Internet Culture

meticulously details the complicated global ecology of Internet-distributed television. In this book, Netflix serves as a case study to explore not only tectonic shifts in the content, political-economy and underlying infrastructure of the medium but also the immense influence of platforms on both local and international cultural production.

În articolul de fata se porneste de la ideea ca utilizabilitatea produselor informatice trebuie evaluata în contextul utilizarii. Din acest motiv este necesara o noua perspectiva conceptuala pentru situarea într-un context social dat a principiilor de proiectare si criteriilor de evaluare utilizate în prezent. Obiectivul acestui articol îl constituie identificarea elementelor sociologice care trebuie integrate într-o strategie de proiectare si evaluare a siturilor web destinate comunitatilor locale. Cuvinte cheie: comunitati virtuale, aspecte sociologice, situri web.

As memes circulate and spread throughout different Web communities, their meanings are continually changing. In the last decade, the website Know Your Meme (KYM) has become popular among researchers, educators, and day-to-day Web users to understand memes and their meanings. KYM is a frequently cited resource among Web researchers, and as a result it has become instrumental in establishing dominant histories of memes on the Web. Though KYM remains an invaluable resource, it is often cited with minimal context, and an uncritical reliance on KYM’s definitions may overlook the polysemy of many memes. Accordingly, this paper uses a discursive interface analysis of the KYM website along with examples of incomplete meme definitions to demonstrate how the website constructs itself as a cultural authority to define and classify memes. Given that memes themselves are artifacts of Web history, I argue the overreliance on KYM as an authority on memes and their history can contribute to the homogenization of Web histories. However, this paper acknowledges that KYM can still be a useful resource and to that end, offers recommendations for how researchers might better introduce and contextualize KYM within their own work.

The Internet may be free, but service provider’s indispensable to access services are not, to the extent that while the complexity and burden of the sites increases, it is becoming more and more expensive to surf the net. Blocking access under the guise of protecting us from offensive or sexually explicit content, to pages, chat rooms, newsgroups and other Web options is not anymore an excuse, but a lie. Government surveillance in the Internet, uncontrolled practices of data harvesting and restriction of free speech, open discussion of issues and even political activism has spread in the last 20 years to include countries that are considered democracies such as the U.S. Internet has become a battleground of power and therefore become increasingly militarized.

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The Guy Fawkes mask has become a symbol of the internet group Anonymous. This paper seeks to understand why this happened. The Guy Fawkes Mask takes us back to a 17th Century Catholic renegade, a 1980s graphic novel, a millennial movie based on the graphic novel, social media visual communication practicing internet memes on 4chan and YouTube, and physical demonstrations in public space. It will show how the Guy Fawkes Mask changed meaning during this process, and how this symbol works as a meaningful signifier in a digital age.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/279418299/The-Guy-Fawkes-Mask-as-Visual-Communication-of-the-Internet-Group-Anonymous

http://research.crocels.com/research/1564/the-guy-fawkes-mask-as-visual-communication-of-the-internet-group-anonymous-lars-konzack/

Com isto pretendo documentar (quase) todo o vocabulário utilizado e/ou relacionado com a Internet e redes globais. Como é normal, ainda pode ser muito melhorado pela adição de novos termos ou correção de eventuais erros existentes. Qualquer sugestão ou adição, queiram escrever-me diretamente para um dos endereços acima. Obrigado. Este documento foi feito com o objetivo de servir de ponto de referência para aqueles cujo "internetes" (a língua da Internet) ainda não seja perfeito! :-) Neste dicionário podem-se encontrar tanto os termos ingleses correntemente utilizados assim como termos portugueses correspondentes. O vocabulário está disposto por ordem alfabética.

This article examines the ways in which Gnostic ideas of spiritual growth, enlightenment, and transcendence resonate with the “cyber-gnostic” ideology presented through the Cicada 3301 internet phenomenon. Specifically, Cicada 3301 engaged the community of puzzle-solvers through the interactive medium of an internet mystery, which framed the idea of gnosis within the libertarian concerns of freedom of information and privacy in relation to the tiered cosmology of the surface/deep/dark web.

Additionally, this article evaluates the potential for classifying the Cicada 3301 mystery and its surrounding online community as a form of online religious expression. Ultimately, it is argued that the mystery offers an active exploration of the ways in which philosophical notions – those of identity and communication – interface with spiritual notions – of enlightenment and transcendence – through the experience of cybertechnology.

When musical parodies as ‘authentic imitations’ of existing artistic compositions or cultural memes are transmitted through social media, the general public may be provoked and confronted with mixed reactions on decency and other moral issues.  This has the potential conflating to a catastrophic state especially when the audiovisual data have instantly been enabled for public access.

The ‘listen, listen, listen’ phenomenon started when a video, which depicts a moderator named Sharifah Zohra Jabeen dismissing a student from asking questions at a forum held in a local university, went viral on social media on 14 January 2013, while her abusive ‘listen’ catch-line and other humiliating remarks catapulted the public uproar overnight. Immediately following the incident, there came a few parody videos, which appear both satirical and entertaining, to underscore a typical paradox that apparently parallels the many underlying problems of the education and politics in Malaysia, and thus ‘listen, listen, listen’ significantly emerges as a contemporary Internet meme.

This paper deals with a hermeneutic study on the ‘listen, listen, listen’ phenomenon based on online comments YouTube members have posted (3,583 as of 10 October) for a musical parody produced and published by Yuri Wong on 14 January. As commentary from other available Internet platforms is analysed, the use of audiovisual data is also technically observed and interpreted. When net citizens drastically involved themselves through actions of liking, disliking, sharing or commenting on the social media, are they more voluble and honest on the Internet platform? Through this musical parody, what idea did they gather to reflect the reality in Malaysia? Are they ready to appreciate musical parodies?

The discussion continues on possible reactions of the censors in the event when musical parodies allegedly ‘collide’ with the ‘national security concerns’.

In his most explicitly philosophical book Pascalian Meditations, Pierre Bourdieu (2000) clarified what he meant by the notion of symbolic violence. Symbolic violence signifies more than simply forms of discursive power that mediate social relationships without the
imposition of physical force. Rather, it signifies a form of violence that the target of the violence is themselves complicit in. “Symbolic power is exerted only with the collaboration of those who undergo it because they help to construct it as such” (p. 171).

Thinspiration images, meant to inspire weight-loss, proliferate online through platforms that encourage the circulation of user-generated content. Despite numerous alarmist critiques in mass media about thinspiration and various academic studies investigating ‘pro-anorexia’ sites, surprisingly little attention has been given to the processes of creation and the symbolic potential of thinspiration. This thesis analyzes the formal hybridity of thinspiration, and its use as an expressive medium. The particularities of thinspiration (including its visual characteristics, creative processes, and exhibition) may be considered carefully constructed instances of self- representation, hinging on the expression of beliefs regarding the mind and body. While these beliefs are deeply entrenched in popular body management discourse, they also tend to rely on traditional dualist ideologies. Rather than simply emphasizing slenderness or reiterating standard assumptions about beauty, thinspiration often evokes pain and sadness, and employs truisms about the transcendence of flesh and rebellion against social constraints. By harnessing individualist discourse and the values of mind/body dualism, thinspiration becomes a space in which people struggling with disordered eating and body image issues may cast themselves as active agents—contrary to the image of eating disorders proffered by popular and medical discourse.

Research concerning computer hackers generally focuses on how to stop them; far less attention is given to the texts they create. Phrack, an online hacker journal that has run almost continuously since 1985, is an important touchstone in hacker literature, widely read by both hackers and telephone and network security professionals. But beyond its instantiation as a compendium of illicit technical knowledge, Phrack was, above all, a rhetorical publication. The files in each issue of Phrack created a shared rhetorical vision concerning the place of the hacker underground within society and in relation to law enforcement officials, as well as what it means to be a hacker. This essay examines two important events in the evolution of the hacker movement through the lens of Phrack—Operation Sundevil and the arrest of Kevin Mitnick. How these events were framed in Phrack both shaped and reflected emerging shifts in hacker collective identity.

Il seguente lavoro pone come obiettivo di ricerca e studio la corrente artistica contemporanea denominata Vaporwave.
Nel primo capitolo è esposta la genesi dell’espressione musicale, le prime testimonianze e sperimentazioni, la formazione della comunità artistica. 
Segue l’analisi delle modalità di composizione e le caratteristiche sonore del tipico brano Vaporwave.
Nel secondo capitolo sono illustrati i caratteri estetici della componente artistico visuale denominata AESTHETICS.
Il terzo capitolo analizza il rapporto sinestetico e multimediale tra le due componenti del movimento.
Nel quarto capitolo è presentata una riflessione sulla figura autoriale nel contesto produttivo della Vaporwave.
Il quinto capitolo costituisce la seconda fase di studio, incentrato sulla lettura ed interpretazione del movimento in chiave estetica: l’analisi dei temi ricorrenti nelle espressioni artistiche Vaporwave ed una riflessione sul panorama artistico e culturale in cui tale espressione artistica trova nascita e sviluppo.
A causa della recente formazione del movimento e della relativa scarsità di materiale reperibile sull’argomento, il lavoro è stato prevalentemente svolto tramite un approccio di ricerca ed analisi diretta sulle opere.

The social manifestation of convergence theory is commonly experienced through -though not restricted to -the online sphere. Changes in the way we consume and receive media, experience time, space, and place, form relationships, seek representation and access information can all be facilitated by the Internet. Indeed, Jenkin's (2006) amalgamation of old and new media, grassroots and corporate interests, producers and consumers can be directly identified in Web 2.0 -the contested "new" Internet -and thus it can be seen that an analysis of changes to web platforms are representative of broader social changes created by convergence culture.

Set in a context of ubiquitous digitality, this thesis proposes to examine and conceptualise what is put forward as ‘street smart technology’, a novel assemblage of smartphone based technologies and the street economy in Southeast Asia. In order to delineate this novel form of technology, the study will develop a genealogical case study of two of its archetypes: ‘Grab’ and ‘GoJek’.  Probing into their rearrangements of safety, temporality and mobility in everyday urban life, I argue that these digital ride hailing firms insert themselves into micro-frictions within metropolitan contexts and catalyse a new form of Taylorist industry. This widely emerging form of industry circulates capital and labour in the open streets of urban metropolises, and manifests an inverse trend in the labour markets of developed and developing economies. In Singapore, smartphone based platforms such as Grab and GoJek tend to catalyse the informalisation of labour practices through creating a mainstream precarious alternative to the formal economy, whereas in Indonesia, these platforms tend to formalise various aspects of an already prevalent and highly precarious ‘street economy’. I seek to follow and demonstrate the methodologies of mutual adaptation and constant negotiation of these digital platforms with the ‘street economy’ of Indonesia, proposing that Grab and GoJek’s contemporary pervasiveness in Southeast Asia is due to their ability to consolidate smartphone technology and the street economy into a unique business model. This study draws its methodology and theoretical approach from the disciplines of Anthropology and Political Economy and bridges the scholarship in the fields of Science and Technology Studies and Southeast Asian Studies, targeting to capture the socioeconomic flux and technological innovation underway in Singapore and Indonesia.

The #TransCrowdFund hashtag emerged as form of resistance, particularly as transgender individuals face increased risks of housing discrimination, healthcare discrimination, and employment discrimination. This study explores the practices and potential unintended consequences of social media-based crowdfunding initiatives among marginalized populations. Specifically, how do transgender individuals use social media for crowdfunding through the #TransCrowdFund hashtag on Twitter, and how do these practices potentially reinforce gender-based marginalization? By analyzing a corpus of 32,818 tweets from the #TransCrowdFund community, this study suggests marginalization is reinforced, albeit unintentionally, through #TransCrowdFund campaigns on Twitter. Preliminary findings identify three unintended consequences of transgender crowdfunding campaigns: reproducing a moral meritocracy of transgender needs, compromising consumers' transgender identities, and redistributing financial burden onto transgender consumers.

This thesis examines Internet memes, a unique medium that has the capability to easily and seamlessly transfer ideologies between groups. It argues that these media can potentially enable subcultures to challenge, and possibly overthrow, hegemonic power structures that maintain the dominance of a mainstream culture. I trace the meme from its creation by Matt Furie in 2005 to its appearance in the 2016 US Presidential Election and examine how its meaning has changed throughout its history. I define the difference between a meme instance and the meme as a whole, and conclude that the meaning of the overall meme is formed by the sum of its numerous meme instances. This structure is unique to the medium of Internet memes and is what enables subcultures to use them to easily transfer ideologies in order to challenge the hegemony of dominant cultures.

Considerable scholarly discussion has been given to the idea that we are moving toward a state of “posthumanism.” This essay examines some possible implications of a posthuman existence, specifically as it relates to that most basic of human needs—sexuality. I explore the spiritual aspects of sexuality to see what is lost and what is gained in technologically mediated forms of sexuality. To that end, I consider the interplay between sexual behavior and our conceptions of the sacred, how technologies are changing our views of—and realities concerning—our bodies, and the potential for a sacred posthuman sexuality.

This collection draws together contemporary research into queer theory and practices, as they intersect with new media and communication technologies. It provides a synthesis of critical debates in these fields followed by empirical analyses of current and historical internet activities. These include, among others, a study of changing leathersex identities as meeting spaces moved from bars to online chat rooms, an investigation of the dynamics of racial identity as social sites moved from text-based to visually-based media and the tensions between community and audience identities inherent in commercial affinity portals.

The chapters investigate the relations between the technical, legal and industrial organization of online media and the queer practices that they facilitate. While scholarly and theoretically rigorous, its rich empirical detail makes Queer Online vital reading for activists and members of queer communities, in the academy and beyond

The aim of this research paper is to investigate the ontology and history of the Internet meme (a piece of content spreading online from user to user and changing along the way) from the 1980s to the early 2010s. After looking at the question of defining the Internet meme, I will analyse the evolution of the phenomenon from social, cultural and technological perspectives, such as chaos theory, the new aesthetics, generative systems, as well as trace the origins of certain elements of the Internet memes from a media-archaeological aspect.

Originally written for the course 'Software Studies: Codes and Images' in the New Media and Digital Culture Masters programme at Utrecht University. It was selected for publication in the seventh edition of the university's New Media Studies Magazine: https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/19016

The Portuguese translation of this paper was published in the book 'A cultura dos memes: aspectos sociológicos e dimensões políticas de um fenômeno do mundo digital' (lit. 'The meme culture: sociological aspects and political dimensions of a phenomenon of the digital world') edited by Victor Chagas of Fluminense Federal University, Brazil. DOI: https://books.scielo.org/id/ptm2d

The Internet leads us from bulky novels to tiny tales, from long descriptive literature to micro literature. And Meme is part of the wonders of the internet. The word "meme" is derived from biologist Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene but later it was reappropriated by some internet users and that term spread from user to user to define 'specific content'.

Termin mem (ang. meme) w jego pierwotnym znaczeniu wprowadził Richard Dawkins w wydanej po raz pierwszy w 1976 roku książce "The Selfish Gene"oznacza on analogiczny do genu "nowy typ replikatora": jednostkę transmisji kulturowej lub jednostkę naśladownictwa.

Using Terry Smith’s ‘Contemporary Art & Contemporaneity’ as a basis to investigate the claim the Postmodern condition is ‘dead’, this paper will factor social media into the societal turn from cynical indifference to sincerity and engagement; examining a range of cultural and philosophical theories describing and analysing the shift.  It will use the practices of Kateřina Šedá and Bill Morrison to illustrate the diverse ways that art reflects and influences this renewed desire for connection, by trying to engage emotionally, aesthetically and intellectually with a wider audience.  The difficulty the art establishment has had in assessing this inclusive turn via traditional criteria will be re-evaluated in relation to the new global channels of distribution and platforms for commentary made available online.  It will show that viewer -created and -controlled content does not necessarily predicate a banalisation of culture, and in fact can help the arts engage more effectively with the wider world, and vice versa.

W książce „Niecne memy. Dwanaście wykładów o kulturze internetu” Magdalena Kamińska analizuje zróżnicowane praktyki kulturowe i społeczne, które współtworzą otaczający nas pejzaż cyberkulturowy. Cyberplotka, portale aukcyjne, slangi internetowe, cyberkościoły czy fanfikcja – to tylko kilka spośród opisanych zjawisk, które stały się już elementami naszej codzienności. Magdalena Kamińska ukazuje te procesy, zdarzenia i fenomeny, próbując oddać ich złożony charakter. W ten sposób powstała książka, która jest przewodnikiem po obfitujących w niebezpieczeństwa i sprzeczności kulturowych przestrzeniach internetu. Ta propozycja skłania także do krytycznego namysłu nad wytworami i działaniami lokalnych i globalnych cyberkultur.
Spis treści:
Wstęp
Rozdział I: Konflikt, przemoc, prowokacja w cyberkulturze
Rozdział II: Stfu n00b! Język w sieci
Rozdział III: Uwaga, zaraźliwe memy! Perypetie znaku w internecie
Rozdział IV: Cyberbohaterowie, cybergwiazdy, cybercelebryci. Od pani Barbary do Pedomisia
Rozdział V: Magiel elektryczna. E-tabloidy i fenomen cyberplotki
Rozdział VI: Internet jako medium autoprezentacji i kreowania tożsamości
Rozdział VII: Sieć wam w płeć! Zjawisko transwestytyzmu sieciowego
Rozdział VIII: Ta grzeszna miłość jest dziką siłą. Internetowa fanfikcja w kulturze polskich nastolatek
Rozdział IX: Interfaith. Wojny wyznaniowe w internecie, cyberkościoły, parodie religii
Rozdział X: Groupmind power: grupowa inteligencja, kolektywna dusza, zbiorowe ciało?
Rozdział XI: Portal aukcyjny jako system wymiany
Rozdział XII: Wspólnota wirtualna: od denizena do netizena
Zakończenie
Bibliografia

This article investigates the use of Internet memes in Italy, to establish in what measure and how the Anglo-American model influences their creation and fruition. Using a qualitative approach, the article examines the cultural references and the verbal and visual elements of a corpus of image macros. The results suggest some relevant tendencies, including the connection between the features of different kinds of memes and their target audiences, and the presence of hybrid memes that combine global and local elements, such as dialects.

Questo articolo analizza l’uso dei meme di internet nel contesto italiano, al fine di determinare il loro rapporto con il modello angloamericano globalmente dominante. In particolare, vengono presi in considerazione i riferimenti culturali e gli elementi linguistici e visivi presenti in un corpus di meme costituiti da testi e immagini. Dall’analisi qualitativa di questi contenuti emergono alcune tendenze rilevanti, tra cui il legame tra le loro caratteristiche e la tipologia di utenti a cui si rivolgono e la presenza di meme ibridi, creati a partire dalla combinazione di elementi globali e altri marcatamente locali, come i dialetti.

The paper reviews Borderlands: Between Theory and Practice by Gloria Anzaldúa and her other similar writings. More particularly the paper evaluates her theory of " mestiza consciousness " and examines her discursive use of symbols and language are engaged to elucidate ways in which the US-Mexico border functions both as " historical wound " (" site of death " and " hybridity ") and how same can be used as an opening for increased possibility for the related peoples. It is hoped that mestiza consciousness, if advanced further or collectively may serve as a proactive socio-political tool to remove oppressive traditions, cultures religions and gender discrimination.

Introducción
En la primer parte de este texto describimos qué es el World Internet Project (WIP) –en castellano, Proyecto Internet Mundial- y explicamos porque es relevante la iniciativa del doctor Jeffrey Cole, director del Center for the Digital Future –en castellano, Centro para el Futuro Digital- en la Universidad del Sur de California en Annenberg, Estados Unidos. En la iniciativa del doctor Cole actualmente participan más de 30 grupos de investigadores en 30 países, observando las mismas pautas metodológicas.2 Además referimos cuáles son los principales aspectos metodológicos que distinguen al estudio del WIP de investigaciones similares sobre la apropiación social de Internet. Por último, para concluir el primer apartado referimos cuáles son los estudios más importantes sobre usuarios e Internet en México.
En la segunda parte del texto presentamos algunas de las principales cifras relativas a la penetración y uso de Internet en el mundo, según la Internet World Stats, y procedemos a comparar, con base en esa información, los resultados que arrojaron nuestros estudios.
En primer lugar recuperamos algunos de los principales indicadores estadísticos relativos a la penetración mundial de Internet en 2009, y enseguida procedemos a comparar algunos de los principales resultados que arrojó el estudio del WIP México con los resultados que se desprenden de otras investigaciones relativas al impacto de Internet en México, como la realizada por la Asociación Mexicana de Internet (AMIPCI) y los estudios de Millward Brown, IAB, comScore, Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática (INEGI), etc.

The social, political, philosophical, literary and artistic imaginaries of Western culture have long had, as a recurrent preoccupation, a concern with the utopian. At different times, in different discursive modes, culture has by turns projected, speculated, promised, deconstructed and satirised a world, and a mode of human existence within that world, at odds with the lived reality of the moment. 'Utopian thinking' thus maintains a compelling hold upon the ways in which we individually and collectively conceive life and its possibilities, the ways we imagine past, present and future. Utopian thinking is always a projective and speculative endeavour in which the immediacy of the present ('what is') blurs and marries with 'what once was' and 'what might yet be'.

Society today is undergoing a series of processes and changes that can be only be described as weird. From the apocalyptic resonance of climate change and the drive to implement increasing powerful technologies into everyday life, to the hyperreality of a political and media landscape beset by chaos, there is the uneasy feeling that society, culture, and even consensual reality is beginning to experience signs of disintegration. What was considered the insanity of the margins is now experienced in the mainstream, and there is a growing feeling of wrongness, that the previous presumptions of the self, other, reality and knowledge are becoming untenable.
This thesis undertakes a detailed examination of the weird and eerie as both an aesthetic register and as a critical tool in analysing the relationship between individuals and an impersonal modern society, where agency and intention is not solely the preserve of the human and there is a feeling not so much of being to act, and being acted upon. Using the definitions and characteristics of the weird and eerie provided by Mark Fisher’s critical text, The Weird and the Eerie, I set the weird and eerie in a historical context specifically regarding both the gothic, weird fiction and with the uncanny, I then analyse the presence of the weird and the eerie present in two cultural phenomena, the online phenomenon of the Slender Man, and J.G. Ballard’s novels Crash (1973) and Concrete Island 1974). By exploring the presence of the weird and eerie in contemporary texts and online communities, I show that they are aesthetic modes that are prevalent in many levels of cultures in society. The weird and eerie I conclude provide the elements in making new conceptual tools for making sense of an increasingly chaotic and inhuman social world.

Online social networks are ever-present due to the global use of social network sites in todays connected world. The variety of online social network sites makes it difficult to determine the impact of an actor in a general way. A generic solution to the problem of quantifying potential and actual impact of actors is presented. Various measures of potential impact are discussed in detail, based on concepts of actor centrality and actor prestige established in social network analysis. As opposed to offline social networks, data of social interactions is recorded, enabling accessible large-scale analysis. Among this data is feedback, which is generated by actors in response to actions of others. Actual impact is determined based on a generic feedback model, which enables the analysis of feedback across multiple social network sites. This generic feedback model is implemented by the data and content dissemination tool dacodi, which was developed during the course of this thesis and is used to calculate the actual impact of actors. To validate the introduced methods of impact analysis, a quantitative study of 217, 115 Twitter users is presented which shows a strong correlation between potential and actual impact, implying that the position of an actor in the social network is crucial to create impact.

This paper explores three transgressive models of subjectivity. The first emerges out of a psychoanalytic examination of the matrix, a regressive technology of wish-fulfilling omnipotence which is central to the world of William Gibson’s cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer.  The second subjectivity is expressed through the reactionary credo of self-sacrifice developed by Georges Bataille’s secret society of Acéphale  – headless. The third subjectivity calls to us from the dehumanizing gods that populate the weird fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.  Each of these transgressions share a common element. They depict a method or practice that seeks to dominate the rational, human subject by way of turning it into the raw material of cultural production. For this purpose, technology (Gibson), religion (Bataille), and ontological systems of knowledge (Lovecraft) are twisted into their antitheses.
Each transgressive model of subjectivity implements a tool of enlightenment in order to subjugate and regressively re-orient the course of reason, elucidating the dark inhumanity which is tangled around the deepest roots of the human subject. These transgressions, and their resultant power to transform the human into something wholly other, something inhuman, are the precise points at which the rational subject of the Enlightenment “abrogates itself,”  to quote Adorno and Horkheimer, revealing its ever-present potential for reversion back to a repressive, mythic, and irrational antithesis.

This dissertation presents the account of a qualitative research project about the media practices of vernacular creativity of digital media users in contemporary Mainland China. The research project is based on a review of two decades of multidisciplinary research about the Internet in China, and positions its research questions at the intersection of three disciplinary domains: area studies, media anthropology, and Internet studies. The investigation has been conducted drawing on an ample methodological toolbox of established and experimental qualitative research strategies, including ethnographic participation, digital methods, and curatorial data collection. The principal topics discussed in this dissertation include the everyday experience of networked communication devices in different Chinese cities, the adoption and articulation of digital media platforms by Chinese Internet users, and the practices of linguistic and cultural creativity emerging from the use of these technologies. The main findings of this research project suggest that the Internet is experienced by Chinese users as a complex ensemble of devices, platforms, services, practices and possibilities of access; that the usage of digital media platforms in Mainland China is articulated through personal engagements with these complex media ecologies; and that user-generated content produced and consumed by a large majority of Chinese digital media users is creatively interpreted and negotiated across individual repertoires of semiotic resources. The conclusion of this dissertation theorizes the trivial aspects of everyday communication on digital media as media practices of vernacular creativity, and argues for the need of more ethnographically situated research on the topic in different local contexts.

Vastly growing online free-hospitality networks are a phenomenon of modern times. They have been already subject of social and peace studies, here explored from the perspective of information science.
The main focus in this research, author puts on the role of information in modern society, particularly on access to information and information management as prerequisites for participative and democratic society.
Both theoretically and empirically, author explores first the changes in society that were caused by popular usage of Internet, secondly introduces the phenomenon of free-hospitality as an example of modern social network, lastly explores in details functioning of these networks and throughout whole text the role of information in here.
keywords: CouchSurfing, hospitality club, free hospitality, sociology, tourism, internet, gift exchange, gift exchange trust, free, couch surfing, modern society, structure, free values, free culture, sociology, sociology of tourism, socjologia turystyki, wymiana darów, struktura społeczeństwa, warm showers, pasporta servo, servas, BeWelcome, home exchange, homeshare, hospex, hospitality exchange, open couchsurfing, opencouchsurfing, OLPC, L/GHEI, gościnność, intimate tourism ...

This thesis would not have been possible without the exceptional insight and encouragement given to me by my advisor, Professor Mark Reinhardt. Appropriately a scholar of the visual, he has seen potential in my writing and ideas that I could never have known was there without him. He pushed me through undeveloped ideas, led me to new areas of inquiry, and somehow kept himself reading my work despite finding in each new chapter what seemed to be a bottomless well of comma splices. I am extremely grateful to have had classes with him for the majority of my Williams experience, and I consider writing this thesis under him to be the greatest privilege of my time here at the college.

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey

This article addresses the research question: How do Chinese Yaoi fans read Yaoi stories? Yaoi is a female-oriented genre of Japanese popular culture which describes romantic and erotic relationships between men. We interviewed twenty Chinese nationals who are self-defined fans of Yaoi (mean age=23.5 years). Although men were not excluded, none volunteered. A Yaoi fandom survey was created in Chinese and in English with five sections: demographics, Yaoi materials, feelings about Yaoi, social relationships, and other erotic materials (Chinese N=1085; Anglophone N=1615). Thematic Analysis of the interviews produced five themes suggesting the existence of a heteronormative frame: social and family approval, everlasting romantic relationship, heteronormative couple, dislike reversible relationship, and gay relationships in reality. We then selected questions from the survey for statistical analysis on the rationale that these items might inform this frame and help us interpret and contextualise the qualitative analysis. Our survey results support our thematic analysis that Chinese Yaoi fans tend to read Yaoi through a heteronormative frame and, importantly, that in comparison with Anglophone fans, this is differential to Chinese culture.

Fanfics are derivate works based on already existent ones created by fans seeking the entertainment of other fans. There is at the present time a massive niche culture based on this practice, and on the internet there is a whole community focused on that, as well as a crescent number of stories based on all kinds of fictional works, independently of their original form of media. With the crescent popularization of this culture, there is also an increase in discussion about derivate works and the way they can be related to the ones they’re based on, and the owners of their copyrights, since there are many diverging opinions about this subject. This article has the general objective of making an analysis about the relation between the culture of fanfic publication and copyright, making a point about the origin and history of fanfics, the relationship between derivative works and the original ones, and to point to its rising importance for both the law studies and society, coming from the study of the Brazilian law of copyright (LDA, n. 9610/98) and through documental research with qualitative methodology.

When people use the Internet, they are engaging in animist practice. Animism, broadly defined, is an ascription of spiritual essence to non-human entities. Separated by physical space and often by time, Internet users become embodied through non-human entities (avatars, static photos, strings of text), and interact with other non-human entities (‘bots’ and self-replicating codes), that exert agency and act in supposedly human ways. Advancements in AI and algorithmic behavior, however, make it increasingly difficult to separate the human from non-human in digital space. Informed by ethnographic fieldwork among the Otherkin—a primarily online community whose members identify as other-than-human—this chapter traces histories of animism and cybernetics to arrive at what I call cybernetic animism: the practice of interacting in digital spaces within an ecology of non-human and/or non-bodied elements and the process through which this interaction makes non-bodied identification available as a way of Being-in-the-World. Just as Otherkin must figure out ways to reconcile the animist denial of Cartesian dualism with Occidental and scientific understandings of what it means to be a human, so must all Internet users, as agents of cybernetic animism, recognize that they already live, work, and play in animist practice.

W artykule tym staram się zrekonstruować, jak ujmowano dotąd cancel culture, a także zaproponować własną ramę rozumienia tego fenomenu. Dlatego też dokonuję przeglądu jego definicji oraz wskazuję na związki kultury unieważniania z uniwersalnymi procesami oddolnego, pozaprawnego karania, a także przedstawiam pięć ram interpretacyjnych, w których zazwyczaj cancel culture się umieszcza. Następnie prezentuję własny sposób ujmowania tego zjawiska. Zgodnie z nim pojęcie kultury unieważniania rodzi się jako reakcja establishmentu na upowszechnianie sieciowych form oddolnego karania i może być rozpoznawane jako próba podtrzymania kontroli nad procesami przyciągania uwagi oraz budowania reputacji przez tych, którzy dominują. w  artykule staram się też pokazać, iż skonstruowanie pojęcia cancel  culture przynosi odwrotne do zamierzonych skutki: prowadzi do upowszechnienia sieciowego unieważniania, osłabia zaufanie wobec działań konstytutywnych dla kapitalizmu afektywnego, wzmacnia też procesualny charakter kultury.

In this article, I try to reconstruct how cancel culture has been defined and propose my framework for understanding this phenomenon. In order to do this, I review its definitions and point to the links between the culture of nullification and universal processes of grassroots, extra-legal punishment. I also present five interpretive frameworks in which cancel culture is usually placed. Then I offer my approach to this phenomenon, arguing that the concept of cancel culture came into existence as an establishment reaction to disseminating network forms of grassroots punishment. It can be recognized as an attempt to maintain control over the processes of attracting attention and building a reputation by those who dominate. In the article, I also try to show that the construction of cancel culture is counterproductive: It leads to the dissemination of network annulment, weakens trust in constitutive actions for affective capitalism, and strengthens the processual nature of culture.