The Politics Of Ephemeral Digital Media

In the age of "complex Tv", of social networking and massive consumption of transmedia narratives, a myriad short-lived phenomena surround films and TV programs raising questions about the endurance of a fictional world and other mediatized discourse over a long arc of time. The life of media products can change direction depending on the variability of paratextual materials and activities such as online commentaries and forums, promos and trailers, disposable merchandise and gadgets, grassroots video production, archives, and gaming. This book examines the tension between permanence and obsolescence in the production and experience of media byproducts analysing the affections and meanings they convey and uncovering the machineries of their persistence or disposal. Paratexts, which have long been considered only ancillary to a central text, interfere instead with textual politics by influencing the viewers’ fidelity (or infidelity) to a product and affecting a fictional world’s "life expectancy". Scholars in the fields of film studies, media studies, memory and cultural studies are here called to observe these byproducts' temporalities (their short form and/or long temporal extention, their nostalgic politics or future projections) and assess their increasing influence on our use of the past and present, on our temporal experience, and, consequently, on our social and political self-positioning through the media.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Media provides the first comprehensive account of the role of translation in the media, which has become a thriving area of research in recent decades. It offers theoretical and methodological perspectives on translation and media in the digital age, as well as analyses of a wide diversity of media contexts and translation forms. Divided into four parts with an editor introduction, the 33 chapters are written by leading international experts and provide a critical survey of each area with suggestions for further reading. The Handbook aims to showcase innovative approaches and developments, bridging the gap between currently separate disciplinary subfields and pointing to potential synergies and broad research topics and issues. With a broad-ranging, critical and interdisciplinary perspective, this Handbook is an indispensable resource for all students and researchers of translation studies, audiovisual translation, journalism studies, film studies and media studies.

This book explores how the social and technical integration of mainstream social media into gay men’s digital cultures since the mid 2000s has played out in the lives of young gay men, looking at how these convergences have influenced more recent iterations of gay men’s digital culture. Focusing on platforms such as Gaydar, Facebook, Grindr and Instagram, Cassidy highlights the ways that identity and privacy management issues experienced in this context have helped to generate a culture of participatory reluctance within gay men’s digital environments.

Referencing key contemporary debates on issues like surveillance, identity, the global financial crisis, the digital divide and Internet politics, Andrew White provides a critical intervention in discussions on the impact of the proliferation of digital media technologies on politics, the economy and social practices.

This volume seeks to investigate how humour translation has developed since the beginning of the 21st century, focusing in particular on new ways of communication. The authors, drawn from a range of countries, cultures and academic traditions, address and debate how today’s globalised communication, media and new technologies are influencing and shaping the translation of humour. Examining both how humour translation exploits new means of communication and how the processes of humour translation may be challenged and enhanced by technologies, the chapters cover theoretical foundations and implications, and methodological practices and challenges. They include a description of current research or practice, and comments on possible future developments. The contributions interconnect around the issue of humour creation and translation in the 21st century, which can truly be labelled as the age of multimedia. Accessible and engaging, this is essential reading for advanced students and researchers in Translation Studies and Humour Studies.

Using textual analysis, interviews with game designers, audience surveys, and close analysis of player forum discussion, this book examines the unique nature of the producer/consumer relationship within promotional Alternate Reality Games (ARGs). Historically, ARGs are rooted in advertising as much as they are in narrative storytelling. As designers often have to respond to player actions as the game progresses, players can have an impact on the storyline, on character behaviour, and potentially on the final resolution of the narrative. This book explores how both media consumers and producers are responding to this new reconfiguration of the producer/consumer/prosumer dynamic in order to better understand the diverse advertising experiences available to media audiences today. With a focus on participatory culture and the political economy of promotional communications, this in-depth analysis of ARGs will appeal to academics and researchers in the fields of games, film, advertising, and media and cultural studies.

From the emergence of digital protest as part of the Zapatista rebellion, to the use of disturbance tactics against governments and commercial institutions, there is no doubt that digital technology and networks have become the standard features of 21st century social mobilisation. Yet, little is known about the historical and socio-cultural developments that have transformed the virtual sphere into a key site of political confrontation. This book provides a critical analysis of the developments of digital direct action since the 1990s. It examines the praxis of electronic protest by focussing on the discourses and narratives provided by the activists and artists involved. The study covers the work of activist groups, including Critical Art Ensemble, Electronic Disturbance Theater and the electrohippies, as well as Anonymous, and proposes a new analytical framework centred on the performative and aesthetic features of contemporary digital activism.