Media, Culture & Society Journal

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How can we better understand the structure of social media feeds? Christoph Bareither and Sabine Wirth introduce the feed-as-assemblage framework to explore how algorithms, interfaces and practices curate value across Instagram and TikTok. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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How does illicit media influence the decision to leave North Korea? Youna Kim draws on interviews with North Koreans to show how underground cultural flows enable mediated migration & disrupt state control in one of the world’s most closed societies #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

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How do journalists sustain democracy under autocratization? Gary Tang and colleagues explore how Hong Kong’s online journalists continue their work post-NSL, navigating risk and resisting democratic backsliding through everyday practice.
#OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

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What does #decolonization really mean in media studies? Tanja Bosch insists it must be rooted in anti-capitalist praxis and citation politics, challenging extractive academic hierarchies and advocating for insurgent, relational scholarship. #OnlineFirst
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How is influencer culture reshaping the sport–media landscape? Fujak, Evens & McLeod show how Gen Z and Alpha audiences are driving a shift from elite performance to personality-led content & algorithmic entertainment in global sport #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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What does it cost to speak out as a feminist in Pakistan’s digital public sphere? Muhammad Ahsan & Farahat Ali reveal how activists face gendered online abuse & real-world threats, yet continue resisting through care, strategy and collective strength #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

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Jiayi Chen & Chang Shi analyse how official administrators on Chinese social media platforms construct governance legitimacy through boundary discourse. #OnlineFirst
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Encoding/decoding in artificial intelligence: Global AI and local languages - FengYi Yin, 2025 Amid artificial intelligence rapidly transforming our social life, this article uses Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model to critically assess the design and u...

How do #AI systems reinforce global power imbalances in language? FengYi Yin applies Hall’s encoding/decoding model to reveal how generative AI privileges dominant ideologies while marginalising African languages. Can critical user agency resist this trend? journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Held in trust: Relational sovereignties and the affective life of communication - Karl Patrick R Mendoza, 2025 This essay reflects on how trust is lived, performed, and morally negotiated in public life, drawing on the author’s experience as a Filipino scholar trained in...

What does it mean to be held in trust across cultures?
@kprmendoza.bsky.social draws from Filipino and Māori concepts to propose relational sovereignties—affective, situated forms of trust, care & belonging in communication. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

#NewPublication (Media, Culture & Society): ‘Interviewing out lesbian, gay and bisexual creatives and executives about getting queer stories in mainstream Australian scripted television’.

A huge thank you to all the Aus television creatives and executives who took part.

doi.org/10.1177/0163...

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How does diplomacy shape cultural production? Taeyoung Kim’s study on China’s Korean Limitation Order shows how political tensions disrupted South Korean TV projects and exposed the fragile ties between diplomacy and media industries. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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How do anonymous platforms like Queering the Map & PostSecret create intimate publics? Olivia Sutherland &
@megansharp.bsky.social show how anonymity and ephemeral connections reveal new forms of digital intimacy. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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How do balloons & rural base stations shape Africa’s internet future? Miao Lu uses a volumetric lens to analyze Google Loon & Huawei RuralStar’s competing infrastructures—highlighting new socio-technical imaginaries of connection. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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Can liberal democracies regulate the attention economy? Gunn Enli finds major obstacles—public scepticism, limited trust, and weak policy instruments. A call to rethink digital regulation strategies. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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What makes queer studies in #Indonesia distinct? Hendri Yulius Wijaya offers internationalist localism as a method—bridging global & local knowledge while spotlighting precarity and resistance beyond institutions. #OnlineFirst #QueerAsia journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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Can queer language challenge both colonial pasts & neoliberal presents? Kaustav Bakshi explores how India’s #hijra/ #kothi lexicon & radical poetic forms unsettle global sexual identity norms. #OnlineFirst #QueerAsia
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What happens when queerness is tied to entrepreneurial success? Ling Tang’s burnout queerness shows how queer female entrepreneurs in urban China navigate unstable homonormativity under post-socialist neoliberalism. #OnlineFirst #QueerAsia journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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What are we really doing when we say Queer Asia as Method? Song Hwee Lim critiques celebratory discourses of Asia & calls for deeper reflection on theory, bias, and the stakes of queering knowledge. #OnlineFirst #QueerAsia journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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What if we read Mr. Robot & Uterus Man through a queer techno-Asian lens? @ianliujiatian.bsky.social proposes queer techno-orientalism as method to imagine reparative tech futures for Chinese queer/trans bodies. #OnlineFirst #QueerAsia #TechnoOrientalism
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What happens when we centre ‘Asias’ in queer critique? The Queer Asia as Method editorial introduces a powerful framework to decolonise queer studies. #OnlineFirst @liangge11.bsky.social @jdanielluther.bsky.social @evacyli.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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What is extractive journalism? Cristina Mislán, Damilola Oduolowu & Isabella Zielinski use interviews with local reporters & Black residents to expose how climate journalism can reproduce racial & class injustices—even at the local level. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Discostan and Hamnawa: Between erasure and preservation in South Asian digital diasporic archives - Hassan Asif, 2025 This essay examines how South Asian archivists in the North American diaspora engage with endangered and lost media, constructing informal, vernacular archives ...

How do diasporic archivists preserve endangered South Asian media? Hassan Asif examines Discostan & Hamnawa as community-driven digital archives challenging Western frameworks. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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What keeps community radio alive? Bridget Backhaus & @ass-prof-ando.bsky.social show how the affective labour of volunteers is the heart of community radio, weaving people and voices together to sustain diverse media spaces. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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How does extreme heat reshape city life and media? Ayesha Omer reveals #Karachi’s 2015 #heatwave as a “thermal ecology” where citizen activism, data-driven governance, & visual art respond to urban heat’s violent impacts. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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Hi Mama, bye privacy? Jessica Baldwin-Philippi & @mogprof.bsky.social study 5 major US daycare apps to reveal how tech is reshaping parenting & care work—reinforcing gendered norms and ideals of “intensive parenting.” #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Between cultural promotion and nation building: Analysing the drivers of Basque public television consumption over a decade - Jaume Doménech-Beltrán, Lidia Valera-Ordaz, 2025 Public broadcasting systems are tasked with providing citizens with high-quality information and exposing them to diversity, based on professional autonomy and ...

What drives people to watch Basque public TV? Over a decade of data shows it’s not just language or age—but #Basque national identity & party affiliation. Doménech-Beltrán & Valera-Ordaz reveal how Basque public television sits between culture & nation building journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Hype, financial narratives, and self-fulfilling prophecies in surveillance capitalism - Petter Törnberg, 2025 The rise of platforms has transformed our understanding of contemporary capitalism, with the critical literature describing how these firms leverage unprecedent...

What if Big Tech’s power is built on narrative? @pettertornberg.com argues that hype in #surveillancecapitalism isn’t just noise—it drives investment & creates self-fulfilling prophecies. A cultural turn in political economy. ‪#OnlineFirst
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Family photographs at the intersection of vernacular and official memories: Remembering Han migration to Xinjiang - Jin Dai, 2025 This study investigates the photographic memory of governmental-led Han migration from central China to Xinjiang since the 1950s. Going beyond the state-driven ...

How do family photos shape memory of Han migration to Xinjiang? Jin Dai examines how images preserve personal stories while intersecting with official nation-building narratives. #OnlineFirst @lborouniversity.bsky.social
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What happens when music royalties become investment assets? D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye shows how the assetization of copyright—via royalty-sharing marketplaces—creates new legal pressures & worsens inequality for musicians. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

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How are #LGBTQ book bans framed in the media? Laura H. Marshall & Steve Bien-Aimé find that UK, US & Irish newspapers often position bans as “parents’ rights” debates—while rarely including the voices of queer authors themselves. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...