussed Path over the same period via topic modeling of a Twitter corpus, revealing the centrality of rise-and-fall narratives to conversation about the platform. Together, the studies displayed how Path's growth foretold changes in the social media ecosystem and how online conversation diverged from industry logics. To conclude, we discuss how Path's history parallels theories on personal network changes, including the importance of userdriven versus algorithm-driven curation. To that end, we showcase the potential (and challenges) of using digital traces to uncover the evolution of platforms from the perspectives of different stakeholders.
This article reflects on translation practices engendered by location, disciplinary constraints, ... more This article reflects on translation practices engendered by location, disciplinary constraints, and Western hegemonies in the work of cultural studies scholars from the Global South. Focusing on issues of translation beyond language and text, the article tackles cultural translation practices at the levels of theory and analysis, which scholars engage in to render their research legible within academic contexts that continue to pay lip service to stretching the canons of cultural studies curricula and intellectual agendas. How does the labor of cultural translation – often unremarked and invisible – shape the scope and possibilities of cultural studies research that addresses media and technology in the Global South? The article goes behind the frontstage of visible knowledge production to critically examine the directionality and discursive power of specific mechanisms of cultural translation – bridge concept, analogy, and metaphor – which are grounded in historical and geopolitical conditions that constrain the transformational goals of de-Westernizing cultural studies.
This article analyzes the significance of linguistic and cultural regions for the global expansio... more This article analyzes the significance of linguistic and cultural regions for the global expansion and localization of digital platforms. Bringing issues of globalization and cultural difference to bear on the study of platforms, we explore the industrial and cultural logics at work when digital platforms like YouTube navigate new markets. We first map YouTube's trajectory in India and outline how the company came to recognize and value southern India's linguistic and cultural diversity as crucial for its national and global expansion. Through close readings of videos produced by a leading channel (Put Chutney), we then outline how 'region' emerges as the dominant scale for localization and examine different conceptions of the region that are mobilized to secure an online audience. More broadly, we argue that platform localization is the contingent outcome of the interaction of algorithmic and representational logics that structure the operations of digital platforms.
This article analyzes the significance of linguistic and cultural regions for the global expansio... more This article analyzes the significance of linguistic and cultural regions for the global expansion and localization of digital platforms. Bringing issues of globalization and cultural difference to bear on the study of platforms, we explore the industrial and cultural logics at work when digital platforms like YouTube navigate new markets. We first map YouTube's trajectory in India and outline how the company came to recognize and value southern India's linguistic and cultural diversity as crucial for its national and global expansion. Through close readings of videos produced by a leading channel (Put Chutney), we then outline how 'region' emerges as the dominant scale for localization and examine different conceptions of the region that are mobilized to secure an online audience. More broadly, we argue that platform localization is the contingent outcome of the interaction of algorithmic and representational logics that structure the operations of digital platforms.
This article examines how catchy sounds (“Why This Kolaveri” [“Why This Murderous Rage”]) can fun... more This article examines how catchy sounds (“Why This Kolaveri” [“Why This Murderous Rage”]) can function as sonic cues for political participation. Exploring the sonic dimensions and aural imaginaries at play in mediated public spheres, we show how #Kolaveri became a sound bridge that enabled potent encounters among journalists, politicians, and citizens embroiled in heated debates about corruption in India. Tracing #Kolaveri’s movement across media platforms, we analyze three dimensions of the sonic cue―its availability, performativity, and resonance―that gave it a catalytic charge. Suggesting that sound technologies and practices constitute vital cultural and material infrastructures on which a bridge between the popular and the political can be built, we argue that cases like #Kolaveri disclose new ways of listening for the political and new modes of participation―the expression of sonic citizenship―in a digital era.
The paper aims to capture the synthesis and popular reconstruction of one of independent India’s ... more The paper aims to capture the synthesis and popular reconstruction of one of independent India’s earliest instances of large-scale violence over the emotive issue of language, i.e., the January 1965 Madurai riots that occurred on the day before the fifteenth anniversary of India becoming a republic, against the imposition of Hindi as the sole official language of the union of India. The seeds of the anti-Hindi protests in the state of Madras were sown in the 1930s and its revival in the 1960s had widespread social, cultural and political ramifications. This paper seeks to explore how culture, identity, ideology and power relations weighed in on the socio-ethnic unity of the nation state at that time, from the perspective of lived experience (oral histories) and through an analysis of the media representation of the riots and its outcomes.
The article seeks to offer an understanding of the politics and presence of this increasingly vis... more The article seeks to offer an understanding of the politics and presence of this increasingly visible, informal online political formation in India, whose members are referred to as the Internet Hindus. Used to describe young, often urban, middle-class/ upper-middle-class followers of Hinduism residing in India (and abroad), the term has come to be associated almost entirely with those who aggressively voice their right-wing political views and support for Narendra Modi on social media platforms. The article explores the politics espoused by some of these " Internet Hindus " and frames them vis-à-vis the larger themes foregrounded by the electoral victory of the Hindu nationalist political outfit, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In doing so, the article attempts to locate " Internet Hindus " in a democracy, which has the third largest Internet user base in the world, and seeks to deconstruct their ethno-nationalistic online posturing, while reflecting on what this may mean for the online collective itself.
This Spring 2018 seminar examines the emergence and development of online cultures, and more broa... more This Spring 2018 seminar examines the emergence and development of online cultures, and more broadly, the unfolding impacts of digitization animating our global and digital present. The course explores how these digital cultures mark a global shift with different yet connected histories and inevitably different forms, meanings, and effects, depending on which part of the world one looks from.
The goal of this course is to equip students with the analytical tools to understand and critique how digital media infrastructures, platforms, and users/publics relate to (and often reshape) cultures, politics, identities, labor, business, and the environment, across the world. Students will have the opportunity to apply and hone critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, and emerge with deepened understanding of the socio-political and economic dimensions of global digital cultures. The course will also encourage them to collaborate meaningfully with peers, and to present their arguments clearly.
TL; DR? Spend spring term with other smart people thinking about how crazy the interwebz really is.
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The goal of this course is to equip students with the analytical tools to understand and critique how digital media infrastructures, platforms, and users/publics relate to (and often reshape) cultures, politics, identities, labor, business, and the environment, across the world. Students will have the opportunity to apply and hone critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, and emerge with deepened understanding of the socio-political and economic dimensions of global digital cultures. The course will also encourage them to collaborate meaningfully with peers, and to present their arguments clearly.
TL; DR? Spend spring term with other smart people thinking about how crazy the interwebz really is.
The goal of this course is to equip students with the analytical tools to understand and critique how digital media infrastructures, platforms, and users/publics relate to (and often reshape) cultures, politics, identities, labor, business, and the environment, across the world. Students will have the opportunity to apply and hone critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, and emerge with deepened understanding of the socio-political and economic dimensions of global digital cultures. The course will also encourage them to collaborate meaningfully with peers, and to present their arguments clearly.
TL; DR? Spend spring term with other smart people thinking about how crazy the interwebz really is.