Virtual Identities and Digital Culture investigates how our online identities and cultures are embedded within the digital practices of our lives, exploring how we form community, how we play, and how we re-imagine traditional media in a digital world.
The collection explores a wide range of digital topics – from dating apps, microcelebrity, and hackers to auditory experiences, Netflix algorithms, and live theatre online – and builds on existing work in digital culture and identity by bringing new voices, contemporary examples, and highlighting platforms that are emerging in the field. The book speaks to the modern reality of how our digital lives have been forever altered by our transnational experiences – one of those key experiences is the pandemic, but so too is systemic inequality, questions of digital privacy, and the role of joy in our online lives.
A vital contribution at a time of significant social and cultural flux, this book will be highly relevant to those studying digital culture within media, communication, cultural studies, digital humanities, and sociology departments.
Author(s): Victoria Kannen, Aaron Langille
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 284
City: New York
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Introduction: Exploring Digital Lives and Cultures
SECTION I: Online Identity and Connections
1 “Hey Handsome”: Gay Dating Apps and a Critical Digital Pedagogy of Identity
2 “We’re Here for You During This Pandemic, Just Not Financially or Emotionally”: What TikTok Reveals about Student Life during the COVID-19 Pandemic
3 Mediated Identities: How Facebook Intervenes in the Virtual Manifestation of Our Identities
4 Reassessing Clicktivism: A Tool of the (Pandemic) Times
5 “Victims of the System”: Anti-Government Discourse and Political Influencers Online
6 From Networks to Assemblages: An Analysis of Feminist Activism against Digital Violence in Mexico
7 Navigating Nii’kinaaganaa (All My Relations) Online
8 Virtually Authentic? Digital Bodies, “Blank” Squares, and Staring Online
9 From a Group of Friends to a Mainstream Audience: Critical Role and New Media Publics
SECTION II: Games & Play
10 Not All Fun and Games in #mypokehood: The Politics and Pitfalls of Universal Game Design in Pokémon GO!
11 Lip Dubbing for Fido: Listening to the Internet through Viral Pet Video Memes
12 ‘Turn Off That Friggin’ Radio!’: The Canadian Soldier Figure and Identity Formation in Videogames
13 Inventing with Zoom: How Play and Games Uncover Affordances in Digital Environments
14 Interfaces and Their Affordances: Critical Game Design, Identity, and Community in MMORPGs
15 Better than the Real You? VR, Identity, Privacy, and the Metaverse
16 Our War Game: Hacker Games as Laborious Play
17 Listening to and Playing Along with the Soundscapes of Videogame Environments
SECTION III: Reimagining Traditional Media
18 Netflix as the New Television Screen: A Queer Investigation into Streaming, Algorithms, and Schitt$ Creek
19 The Missing Live Ingredient: The Search for Ephemerality in the Screening and Streaming of Theatre
20 From Videotape Exchange Networks to On-Demand Streaming Platforms: The Circulation of Independent Canadian Film and Video in the Digital Era
21 Platforms and Poetry as a Popular Form of Engagement
22 Lil Nas X, TikTok, and the Evolution of Music Engagement on Social Networking Sites
23 “No Friends in the Industry”: The Dominance of Tech Companies on Digital Music
24 Say Their Name: How Online News Reports the Death of Transgender People and Its Intersection with Transnormativity
25 The ‘Affinityscapes’ of Young Adult Dystopian Fiction: A Study of The Hunger Games Series’ Participatory Culture
26 Reboot and Rebirth: Artificial Intelligence and Spiritual Existence in The Good Place
Index
