This study revisits the original four research questions of Williams et al.’s “The Virtual Census: Representations of Gender, Race and Age in Video Games” to investigate if mainstream videogame representations have changed over time. In addition, this study expands on the original by including a fifth question examining the intersection of representations within videogames. Using a sample of the top

Wayfair, an American furniture and home goods retailer, garnered sudden attention across social media in 2020, particularly Twitter and Reddit, due to a conspiracy theory linking the company to child trafficking. The short-lived, well-delineated nature of this theory, coupled with its simultaneous emergence across multiple platforms, makes it a distinct case for studying the dynamics of online conspiracy

Online hostility poses a growing societal challenge, yet quantitative evidence on how social media users respond to different kinds of hostility targeting different identities is limited, even though insights into bystander perceptions are detrimental to combat the online hate endemic. This online experiment ( N = 461) examines cognitive (perceived acceptability), affective (negative emotions), and

We gain exposure to news across a range of platforms and, within each platform, across a range of sources. How does a multi-platform media environment shape the news choices we make and the gaps that result from those choices? We address this question tracking news exposure across TV, the web, and YouTube for approximately 55,000 unique US panelists over a period of 39 months. We find important variations

Journalists’ social media use is a recent example of long-standing gaps between journalistic discourse and journalistic practice. This manuscript applies the sociological concept of rationalization to explain the persistence of this gap, theorizing that the need for rational explanations of one’s work is so powerful for journalists that they offer one description publicly, or to their bosses, while

Using a comprehensive dataset of over 160,000 public TikTok accounts and more than 16 million videos, this study indicates a notable increase in political TikTok video content from 2019 to 2023, with a peak around the 2020 US presidential election. The network analysis reveals distinct clusters of politically homogeneous networks or “political echo chambers” where users were exposed to attitude-consistent

While digital platforms foster a sense of community and identity, they also facilitate harmful exclusionary practices. In this context, toxic and hateful speech are key mechanisms not only for harming others but also marking processes of othering and belonging. In this article, we examine the role of hateful and toxic speech in structuring processes of in- and out-group formation and maintenance by

Links between extremism online and personalization algorithms are, by now, widely accepted. However, discussions surrounding sociopolitical radicalization and its relationship to filter bubbles often fail to account for user agency. Based on interview ( N = 29) and survey ( N = 1100) data, our study asks how politically engaged social media users make sense of algorithmic personalization related to

This article examines how Wikipedians embed their sovereign authority within the development of the site’s multilingual policy environment. By drawing on the concepts of cultural techniques, imagined affordances, and online authority, the edits and comments of editors were examined through a discourse analysis of 15 rules across 15 years. With a focus on the English and Spanish-language Wikipedias

How is the cultural made computational? CLIP models are a recent artificial intelligence (AI) innovation which train on massive amounts of Internet data in order to align language and image, deploying this ‘grasp’ of cultural concepts to understand prompts, classify images and carry out tasks. To critically investigate this cultural codification, we explore MetaCLIP, a recent variation developed by

Sweden has increasingly come into international far right focus, and digital media sites in the United States have proven especially active in spreading mis- and disinformative narratives about the country. Using social network analysis and descriptive statistics, we trace 776 links over a 27 year-period to understand how U.S. far-right media sites construct the idea of Sweden as ‘the rape capital’

This study examines how young Douyin users navigate algorithm-driven short video platforms, emphasizing their sense of agency (SoA) in shaping engagement strategies. Based on in-depth interviews with 25 users, we identified four engagement statuses—High SoA Use, Low SoA Use, High SoA Nonuse, and Low SoA Nonuse—and two strategic transitions: Disengagement and Reengagement. These transitions illustrate

This study examines the management of affective labor on E-Pal, a US-based gaming freelancer platform where gig workers provide companionship and intimacy to clients during gaming. Based on interviews with 27 workers, the research reveals that E-Pal prioritizes emotional connection over gaming skills. The platform uses authenticity expectations, performance evaluations, and gamification to regulate

Incels (involuntary celibates) base their identity on the inability to form romantic relationships. We conceptualize the ideology promoted by incels as misogynist extremism and explore the impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown on the radicalization of this online community. Based on computational measures, we conducted a multi-perspective exploration, comparing the prevalence of and participation in

All mainstream social media platforms now use algorithms to display recommended content, and some (e.g. Instagram, LinkedIn) have started showing what we call algorithmic transparency cues about why certain posts are recommended. However, little is known about what cues users see on their own feeds and how they experience them. Thus, using an online survey ( N = 515) of adult U.S. social media users

Mobile dating apps (MDA) are popular for intimate encounters, but romantic rejection is common, and can drive surveillance using information from social media. Awareness cues convey digital information about others’ activities, but their link with rejection is underexplored. This study explores the uses of awareness cues in mobile dating applications (MDAs) in relation to rejection, social surveillance

Fake news represents a threat to our society since people can face unverified and sensational information. News media can play a crucial role in disclosing and correcting misinformation. This paper argues that higher media coverage can anticipate an increase in public attention to the issue of fake news. Such relationship can be moderated by the country’s economic conditions and by the type of media

Media entertainment today extends beyond conventional formats like TV shows, music, films, video games, and books to include social media content. This article explores how teens integrate conventional and social media entertainment into their media repertoires, and how they reflect on the interrelations of different media in the context of their daily lives. Using Q-methodology and qualitative interviews

Selfie-editing technologies (including in-phone editing tools, filters, and apps like Facetune) provide the ability digitally edit and “enhance” facial and body features in photos. This article extends a theorization of “the virtual” developing from earlier approaches in feminist sociology and digital media studies, to consider the implications of selfie-editing capacities for how young people navigate

Recently, social media influencers have promoted social campaigns and movements, contributing to heightened interest and concern among the public about social causes. This study explores influencers’ social cause communication to understand message attributes, which may be catalysts in increasing public attention to the message and engagement in social causes. Data from Instagram were collected, and

Democracy festivals are events that aim to strengthen democracy by engaging citizens, politicians and organisations in dialogue and provide a more equal access to the agenda. In recent years, social media have become important arenas for agenda building, supposedly equalising the access to such processes. This article uncovers patterns of activity and visibility in agenda building through an actor-centric

Webcam sex platforms represent an important sector of the creator economy. Yet, there is a great scarcity of research on revenue flows and performer income. To address this, we collected and analyzed a dataset comprising 2 weeks of tips received by performers on Chaturbate, a prominent camming platform. Our findings reveal that income is highly unevenly distributed, with only a small group of mostly

To labor in platform capitalism is to optimize. Based on 66 semi-structured interviews conducted over 8 years with data scientists, software engineers, and content creators at BuzzFeed and Upworthy, this article conceptualizes optimization as a mode of algorithmic labor that emerges in response to the platformization of cultural production, distinguishing between three principal modes of social media

The affordances of Internet distribution have substantially expanded the array of video that is part of the everyday video cultures of many across the globe. Scholarly frames now need to integrate “hosted video” – video distributed without licensing agreements on services such as YouTube and TikTok and through social media – into broader conceptualization of viewing cultures. Hosted video encompasses

This article introduces the concept of the Undersphere – a networked community brought together via creative exchange – to highlight how the increased proliferation of Generative AI poses risks not yet acknowledged by policymakers within emerging AI regulatory frameworks. Employing a single case study methodology – namely, exploring exchanges made on r/StableDiffusion, a known subgroup on Reddit –

This article analyses how the use of artificial intelligence shapes the way news gets produced and distributed, based on 143 interviews with news workers at 34 leading publishers in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany. Drawing on gatekeeping theory and the concept of rationalisation, it describes and explains the use and effects of the technology in the news. Artificial intelligence (AI)

This article investigates the development and deployment process of QUIC, a new standard of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that is fostering momentous architectural change in the ways in which communication and data packets transport happens on the Internet. We present QUIC’s standardization process as an analytical site to capture recent evolutions in the balance of power between the so-called

Relational labour has become a critical concept for understanding the consequences of the ongoing relationship between creators and their audiences on social media. This article draws on this discussion to address Brazilian erotic content creators’ perceptions of the impact of relational labour on their sense of self and subjective identity. Combining the concept with the idea of recognition as conceived

In recent years, gender scholars have begun to examine the various costs and benefits of hierarchically arranged femininities. These cultural ideals are particularly appealing in the context of growing digitally mediated interactions, as the symbolic and relational boundaries between these femininities are becoming more fluid. Drawing on 32 in-depth interviews with Romanian content creators on TikTok

The present paper examines the emotional labour of love in algorithmic romance, as represented by Replika, the world’s most popular artificial intelligence companion application, and its implications for ethical artificial intelligence development through the conceptual frame of deep acting . Emotional labour, the theoretical umbrella under which deep acting falls, is introduced as a scope through

This mixed-methods study examined various ways Internet-enabled factors may contribute to problem gambling. A four-wave longitudinal survey was collected at 6-month intervals from Finnish adults ( N = 1530). Fixed-effects regression analyses were based on all available data across the four waves ( n = 4827 observations). Semi-structured interviews ( N = 18) included recovering problem gamblers. Quantitative

Social media influencers (SMIs) are ordinary people who rise to fame via social media. These individuals have repeatedly been labeled as opinion leaders, but often without in-depth theoretical reflection. We fill this gap by introducing a novel typology that allows for greater scrutiny in the identification of different types of opinion leaders in the modern media environment. Using this typology,

Using data from the 2012–2020 European Social Survey and Schwartz’s theory of basic values, this article maps the values of tech-workers, in order to assess and understand their uniqueness and homogeneity. Consistent with prior, mostly US-focused research, we find that European tech-workers hold a liberal worldview, which values openness to change, individualism, and universalism and devalues conservatism

Immersive multi-user virtual reality (VR) enables users to embody a first-person avatar and through them enact agency over their virtual self-representations and identities. Moreover, these visual representations can profoundly impact users’ thinking and behaviour. Despite this, there is a dearth of understanding of how opportunities to create an avatar versus using a preassigned one might affect users

Chatbots have become a mundane experience for Internet users. Public sector institutions have recently been introducing more advanced chatbots. In this article, we consider two cases of public sector chatbots, one in Estonia and one in Sweden, seeking to challenge the seemingly coherent understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) in the public sector. The aim is to both question the “thingness” of

This article asks how our capacities to conduct critical research on digital power are influenced by depending, empirically and methodologically, on powerful market actors controlling the underlying research infrastructure. Building on discussions at the intersection between digital methods, political economy and infrastructure studies, we zoom in on three cases of widely used commercial data tools

This article critically examines the social implications of data infrastructures designed to moderate contested content categories such as disinformation. It does so in the context of new online safety regulation (e.g. the EU Digital Services Act) that pushes digital platforms to improve how they tackle both illegal and ‘legal but harmful’ content. In particular, we investigate and conceptualise X’s

This article introduces a special issue exploring emerging empirical approaches to studying infrastructures for datafication and their social, political, and economic implications. The merits of empirical research on infrastructures for datafication are drawn out across seven articles offering diverse methodological entry points to develop our understanding of how datafication processes operate across

We outline the concept of ‘architectures of assetization’ as a way to get at the political-economic configuration of datafication in higher education through the layering of educational technology (‘edtech’) onto existing, legacy infrastructures. Edtech provides a useful empirical object of study because of the increasing deployment of new digital technologies in educational organizations; our focus

This article presents a novel methodology to examine the tracking infrastructures that extend datafication across a sample of 14 menopause-related applications. The Software Development Kit (SDK) Data Audit is a mixed methodology that explores how personal data are accessed in apps using ChatGPT4o to account for how digital surveillance transpires via SDKs. Our research highlights that not all apps

This article calls for systematic analysis of the accumulation and exercise of institutional platform power in the digital economy. We examine how the relatively open mobile advertising ecosystem is nevertheless dominated by a handful of platform conglomerates, most prominently Google, Facebook, and Apple. Although extant scholarship acknowledges the concentration of corporate power in digital advertising

This study examines how journalists are grappling with platform migration following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitterin October 2022. Using a mixed-method approach that combines computational analysis of the activities of 861 journalists on Twitter and Mastodon with qualitative interviews of 11 active journalists, this study aims to (1) examine the extent to which journalists have exhibited different

Public communication change (PCC) is often studied in communication research with a somewhat narrow conceptual focus, for instance, either on the contingency or on the determination of communication development. I argue that instead of considering the various extant theoretical approaches as competing and irreconcilable, the field should strive for a holistic understanding that helps integrate them

This article considers how children’s memeability is entangled with commercial sharenting narratives through two case studies of (mothers) influencers and their daughters in Brazil and Portugal. The Brazilian mother privileges cute aesthetics by enchantment in an inspirational sharenting and does not promote the child’s memeability. In contrast, the Portuguese influencer privileges cringe aesthetics

This article examines children’s digital experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic as a specific aspect of digital divide. Utilizing a survey of 2004 English parents aged 20–55 years, the study explores how various factors – including household living conditions, parents’ sociodemographic status and sociotechnical variables such as children’s usage frequency and intensity, expenditure on technology

Drawing from interviews with 39 online extremism and terrorism researchers, this article provides an empirical analysis of these researchers’ experiences with institutional ethics processes. Discussed are the harms that these researchers face in the course of their work, including trolling, doxing, and mental and emotional trauma arising from exposure to terrorist content, which highlight the need

This article delves into the process of technological adaptation to local environments by presenting the case of food delivery platforms in Mexico City. Primarily, it focuses on the tension between design and local economic practices. Given the primacy of cash as an object of economic exchange, platforms facilitate cash payments. Platforms then delegate the task of cash administration to couriers.

This article examines emergent communities of platform-based delivery workers in Bangkok by applying Max Weber’s concept of Vergemeinschaftung or ‘doing community’. Using offline and online ethnographic methods, the authors demonstrate how delivery workers do community on the streets of Bangkok and leverage smartphones and social media to extend their communities to the online realm. These community

Platforms have disintermediated the markets for books, film, television, and music, but the online art market has reproduced offline structures, leaving intermediaries intact. This study explores the limits of platforms by describing why disintermediation failed in the art market. Along with museums and other intermediaries, the most important function of galleries is to co-create artistic value. They

The mobile app BeReal, launched in 2020, has gained popularity for its emphasis on authenticity, spontaneity, and real-time daily interactions with close ties, earning it the label of “anti-Instagram.” However, empirical evidence on its relationship with well-being is currently lacking. This study uses a quasi-experimental two-wave design to examine the relationship between BeReal use duration and

Rankings are a well-established genre for evaluating diverse phenomena, yet culturally resonant critiques of them are relatively rare. This paper examines how student vloggers on YouTube challenge and reinterpret university rankings through ‘tier list’ and ‘reaction’ videos, thereby shifting genre expectations. Through a move analysis of 30 such videos, we identify 3 rhetorical actions – making sense

Nonhuman life is increasingly analyzed and acted upon through big data and AI tools. Birds in particular are among the most datafied wild beings. However, avian—like human—data sets present challenges of bias, misclassification, and harmful collection methods. For example, avian data includes bias along lines of sex and sexuality, female, queer, and intersex birds are significantly understudied. These

Digital communication venues are essential infrastructures for anti-democratic actors to spread harmful content such as conspiracy theories. Capitalizing on platform affordances, they leverage conspiracy theories to mainstream their political views in broader public discourse. We compared the word choice, language style, and communicative function of conspiracy-related content to understand its platform-dependent

Domestic workers have long been marginalized, even as they are made hypervisible to their employers. This is a process increasingly augmented by digital technologies. These technologies include care platforms, which have increasingly mediated the process of finding employment. This article reports on interviews with in-home childcare workers or “nannies” who shared experiences of scrutiny and surveillance

This article investigates – based on semi-structured interviews and conversations on cryptoart forums – how digital artists experience the blockchain-enabled assetization of their work through non-fungible tokens, including the transformation of digital artworks (which previously had negligible if any economic value) into assets capable of increasing in price value over time and generating future income

Given the number of identified risks associated with influencer sharenting, momfluencers are increasingly adopting a more mindful approach to sharing information about their children online. Prior qualitative research suggests that followers respond positively towards these mindful sharenting practices, especially when motives are communicated. However, there is a lack of experimental exploration into

In recent years, public institutions have turned to data-driven firms for solutions to the many complex operational challenges they face. This study explores the growing ties between public institutions and data-driven firms by focusing on the case of the Tel Aviv Municipality and a (data-driven) startup accelerator it established in the city. Based on semi-structured interviews with the Municipality

With 600 million daily users in 2020, Douyin faced monetization challenges after increased advertising led to a decline in user engagement. The app pivoted successfully to “shoppable videos” and livestream shopping by operating as a retail infrastructure. This article analyzes this transformation, arguing that Douyin strategically limits data availability, creating an artificial scarcity for capturing

This article employs Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) to analyze the affective public surrounding the hashtag #christiantiktok. We find that “Christian TikTok” discursively negotiates the unpredictable visibility affordances of TikTok’s algorithm by ascribing layers of spiritual significance to how the algorithm delivers content. Our research uncovered four key themes to this spiritualized

The double-edged nature of generative artificial intelligence (AI) underscores the importance of understanding complex and paradoxical public views about this emerging technology. Heeding to this call, this study examined how the general public perceives and reacts to Chat GPT and the implications of these perceptions, drawing on the third-person and first-person effect. A national survey in the United