This article offers the first scholarly exploration of a set of scrapbooks about Irish blues-rock musician Rory Gallagher, created by Carol Clerk - a teenage girl growing up in 1970s Belfast who would later become a renowned music journalist. It examines how embodied music fandom, affective attachment and female cultural labor are conveyed through the scrapbooks' layout, composition and sensory dimensions. Using textual, material and semiotic analysis, I argue that the scrapbooks function not only as expressions of music fandom but also as sites of refuge, resistance and self-fashioning for Clerk. In a conflict zone where live music was scarce, the scrapbooks became an alternative form of musical engagement, allowing Clerk to assert agency and identity beyond dominant religious and political frameworks. However, their strikingly professional tone suggests that they doubled as a practice space where Clerk honed skills that would shape her future career in music journalism.
This article proposes "scandalization by association" as a term to designate celebrities' perpetual risk of being scandalized by their association with other celebrities in the midst of public controversy. In the current culture war climate, voicing opinions online about gender has become communicative actions with unpredictable consequences, and celebrity scandals may erupt in unforeseen ways, spreading infectiously to associated parties across media. We exemplify scandalization by association through a qualitative, contextual analysis of the online statements from actors Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in response to celebrity author J.K. Rowling tweeting her views on transgender in summer 2020. A key point is that the communicative phase before a scandal potentially spreads has become crucial in celebrities' communication online. The article argues that such preemptive communicative actions entail three visibility paradoxes, which are closely tied to celebrity logic and distinct to scandalization by association in contemporary celebrity culture.
This study examines how popular and emotional media shape social thought and how this power can be directed towards the common good in the future of media. Drawing on 18 interviews with directors, hosts, and professionals associated with widely watched television programmes, it proposes the concept of the 'Authoritarianism of Pop Culture' to describe symbolic and emotional power capable of shaping social perceptions and actions. Six dimensions are analysed: useful information, emotional language, empathy, the blending of fiction and reality, the humanisation of political figures, and the persistence of these dynamics in public service initiatives. The findings show that these logics can be appropriated by private interests or directed towards social goals. The study concludes that traditional media strategies should not be regarded as outdated, but as part of a media continuum whose lessons should continue to inform prosocial practices across social media, podcasts, AI, bots, and interactive environments.
This study examines the cultural shift in South Korean online communities through the transformation from the "I'm the Only One Without a Cat" meme (2017) to the "A Cat is Walking on the Frozen Han River" meme (2024). Through digital ethnography and interviews, this study argues that this evolution reflects a shift in online animal ethics amid South Korea's male-dominated online culture characterized by "gore masculinity," which exploits women and animals for profit. As a women-centered space, Twitter enabled safe expression of cat affection without fear of mockery. However, as multiple animal-themed content creators and memes were exposed to abuse, Twitter audiences started scrutinizing animal memes and videos for signs of mistreatment. This study argues that South Korea's shifting meme culture reflects the possibility of ethical engagement with animals within platform capitalism, where animals are recognized as beings with particularity rather than mere commodities for human consumption.
This article examines how masculinity and authenticity are negotiated in the social media branding of green food, a field marked by the well-documented eco-gender gap in which men are less likely than women to adopt sustainable diets. Empirically, the paper draws on the Danish porridge brand Gr & oslash;d and its founder Lasse Skj & oslash;nning Andersen (LSA). We analyze Instagram posts to understand how entrepreneurial identity, care, and sustainability are performed in persona-driven green branding. Drawing on critical studies of men and masculinities and theories of mediated authenticity, the study shows how LSA enacts a hybrid form of ecomodern masculinity that blends emotional openness, care, and environmental concern with entrepreneurial confidence and growth-oriented logic. While these performances may broaden the appeal of green food to male consumers, they ultimately reinforce commercial and gendered power structures. The article contributes an account of how authenticity sustains rather than disrupts ecomodern masculine identities in sustainability communication.
Transmedia convergence in India is a relatively new and underexplored phenomenon. Within this evolving cultural context, we take the case study of Baahubali (2015-present) that exemplifies how mythological storytelling is reimagined through cinema, animation, literature, graphic novels, and digital gaming to create a unified and immersive media experience. As a historical fictional fantasy franchise, Baahubali has expanded beyond celluloid cinema, illustrating how myth, cultural industry, and media converge to shape new Indian visual culture and identities. We argue that Baahubali's transmedia storytelling frequently reverts to a media hierarchy, where the film serves as the central "mothership" model and the franchise derives its narrative authority from the cinematic core. Moreover, this article engages with the theoretical framework of assemblage, as articulated by Gilles Deleuze and F & eacute;lix Guattari, to interrogate the mythology-inflected landscape of contemporary India.
Femicide reporting has long occupied feminist media research, interrogating how news storytelling misrecognizes the killing of women because of their gender. Less examined is how such storytelling constructs hierarchies of female victimhood, valuing some lives while erasing others. We address this gap through thematic analysis of 206 Greek news stories from 2021, identifying five frames that shape narrative context: bureaucratic, cinematic, witnessing, politicized, and interventionist. Each proposes distinct ethical engagements with victims and perpetrators, and variation in frame combinations across stories produces a hierarchy of victimhood from "adventure news" to "ecstatic news" and "emergency news." We introduce the term femicidal politics of pain to understand news storytelling as a symbolic terrain where shifting frames unequally redistribute empathy, blame, and humanity, shaping which deaths are grieved and which go unnoticed. We conclude with a proposal for news storytelling to frame femicides as political events caused by patriarchal violence and to humanize women.
This article considers the convergence of stardom and online circulation in the construction of lesbian fantasies of (presumably) heterosexual Hollywood stars through a case study of Cate Blanchett. Focusing on memes that have been extracted verbatim from interviews, I show how Blanchett's self-representation provides a breeding ground for long-standing queer cultural practices where images have been fragmented, embellished, and embedded with queer meanings that differ from the dominant (heterosexual) star image since the early days of the star system. Rather than treating this as purely a reception practice, I suggest we need to look at the promotional potential this memetic circulation holds in online environments - and cast a critical eye on its relation to the free labor performed by marginalized audiences online.
This article critically examines fan reaction to queer representation in the third episode of HBO's adaptation of The Last of Us, which focuses on the relationship of two minor game characters, Bill and Frank. In doing so it shifts the genre from action-centered gameplay to romance. Based on discourse analysis of Reddit posts, I contend that pleasures and displeasures are tied up with but cannot be reduced to progressive and reactionary politics. The fandom is best described as liberal-progressive, with the majority of participants praising the episode and criticizing homophobic responses. The minority who did not like the episode did not engage in toxic behavior, focusing instead on a lack of canonical fidelity, primarily in relation to the romantic storyline. Both enthusiasts and detractors mobilized a discourse of quality to devalue or shore up the romance and in doing so erased the specificity of gay sexuality and experience.
Comic conventions have transformed from niche gatherings into large, multimodal events where fans converge around global media properties. As these events proliferate worldwide, they become sites of affective intensity, cultural negotiation, and commercial interaction. Fandom is therefore understood not simply as a globalized consumer identity, but as a situated, embodied, and often uneven experience shaped by regional infrastructures, cultural norms, and economic access. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2024 and 2025 at Middle East Film & Comic Con in Abu Dhabi, Osaka Comic Con, and La Mole in Mexico City, this article examines how models of celebrity, cosplay, and collectible culture are reconfigured across distinct national settings. While each convention reflects shared logics of fan culture and celebrity encounter, they diverge significantly in tone, access, and cultural performance. These differences illuminate how fandom is differentially lived, regulated, and commodified across borders.
This study examines how misogynistic ideology is co-produced on X through the interplay between ideological entrepreneurship, participatory audiences, and algorithmic infrastructures. Using Andrew Tate as a case study, the analysis draws on a dataset of 500 of his most liked posts and 500 highly visible user posts to investigate the circulation of hierarchical gender narratives in high-engagement environments. Building on research on ideological entrepreneurship, understood as actors who mobilize algorithmically favored and emotionally resonant content, the article foregrounds the memetic dimension of ideological reproduction. Drawing on the concept of deep memetic frames, it shows how hierarchical gender narratives are negotiated and amplified within algorithmically structured visibility environments. In doing so, the article contributes to research on influencers and the manosphere by demonstrating how ideological entrepreneurship operates within a broader ecology of memetic circulation, where meaning emerges through participatory repetition and infrastructural amplification, rather than solely as strategic persuasion.
This paper critically analyses the cultural rise of entertainment company A24 in the 2010s and 2020s. We argue that by being positioned as a fringe contender to Hollywood's cultural hegemony, A24 acquired a label of alternative prestige that attracted cinephilic audiences and award ceremony voters. We argue that the commodification of taste as its "brand aura" was key in A24's commercial success and cultural saliency. By distributing or producing genre cinema, working with non-US directors and new indie voices, A24 became the flag bearer of "indie" cinema in the post-"Sundance Miramax era." A24 was born and bred in the age of social media, and their brand aura draws from and is incorporated into online meme cultures through user-generated material and the many paratexts (digital and analogue) released by the company.
This article explores Black lesbian vulnerability, visibility, and resistance in post-apartheid South Africa through the works of Beverley Palesa Ditsie and Zanele Muholi. Through an examination of Simon & I (2002), Difficult Love (2010), and Faces and Phases (2012), it analyzes how Ditsie's activism and Muholi's visual storytelling contest heterosexist and racialized exclusions. Positioning vulnerability as a political strategy, the article reveals how queer individuals navigate township and urban spaces shaped by both violence and resistance. Engaging with theorists such as Gqola, Matebeni, and Imma, it argues that Black lesbian subjectivities disrupt heteronormativity through visibility, performativity, and spatial reclamation. Furthermore, it asserts that vulnerability operates as a radical mechanism to expose institutionalized discrimination and advance intersectional queer liberation in postcolonial African contexts.
This study explores the potential of political internet memes as stimulators of political information selection by examining the mediating roles of issue-specific interest, perceived issue importance, and humor. In the run-up to a national popular vote, we exposed 584 Swiss adolescents to political and non-political internet memes in a randomized between-subjects online experiment. Although no direct or indirect effects on information selection were observed, results strongly suggest that political memes-and, to a lesser extent, non-political memes-raised interest in political issues and increased their perceived importance. Our analysis yields novel insights into how political learning unfolds within digital information environments, which are discussed in the concluding section of the paper.
In the past decade, memes have emerged as a prominent mode of online interaction that influence social, cultural, and political discourse, but less attention has been given to people's everyday practices associated with memes. Based on two focus-group interviews conducted with undergraduate university students in Denmark, we examine how, when and why memes are a part of everyday lives and practices - particularly focusing on the relational and intimate dimensions of meme circulation among friends and family. Our findings indicate that meme-sharing is a habitual yet meaningful practice, deeply embedded in participants' digital routines. The analysis identifies memes' dual functions, as embedded cultural practices and narrative devices for establishing digital intimacy. By focusing on private, interpersonal meme-sharing among young adults, we show how engagement with memes represents a complex interplay of routine engagement, self-reflection, and relational communication that shapes both individual identity and intimate relationships.
