Cancel culture in China has multiple specificities that invite further investigation, given the r... more Cancel culture in China has multiple specificities that invite further investigation, given the role of the state in producing content and regulating media platforms, alongside the distinct factors that can trigger canceling. This paper draws on social media posts, news articles, and government edicts for several illustrative cases, presenting a critical qualitative account about the involvement of ordinary media users, platforms, and state actors. State pronouncements on celebrity conduct, fan cultures, and digital media content all structure the regulatory environment, but canceling can originate as both bottom-up incidents and state-initiated events, with platform authorities also playing key roles. Whether netizens and the state reinforce each other or the government seeks to temper public anger, the cancel cases demonstrate how ideologies of nation and good citizenship are propagated and sometimes contested through user and state actions, an analysis that helps further theorize the culture and politics of digital platforms.
Transphobic discourses have become prominent even as media representations of gender non-conformi... more Transphobic discourses have become prominent even as media representations of gender non-conformity have increased, demonstrating the paradoxes of media visibility for the status of minority groups. Illustrating this phenomenon, transphobic commentary proliferates on two iterations of The L Chat (TLC), online forums centered on popular culture topics of particular interest to lesbians. Presenting a critical qualitative analysis of TLC discussion threads about actor Elliot Page, and transgender and nonbinary identities, activism, and politics, this article identifies how these contribute to what is theorized as a broader global phenomenon of networked transphobia. While some of the themes identified overlap with those found in other research on transphobia, the TLC threads reflect complexities arising from the posters’ political positionalities, and suggest that the circulation of regressive discourses on sex and gender attain distinct specificities at particular online spaces, including discussions filtered through interests in popular culture.
In the last few years, Chinese ‘boys love’ television dramas (dangai) have attained immense popul... more In the last few years, Chinese ‘boys love’ television dramas (dangai) have attained immense popularity within China and globally. While state authorities are known to censor LGBTQ content, the Chinese state media has used guofeng (‘national style’) language to laud some such series, including The Untamed and Word of Honor, in nationalistic terms. Through effusively praising depictions of traditional Chinese culture while downplaying or obscuring the texts’ origins in homoerotic novels, such commentary has sought to recruit dangai series towards advancing Chinese cultural power while containing the texts’ queer transgressiveness. We refer to this phenomenon as brand nohomonationalism, or the undergirding of nationalist ideology by particular configurations of normative sexual discourse, which expands on the insights of Puar’s ‘homonationalism’, Iwabuchi’s ‘brand nationalism’, and Williams’ ‘brand homonationalism’ in the broader Asian context. Although brand nohomonationalist commentary has been curtailed since recent injunctions against ‘effeminate men’ and danmei content, it is part of the Chinese government’s broader efforts to exercise ideological authority over popular culture. Analysing the phenomenon provides new insights into how sexual and national identities are co-constructed.
This introduction to the special issue on the topic of "Centering Women on Post-2010 Chinese TV" ... more This introduction to the special issue on the topic of "Centering Women on Post-2010 Chinese TV" presents a brief review of major topics in the scholarship on televisual representations of women in contemporary China. The issue includes five research articles that, collectively, address research gaps in studies of post-2010 Chinese televisual-cultural discourses to do with ethnic minority women, women's media authorship, women's extramarital romance, and national heroines of the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose novel focuses for examining women's plural roles and subjectivities on and off the TV screen. We thus call for complex understandings that move beyond the predominant attention of existing scholarship on conventional depictions of women as (virtuous) wives, (good) mothers, (inspirational) female professionals or heroines, and masculine feminist girls. Instead, this special issue sheds light on the polyvalent and contested positionality of Chinese women as gendered, ethnicized, (trans)nationalized, and romanticized subjects during a (post-)globalization and (post-)pandemic age.
This introductory article to the special Forum “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 201... more This introductory article to the special Forum “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 2010s” offers a reflection on the concept of “female masculinity” in global media and gender studies. Witnessing a growing number of TV representations of masculine girls and women worldwide, we present a summary of the four articles which comprise this themed Forum and address a number of key issues in their case studies, including televisual imaginaries of heterosexual, masculine women, the cultural legitimization of global female masculinities on reality TV, and the racialization and stigmatization of masculine women in White heteronormative societies. The Forum thus promotes a critical dialogue that aims to stimulate further interest in this interdisciplinary field by emphasizing the mutual implications of gendered TV genres and tropes, cross-cultural currents of gender, sexual, and racial knowledge and politics, and the intersectionality of female gender, sexuality, race, and nationality in TV representations.
While intersections of scholarship and fandom have previously
been discussed in terms of the scho... more While intersections of scholarship and fandom have previously been discussed in terms of the scholar-as-fan, rather less theorized is the converse situation, where nonacademic fans draw on scholarly research and remake it as fan-circulated content. Gentleman Jack (BBC/HBO, 2019-present), a television series based on a real person, Anne Lister, about whom there is an existing body of scholarship, provides examples of this phenomenon, with fans excerpting text from biographical sources and extracting and remaking a dissertation’s diagram of Lister’s relationships with various women. This essay analyzes these fan texts as paratexts associated with the primary Gentleman Jack text, situating them within research that recognizes the increased significance of paratextual commentary to the reception of contemporary media texts. The fan posts also demonstrate distinctive forms of intertextuality that interweave the content of the show, scholarly research on Lister, and references to other popular media representations of lesbians. At the level of LGBTQ representation, enthusiasm amongst many queer viewers for Gentleman Jack and Lister reflect the rarity of having a lesbian lead in a well-budgeted, prestige television series. Furthermore, given the dearth of lesbians in academic historical accounts, the fan-generated texts discussed in this essay demonstrate how hybrid forms of popular media-academic scholarship fan posts also counter lesbian underrepresentation with respect to scholarly discourse.
Women have been enjoying new forms of visibility in post-2010 Chinese entertainment television, n... more Women have been enjoying new forms of visibility in post-2010 Chinese entertainment television, not just onscreen, but also in paratextual discourses about women as content producers. By focusing on the promotional and reception materials about a female director/producer, Yu Lei, and her authorship in National Treasure (NT), a current Chinese variety show, this article analyzes how extratextual material operates in relation to female authorship in Chinese television. By examining how gender politics are incorporated in the construction of female authorship, we identify the problematic aspects of how Yu Lei’s authorship is framed, which serve to promote neoliberal postfeminist ideas of women’s empowerment and are bound up with current iterations of official neonationalist ideology. While acknowledging its limitations, we argue that Yu Lei’s position as a woman in a male-dominated industry who has substantial visibility in media and enjoys some authority over a TV production still constitutes noteworthy if only partial agency.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, 2021
Queer production studies is a subfield of production studies that specifically considers the sign... more Queer production studies is a subfield of production studies that specifically considers the significance of queer identity for media producers, particularly as it relates to the creation of LGBTQ content. Its emergence as a named subfield did not occur until 2018, but there have been studies of queer production prior to that. While general production studies scholarship has focused on industrial production, the scope of queer production studies includes not just production spanning commercial, public, and independent domains, but also fan production. Queer production studies often make use of interview and ethnographic methods to investigate how nonnormative gender and sexual expression factor in the work of media producers, and also examines relevant industry documents, media texts, and media paratexts to discuss how LGBTQ media content reinforces or challenges existing norms. It considers how queer media production relates to the degree of integration or marginalization of LGBTQ people and representation within media as well as society more broadly. Currently, almost all research explicitly identified as queer production studies is conducted in U.S.-based or European-based contexts, and there is thus a large gap in scholarship of queer media production occurring elsewhere.
Access: Right now, this is one of the featured articles on the main page (https://oxfordre.com/communication), and is free. If you can't access it and want a pdf copy, message me.
This article examines the significance of queerness to class and prestige illustrated by the seri... more This article examines the significance of queerness to class and prestige illustrated by the series 'Gentleman Jack' (BBC/HBO, 2019–present). Although previous scholarship has discussed LGBTQ content and network brands, the development of "quality" television, and the status of period (heritage) drama, there has not been significant consideration about the relationships among all these elements. Based on the life of the 19th-century Englishwoman Anne Lister, 'Gentleman Jack' depicts Lister’s gender and sexual nonconformity—particularly her romantic interactions with women and her mobility through the world—as a charming, cosmopolitan queerness, without addressing how this depended on her elite status. The cachet of GJ's queer content interacts with both the prestige of the period genre and the BBC's and HBO's quality TV brands, with the show illustrating how narratives in "post-heritage" drama can gesture toward critique of class, race, and nationality privileges while continuing to be structured by these hierarchies. This article points to new avenues for theorizing how prestige in television is constructed through the interaction of content, genre, and production contexts.
Although there are numerous prominent examples of social media misuse, these cases should not dis... more Although there are numerous prominent examples of social media misuse, these cases should not disproportionately characterize the scope or potential of digital media participation as a whole. Using cancel culture as an entry point, this essay discusses how digital practices often follow a trajectory of being initially embraced as empowering to being denounced as emblematic of digital ills. However, while platforms such as Twitter do have characteristics that militate against nuanced debate, scholars can productively direct attention to interactions in other digital spaces, particularly using methods that yield more qualitatively informative data. These spaces include message boards and comment threads, which foster more long-form engagement. It is also important to look beyond the major English-language platforms, both to account for platform-specific features and so that conditions of online discourse routine in many global contexts, such as negotiating censorship, are centrally th...
This essay discusses how political and public health responses to Covid-19 in certain nations, in... more This essay discusses how political and public health responses to Covid-19 in certain nations, including the U.S., reflect and comprise multiple strands of hegemonic masculinities. First, opposition to face-masks and social distancing are part of a broader anti-communitarian disposition, which in turn is tied to a normative masculinity valorizing independence and individualism. In addition, rejections of scientific advice on combatting Covid-19 stem not just from general anti-intellectualism, but also reflect how science is no longer a hegemonically masculine domain, thus situating scientists and the scientific method within a potentially feminized space. Furthermore, with the U.S. and other nations eschewing multilateralism in the quest for medical equipment and drugs, including the emergence of “vaccine nationalisms,” there are troubling assertions of masculinist nationalisms in health and trade policies that are simultaneously racist and xenophobic. Thus, there is an urgent need to examine the complexly gendered dimensions of the Covid-19 crisis, both for addressing the pandemic and for theorizing the production of gendered meanings, particularly around health, strength, and nation.
~ Special Forum of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022) Call for Pa... more ~ Special Forum of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022) Call for Papers ~
Contribution Deadline: June 1st, 2021
Contribution Length: 1000-2000 words inclusive of all notes and references
Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio U)
Submission Instructions:
The Forum section of the Communication, Culture & Critique aims to publish short, commentary pieces exploring contemporary issues in communication, media, and cultural studies for an international readership.
Please submit the full entry (1000-2000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, as well as a short bio (max. 75 words, including current status, contact email, and affiliation), by June 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of this Forum section at [email protected] and [email protected].
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by August 1st, 2021. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.
NOTE: Accepted Forum submissions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as the related special issue topic of “Centering Women on Post-2010 Chinese TV.” There is a separate CFP for those full-length papers.
~ Special Issue of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022) Call for Pa... more ~ Special Issue of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022) Call for Papers ~
Paper Abstract Deadline (500 words): March 1st, 2021
Complete Manuscript Deadline (6000-7000 words): August 1st, 2021
Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio University)
Submission Instructions:
Please submit a 500-word abstract as well as a short (2-page) CV by March 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of the special issue at [email protected] and [email protected].
Authors whose abstracts are selected will be notified by April 1st, 2021 and asked to submit complete manuscripts (6000-7000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, by August 1st, 2021.
Acceptance of the abstracts does not guarantee publication of the papers, which will be subject to double-blind peer review. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.
NOTE: Accepted full-length paper contributions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as a Forum section on the related topic of “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 2010s.” The Forum, which seeks shorter essays, has a separate CFP.
Invited essay for 20th anniversary issue of Television and New Media 21.6 (September 2020).
F... more Invited essay for 20th anniversary issue of Television and New Media 21.6 (September 2020).
Discussing the mainland Chinese web series Guardian, adapted
from a homoerotic “boys’ love” novel... more Discussing the mainland Chinese web series Guardian, adapted from a homoerotic “boys’ love” novel, this paper examines the practices and discourses of producers, viewers, and the state with respect to queer representation and readings in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), where media is regulated not just for sexual content but also sociopolitical principles. Even as the series made the central relationship between the two male characters non-romantic, official paratextual content fed fan passion for queer readings. However, by and large, fans have had a collaborative relationship with producers, illustrating how queerbaiting discourses, almost absent in this case, are crucially dependent on larger contexts of media production and regulation. Fans were careful in how they discussed their enthusiasm for a romantic pairing and the two lead actors, but subsequent government censorship of Guardian a few weeks after its debut suggests that the queerness of both fan readings and the source material became an issue, as well as reflecting societal and state ambivalence concerning women’s sexual expression and the commodification of male bodies in consumer culture. Thus, the analysis here is contextualized within broader social and political conditions in the PRC with respect to sexuality, gender, and the moral-political dictates of the state.
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the full paper.]
In the #CommunicationSoWhite special issue of Communication, Culture, & Critique, 21.6 (June 2020... more In the #CommunicationSoWhite special issue of Communication, Culture, & Critique, 21.6 (June 2020), open access at https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa006 until Sep 20, 2021.
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the essay after that date.]
(with Khadijah White and Anamik Saha) “#CommunicationSoWhite: Race and Power in the Academy and B... more (with Khadijah White and Anamik Saha) “#CommunicationSoWhite: Race and Power in the Academy and Beyond.” Introductory essay, special issue, “#CommunicationSoWhite,” Communication, Culture, & Critique, 13 (2), 143–151.
This paper discusses the Singaporean web series People Like Us (Leon Cheo, 2016) as a text with c... more This paper discusses the Singaporean web series People Like Us (Leon Cheo, 2016) as a text with characteristics of a romantic comedy that also challenges many generic conventions. In terms of production and distribution, the web series format enables content thatmight otherwise encounter funding or censorship challenges. With respect to content, People Like Us has two important distinctions. First, while depicting gay men’s pursuit of romance in often lighthearted ways, People Like Us is
not what I term ‘romonormative,’ i.e. it does not privilege monogamous romantic relationships or downplay same-sex eroticism. The series also encodes a distinct Singaporeanness without inscribing homonormative or homonationalist discourses, instead presenting different modes of gay men’s intimacies as comprising a queerly specific Singapore. As such, People Like Us’s production and narrative characteristics exemplify new evolutions for the rom-com genre.
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LGBT advocacy is an emergent site attracting transnational funding from an expanded set of donor ... more LGBT advocacy is an emergent site attracting transnational funding from an expanded set of donor types that now include private corporations, national governments, NGOs, intergovernmental organizations and public– private partnerships. This article discusses LGBT advocacy as involving an expanded range of issues that go beyond a traditional focus on HIV/AIDS prevention. The geographical focus is on Singapore and Malaysia, two Southeast Asian countries where homosexuality is officially illegal. Alongside the global politics of LGBT rights, previous critiques about external funding and North/South asymmetries in transnational aid raise questions about its effectiveness for transformative socio-political change, and its political and theoretical implications. Three case studies are examined: Pink Dot Singapore, and the PT Foundation and Kuala Lumpur activist workshops in Malaysia. The data demonstrate the capacity for transnational support to contribute to grassroots activism and coalitional politics. However, significant observable outcomes are currently limited, partly because most of the grants are modest , and Singapore and Malaysia's high-and middle-income status excludes them from various funding bodies. Furthermore, domestic resistance to trans-national funding has emerged, constituting more widespread discourses in which anti-LGBT sentiment is framed in terms of opposing Western encroachments and the dominance of the global North.
Cancel culture in China has multiple specificities that invite further investigation, given the r... more Cancel culture in China has multiple specificities that invite further investigation, given the role of the state in producing content and regulating media platforms, alongside the distinct factors that can trigger canceling. This paper draws on social media posts, news articles, and government edicts for several illustrative cases, presenting a critical qualitative account about the involvement of ordinary media users, platforms, and state actors. State pronouncements on celebrity conduct, fan cultures, and digital media content all structure the regulatory environment, but canceling can originate as both bottom-up incidents and state-initiated events, with platform authorities also playing key roles. Whether netizens and the state reinforce each other or the government seeks to temper public anger, the cancel cases demonstrate how ideologies of nation and good citizenship are propagated and sometimes contested through user and state actions, an analysis that helps further theorize the culture and politics of digital platforms.
Transphobic discourses have become prominent even as media representations of gender non-conformi... more Transphobic discourses have become prominent even as media representations of gender non-conformity have increased, demonstrating the paradoxes of media visibility for the status of minority groups. Illustrating this phenomenon, transphobic commentary proliferates on two iterations of The L Chat (TLC), online forums centered on popular culture topics of particular interest to lesbians. Presenting a critical qualitative analysis of TLC discussion threads about actor Elliot Page, and transgender and nonbinary identities, activism, and politics, this article identifies how these contribute to what is theorized as a broader global phenomenon of networked transphobia. While some of the themes identified overlap with those found in other research on transphobia, the TLC threads reflect complexities arising from the posters’ political positionalities, and suggest that the circulation of regressive discourses on sex and gender attain distinct specificities at particular online spaces, including discussions filtered through interests in popular culture.
In the last few years, Chinese ‘boys love’ television dramas (dangai) have attained immense popul... more In the last few years, Chinese ‘boys love’ television dramas (dangai) have attained immense popularity within China and globally. While state authorities are known to censor LGBTQ content, the Chinese state media has used guofeng (‘national style’) language to laud some such series, including The Untamed and Word of Honor, in nationalistic terms. Through effusively praising depictions of traditional Chinese culture while downplaying or obscuring the texts’ origins in homoerotic novels, such commentary has sought to recruit dangai series towards advancing Chinese cultural power while containing the texts’ queer transgressiveness. We refer to this phenomenon as brand nohomonationalism, or the undergirding of nationalist ideology by particular configurations of normative sexual discourse, which expands on the insights of Puar’s ‘homonationalism’, Iwabuchi’s ‘brand nationalism’, and Williams’ ‘brand homonationalism’ in the broader Asian context. Although brand nohomonationalist commentary has been curtailed since recent injunctions against ‘effeminate men’ and danmei content, it is part of the Chinese government’s broader efforts to exercise ideological authority over popular culture. Analysing the phenomenon provides new insights into how sexual and national identities are co-constructed.
This introduction to the special issue on the topic of "Centering Women on Post-2010 Chinese TV" ... more This introduction to the special issue on the topic of "Centering Women on Post-2010 Chinese TV" presents a brief review of major topics in the scholarship on televisual representations of women in contemporary China. The issue includes five research articles that, collectively, address research gaps in studies of post-2010 Chinese televisual-cultural discourses to do with ethnic minority women, women's media authorship, women's extramarital romance, and national heroines of the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose novel focuses for examining women's plural roles and subjectivities on and off the TV screen. We thus call for complex understandings that move beyond the predominant attention of existing scholarship on conventional depictions of women as (virtuous) wives, (good) mothers, (inspirational) female professionals or heroines, and masculine feminist girls. Instead, this special issue sheds light on the polyvalent and contested positionality of Chinese women as gendered, ethnicized, (trans)nationalized, and romanticized subjects during a (post-)globalization and (post-)pandemic age.
This introductory article to the special Forum “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 201... more This introductory article to the special Forum “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 2010s” offers a reflection on the concept of “female masculinity” in global media and gender studies. Witnessing a growing number of TV representations of masculine girls and women worldwide, we present a summary of the four articles which comprise this themed Forum and address a number of key issues in their case studies, including televisual imaginaries of heterosexual, masculine women, the cultural legitimization of global female masculinities on reality TV, and the racialization and stigmatization of masculine women in White heteronormative societies. The Forum thus promotes a critical dialogue that aims to stimulate further interest in this interdisciplinary field by emphasizing the mutual implications of gendered TV genres and tropes, cross-cultural currents of gender, sexual, and racial knowledge and politics, and the intersectionality of female gender, sexuality, race, and nationality in TV representations.
While intersections of scholarship and fandom have previously
been discussed in terms of the scho... more While intersections of scholarship and fandom have previously been discussed in terms of the scholar-as-fan, rather less theorized is the converse situation, where nonacademic fans draw on scholarly research and remake it as fan-circulated content. Gentleman Jack (BBC/HBO, 2019-present), a television series based on a real person, Anne Lister, about whom there is an existing body of scholarship, provides examples of this phenomenon, with fans excerpting text from biographical sources and extracting and remaking a dissertation’s diagram of Lister’s relationships with various women. This essay analyzes these fan texts as paratexts associated with the primary Gentleman Jack text, situating them within research that recognizes the increased significance of paratextual commentary to the reception of contemporary media texts. The fan posts also demonstrate distinctive forms of intertextuality that interweave the content of the show, scholarly research on Lister, and references to other popular media representations of lesbians. At the level of LGBTQ representation, enthusiasm amongst many queer viewers for Gentleman Jack and Lister reflect the rarity of having a lesbian lead in a well-budgeted, prestige television series. Furthermore, given the dearth of lesbians in academic historical accounts, the fan-generated texts discussed in this essay demonstrate how hybrid forms of popular media-academic scholarship fan posts also counter lesbian underrepresentation with respect to scholarly discourse.
Women have been enjoying new forms of visibility in post-2010 Chinese entertainment television, n... more Women have been enjoying new forms of visibility in post-2010 Chinese entertainment television, not just onscreen, but also in paratextual discourses about women as content producers. By focusing on the promotional and reception materials about a female director/producer, Yu Lei, and her authorship in National Treasure (NT), a current Chinese variety show, this article analyzes how extratextual material operates in relation to female authorship in Chinese television. By examining how gender politics are incorporated in the construction of female authorship, we identify the problematic aspects of how Yu Lei’s authorship is framed, which serve to promote neoliberal postfeminist ideas of women’s empowerment and are bound up with current iterations of official neonationalist ideology. While acknowledging its limitations, we argue that Yu Lei’s position as a woman in a male-dominated industry who has substantial visibility in media and enjoys some authority over a TV production still constitutes noteworthy if only partial agency.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, 2021
Queer production studies is a subfield of production studies that specifically considers the sign... more Queer production studies is a subfield of production studies that specifically considers the significance of queer identity for media producers, particularly as it relates to the creation of LGBTQ content. Its emergence as a named subfield did not occur until 2018, but there have been studies of queer production prior to that. While general production studies scholarship has focused on industrial production, the scope of queer production studies includes not just production spanning commercial, public, and independent domains, but also fan production. Queer production studies often make use of interview and ethnographic methods to investigate how nonnormative gender and sexual expression factor in the work of media producers, and also examines relevant industry documents, media texts, and media paratexts to discuss how LGBTQ media content reinforces or challenges existing norms. It considers how queer media production relates to the degree of integration or marginalization of LGBTQ people and representation within media as well as society more broadly. Currently, almost all research explicitly identified as queer production studies is conducted in U.S.-based or European-based contexts, and there is thus a large gap in scholarship of queer media production occurring elsewhere.
Access: Right now, this is one of the featured articles on the main page (https://oxfordre.com/communication), and is free. If you can't access it and want a pdf copy, message me.
This article examines the significance of queerness to class and prestige illustrated by the seri... more This article examines the significance of queerness to class and prestige illustrated by the series 'Gentleman Jack' (BBC/HBO, 2019–present). Although previous scholarship has discussed LGBTQ content and network brands, the development of "quality" television, and the status of period (heritage) drama, there has not been significant consideration about the relationships among all these elements. Based on the life of the 19th-century Englishwoman Anne Lister, 'Gentleman Jack' depicts Lister’s gender and sexual nonconformity—particularly her romantic interactions with women and her mobility through the world—as a charming, cosmopolitan queerness, without addressing how this depended on her elite status. The cachet of GJ's queer content interacts with both the prestige of the period genre and the BBC's and HBO's quality TV brands, with the show illustrating how narratives in "post-heritage" drama can gesture toward critique of class, race, and nationality privileges while continuing to be structured by these hierarchies. This article points to new avenues for theorizing how prestige in television is constructed through the interaction of content, genre, and production contexts.
Although there are numerous prominent examples of social media misuse, these cases should not dis... more Although there are numerous prominent examples of social media misuse, these cases should not disproportionately characterize the scope or potential of digital media participation as a whole. Using cancel culture as an entry point, this essay discusses how digital practices often follow a trajectory of being initially embraced as empowering to being denounced as emblematic of digital ills. However, while platforms such as Twitter do have characteristics that militate against nuanced debate, scholars can productively direct attention to interactions in other digital spaces, particularly using methods that yield more qualitatively informative data. These spaces include message boards and comment threads, which foster more long-form engagement. It is also important to look beyond the major English-language platforms, both to account for platform-specific features and so that conditions of online discourse routine in many global contexts, such as negotiating censorship, are centrally th...
This essay discusses how political and public health responses to Covid-19 in certain nations, in... more This essay discusses how political and public health responses to Covid-19 in certain nations, including the U.S., reflect and comprise multiple strands of hegemonic masculinities. First, opposition to face-masks and social distancing are part of a broader anti-communitarian disposition, which in turn is tied to a normative masculinity valorizing independence and individualism. In addition, rejections of scientific advice on combatting Covid-19 stem not just from general anti-intellectualism, but also reflect how science is no longer a hegemonically masculine domain, thus situating scientists and the scientific method within a potentially feminized space. Furthermore, with the U.S. and other nations eschewing multilateralism in the quest for medical equipment and drugs, including the emergence of “vaccine nationalisms,” there are troubling assertions of masculinist nationalisms in health and trade policies that are simultaneously racist and xenophobic. Thus, there is an urgent need to examine the complexly gendered dimensions of the Covid-19 crisis, both for addressing the pandemic and for theorizing the production of gendered meanings, particularly around health, strength, and nation.
~ Special Forum of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022) Call for Pa... more ~ Special Forum of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022) Call for Papers ~
Contribution Deadline: June 1st, 2021
Contribution Length: 1000-2000 words inclusive of all notes and references
Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio U)
Submission Instructions:
The Forum section of the Communication, Culture & Critique aims to publish short, commentary pieces exploring contemporary issues in communication, media, and cultural studies for an international readership.
Please submit the full entry (1000-2000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, as well as a short bio (max. 75 words, including current status, contact email, and affiliation), by June 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of this Forum section at [email protected] and [email protected].
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by August 1st, 2021. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.
NOTE: Accepted Forum submissions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as the related special issue topic of “Centering Women on Post-2010 Chinese TV.” There is a separate CFP for those full-length papers.
~ Special Issue of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022) Call for Pa... more ~ Special Issue of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2022) Call for Papers ~
Paper Abstract Deadline (500 words): March 1st, 2021
Complete Manuscript Deadline (6000-7000 words): August 1st, 2021
Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio University)
Submission Instructions:
Please submit a 500-word abstract as well as a short (2-page) CV by March 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of the special issue at [email protected] and [email protected].
Authors whose abstracts are selected will be notified by April 1st, 2021 and asked to submit complete manuscripts (6000-7000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, by August 1st, 2021.
Acceptance of the abstracts does not guarantee publication of the papers, which will be subject to double-blind peer review. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.
NOTE: Accepted full-length paper contributions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as a Forum section on the related topic of “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 2010s.” The Forum, which seeks shorter essays, has a separate CFP.
Invited essay for 20th anniversary issue of Television and New Media 21.6 (September 2020).
F... more Invited essay for 20th anniversary issue of Television and New Media 21.6 (September 2020).
Discussing the mainland Chinese web series Guardian, adapted
from a homoerotic “boys’ love” novel... more Discussing the mainland Chinese web series Guardian, adapted from a homoerotic “boys’ love” novel, this paper examines the practices and discourses of producers, viewers, and the state with respect to queer representation and readings in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), where media is regulated not just for sexual content but also sociopolitical principles. Even as the series made the central relationship between the two male characters non-romantic, official paratextual content fed fan passion for queer readings. However, by and large, fans have had a collaborative relationship with producers, illustrating how queerbaiting discourses, almost absent in this case, are crucially dependent on larger contexts of media production and regulation. Fans were careful in how they discussed their enthusiasm for a romantic pairing and the two lead actors, but subsequent government censorship of Guardian a few weeks after its debut suggests that the queerness of both fan readings and the source material became an issue, as well as reflecting societal and state ambivalence concerning women’s sexual expression and the commodification of male bodies in consumer culture. Thus, the analysis here is contextualized within broader social and political conditions in the PRC with respect to sexuality, gender, and the moral-political dictates of the state.
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the full paper.]
In the #CommunicationSoWhite special issue of Communication, Culture, & Critique, 21.6 (June 2020... more In the #CommunicationSoWhite special issue of Communication, Culture, & Critique, 21.6 (June 2020), open access at https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa006 until Sep 20, 2021.
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the essay after that date.]
(with Khadijah White and Anamik Saha) “#CommunicationSoWhite: Race and Power in the Academy and B... more (with Khadijah White and Anamik Saha) “#CommunicationSoWhite: Race and Power in the Academy and Beyond.” Introductory essay, special issue, “#CommunicationSoWhite,” Communication, Culture, & Critique, 13 (2), 143–151.
This paper discusses the Singaporean web series People Like Us (Leon Cheo, 2016) as a text with c... more This paper discusses the Singaporean web series People Like Us (Leon Cheo, 2016) as a text with characteristics of a romantic comedy that also challenges many generic conventions. In terms of production and distribution, the web series format enables content thatmight otherwise encounter funding or censorship challenges. With respect to content, People Like Us has two important distinctions. First, while depicting gay men’s pursuit of romance in often lighthearted ways, People Like Us is
not what I term ‘romonormative,’ i.e. it does not privilege monogamous romantic relationships or downplay same-sex eroticism. The series also encodes a distinct Singaporeanness without inscribing homonormative or homonationalist discourses, instead presenting different modes of gay men’s intimacies as comprising a queerly specific Singapore. As such, People Like Us’s production and narrative characteristics exemplify new evolutions for the rom-com genre.
[Message me if you'd like a pdf of the full article.]
LGBT advocacy is an emergent site attracting transnational funding from an expanded set of donor ... more LGBT advocacy is an emergent site attracting transnational funding from an expanded set of donor types that now include private corporations, national governments, NGOs, intergovernmental organizations and public– private partnerships. This article discusses LGBT advocacy as involving an expanded range of issues that go beyond a traditional focus on HIV/AIDS prevention. The geographical focus is on Singapore and Malaysia, two Southeast Asian countries where homosexuality is officially illegal. Alongside the global politics of LGBT rights, previous critiques about external funding and North/South asymmetries in transnational aid raise questions about its effectiveness for transformative socio-political change, and its political and theoretical implications. Three case studies are examined: Pink Dot Singapore, and the PT Foundation and Kuala Lumpur activist workshops in Malaysia. The data demonstrate the capacity for transnational support to contribute to grassroots activism and coalitional politics. However, significant observable outcomes are currently limited, partly because most of the grants are modest , and Singapore and Malaysia's high-and middle-income status excludes them from various funding bodies. Furthermore, domestic resistance to trans-national funding has emerged, constituting more widespread discourses in which anti-LGBT sentiment is framed in terms of opposing Western encroachments and the dominance of the global North.
Mainstreaming Gays discusses a key transitional period linking the eras of legacy and streaming, ... more Mainstreaming Gays discusses a key transitional period linking the eras of legacy and streaming, analyzing how queer production and interaction that had earlier occurred outside the mainstream was transformed by multiple converging trends: the emergence of digital media, the rising influence of fan cultures, and increasing interest in LGBTQ content within commercial media. U.S. networks Bravo and Logo broke new ground in the 2000s and 2010s with their channel programming, as well as bringing in a new cohort of LGBTQ digital content creators, providing unprecedented opportunities for independent queer producers, and hosting distinctive spaces for queer interaction online centered on pop culture and politics rather than dating. These developments constituted the ground from which recent developments for LGBTQ content and queer sociality online have emerged. Mainstreaming Gays is critical reading for those interested in media production, fandom, subcultures, and LGBTQ digital media.
“Cancel culture” has become one of the most charged concepts in contemporary culture and politics... more “Cancel culture” has become one of the most charged concepts in contemporary culture and politics, but mainstream critiques from both the left and the right provide only snapshots of responses to the phenomenon. Taking a media and cultural studies perspective, this book traces the origins of cancel practices and discourses, and discusses their subsequent evolution within celebrity and fan cultures, consumer culture, and national politics in the U.S. and China. Moving beyond popular press accounts about the latest targets of cancelling or familiar free speech debates, this analysis identifies multiple lineages for both cancelling and criticisms about cancelling, underscoring the various configurations of power associated with “cancel culture” in particular cultural and political contexts.
“Cancel culture” has become one of the most charged concepts in contemporary culture and politics... more “Cancel culture” has become one of the most charged concepts in contemporary culture and politics, but mainstream critiques from both the left and the right provide only snapshots of responses to the phenomenon. Taking a media and cultural studies perspective, this book traces the origins of cancel practices and discourses, and discusses their subsequent evolution within celebrity and fan cultures, consumer culture, and national politics in the U.S. and China. Moving beyond popular press accounts about the latest targets of cancelling or familiar free speech debates, this analysis identifies multiple lineages for both cancelling and criticisms about cancelling, underscoring the various configurations of power associated with “cancel culture” in particular cultural and political contexts.
This introductory article to the special Forum “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 201... more This introductory article to the special Forum “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 2010s” offers a reflection on the concept of “female masculinity” in global media and gender studies. Witnessing a growing number of TV representations of masculine girls and women worldwide, we present a summary of the four articles which comprise this themed Forum and address a number of key issues in their case studies, including televisual imaginaries of heterosexual, masculine women, the cultural legitimization of global female masculinities on reality TV, and the racialization and stigmatization of masculine women in White heteronormative societies. The Forum thus promotes a critical dialogue that aims to stimulate further interest in this interdisciplinary field by emphasizing the mutual implications of gendered TV genres and tropes, cross-cultural currents of gender, sexual, and racial knowledge and politics, and the intersectionality of female gender, sexuality, race, and nationality in TV representations.
Uploads
Papers by Eve Ng
Sep 2024: 50 free ecopies available at this link: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YT3JPMYJYVCURTAAEP8M/full?target=10.1080/15405702.2024.2395392
been discussed in terms of the scholar-as-fan, rather less theorized
is the converse situation, where nonacademic fans draw
on scholarly research and remake it as fan-circulated content.
Gentleman Jack (BBC/HBO, 2019-present), a television series based on a real person, Anne Lister, about whom there is an existing body of scholarship, provides examples of this phenomenon, with fans excerpting text from biographical sources and extracting and remaking a dissertation’s diagram of Lister’s relationships with various women. This essay analyzes these fan texts as paratexts associated with the primary Gentleman Jack text, situating them within research that recognizes the increased significance of paratextual commentary to the reception of contemporary media texts. The fan posts also demonstrate distinctive forms of intertextuality that interweave the content of the show, scholarly research on Lister, and references to other popular media representations of lesbians. At the level of LGBTQ representation, enthusiasm amongst many queer viewers for Gentleman Jack and Lister reflect the rarity of having a lesbian lead in a well-budgeted, prestige television series. Furthermore, given the dearth of lesbians in academic historical accounts, the fan-generated texts discussed in this essay demonstrate how hybrid forms of popular media-academic scholarship fan posts also counter lesbian underrepresentation with respect to scholarly discourse.
**First 50 downloads are free at the following publisher link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/XF7BPMSREE4NUWHAVNUE/full?target=10.1080/10894160.2022.2083753
If the link no longer works, please contact me for a copy.
**This article is open access.**
Access:
Right now, this is one of the featured articles on the main page (https://oxfordre.com/communication), and is free. If you can't access it and want a pdf copy, message me.
Access at:
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/17218/3448
** IJOC is an open access peer-reviewed journal, so the link is accessible to everyone. **
ACCESS: Please first click on the link (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15767/feministstudies.46.3.0694) to see if you have institutional access. If not, message me for a pdf.
Contribution Deadline: June 1st, 2021
Contribution Length: 1000-2000 words inclusive of all notes and references
Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio U)
Submission Instructions:
The Forum section of the Communication, Culture & Critique aims to publish short, commentary pieces exploring contemporary issues in communication, media, and cultural studies for an international readership.
Please submit the full entry (1000-2000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, as well as a short bio (max. 75 words, including current status, contact email, and affiliation), by June 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of this Forum section at [email protected] and [email protected].
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by August 1st, 2021. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.
NOTE: Accepted Forum submissions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as the related special issue topic of “Centering Women on Post-2010 Chinese TV.” There is a separate CFP for those full-length papers.
Paper Abstract Deadline (500 words): March 1st, 2021
Complete Manuscript Deadline (6000-7000 words): August 1st, 2021
Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio University)
Submission Instructions:
Please submit a 500-word abstract as well as a short (2-page) CV by March 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of the special issue at [email protected] and [email protected].
Authors whose abstracts are selected will be notified by April 1st, 2021 and asked to submit complete manuscripts (6000-7000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, by August 1st, 2021.
Acceptance of the abstracts does not guarantee publication of the papers, which will be subject to double-blind peer review. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.
NOTE: Accepted full-length paper contributions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as a Forum section on the related topic of “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 2010s.” The Forum, which seeks shorter essays, has a separate CFP.
February 2021: Currently open access again at https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476420918828
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the essay after it is no longer accessible at the journal website.]
from a homoerotic “boys’ love” novel, this paper examines the
practices and discourses of producers, viewers, and the state with
respect to queer representation and readings in the People’s
Republic of China (PRC), where media is regulated not just for
sexual content but also sociopolitical principles. Even as the series
made the central relationship between the two male characters
non-romantic, official paratextual content fed fan passion for
queer readings. However, by and large, fans have had
a collaborative relationship with producers, illustrating how queerbaiting
discourses, almost absent in this case, are crucially dependent
on larger contexts of media production and regulation. Fans
were careful in how they discussed their enthusiasm for a romantic
pairing and the two lead actors, but subsequent government censorship
of Guardian a few weeks after its debut suggests that the
queerness of both fan readings and the source material became an
issue, as well as reflecting societal and state ambivalence concerning
women’s sexual expression and the commodification of male
bodies in consumer culture. Thus, the analysis here is contextualized
within broader social and political conditions in the PRC with
respect to sexuality, gender, and the moral-political dictates of the
state.
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the full paper.]
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the essay after that date.]
Open access at https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa011
not what I term ‘romonormative,’ i.e. it does not privilege monogamous romantic relationships or downplay same-sex eroticism. The series also encodes a distinct Singaporeanness without inscribing homonormative or homonationalist discourses, instead presenting different modes of gay men’s intimacies as comprising a queerly specific Singapore. As such, People Like Us’s production and narrative characteristics exemplify new evolutions for the rom-com genre.
[Message me if you'd like a pdf of the full article.]
Sep 2024: 50 free ecopies available at this link: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YT3JPMYJYVCURTAAEP8M/full?target=10.1080/15405702.2024.2395392
been discussed in terms of the scholar-as-fan, rather less theorized
is the converse situation, where nonacademic fans draw
on scholarly research and remake it as fan-circulated content.
Gentleman Jack (BBC/HBO, 2019-present), a television series based on a real person, Anne Lister, about whom there is an existing body of scholarship, provides examples of this phenomenon, with fans excerpting text from biographical sources and extracting and remaking a dissertation’s diagram of Lister’s relationships with various women. This essay analyzes these fan texts as paratexts associated with the primary Gentleman Jack text, situating them within research that recognizes the increased significance of paratextual commentary to the reception of contemporary media texts. The fan posts also demonstrate distinctive forms of intertextuality that interweave the content of the show, scholarly research on Lister, and references to other popular media representations of lesbians. At the level of LGBTQ representation, enthusiasm amongst many queer viewers for Gentleman Jack and Lister reflect the rarity of having a lesbian lead in a well-budgeted, prestige television series. Furthermore, given the dearth of lesbians in academic historical accounts, the fan-generated texts discussed in this essay demonstrate how hybrid forms of popular media-academic scholarship fan posts also counter lesbian underrepresentation with respect to scholarly discourse.
**First 50 downloads are free at the following publisher link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/XF7BPMSREE4NUWHAVNUE/full?target=10.1080/10894160.2022.2083753
If the link no longer works, please contact me for a copy.
**This article is open access.**
Access:
Right now, this is one of the featured articles on the main page (https://oxfordre.com/communication), and is free. If you can't access it and want a pdf copy, message me.
Access at:
https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/17218/3448
** IJOC is an open access peer-reviewed journal, so the link is accessible to everyone. **
ACCESS: Please first click on the link (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15767/feministstudies.46.3.0694) to see if you have institutional access. If not, message me for a pdf.
Contribution Deadline: June 1st, 2021
Contribution Length: 1000-2000 words inclusive of all notes and references
Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio U)
Submission Instructions:
The Forum section of the Communication, Culture & Critique aims to publish short, commentary pieces exploring contemporary issues in communication, media, and cultural studies for an international readership.
Please submit the full entry (1000-2000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, as well as a short bio (max. 75 words, including current status, contact email, and affiliation), by June 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of this Forum section at [email protected] and [email protected].
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by August 1st, 2021. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.
NOTE: Accepted Forum submissions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as the related special issue topic of “Centering Women on Post-2010 Chinese TV.” There is a separate CFP for those full-length papers.
Paper Abstract Deadline (500 words): March 1st, 2021
Complete Manuscript Deadline (6000-7000 words): August 1st, 2021
Editors: Jamie J. ZHAO (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) and Eve NG (Ohio University)
Submission Instructions:
Please submit a 500-word abstract as well as a short (2-page) CV by March 1st, 2021 to the co-editors of the special issue at [email protected] and [email protected].
Authors whose abstracts are selected will be notified by April 1st, 2021 and asked to submit complete manuscripts (6000-7000 words, including notes and references), in Word format, following the 6th APA style, by August 1st, 2021.
Acceptance of the abstracts does not guarantee publication of the papers, which will be subject to double-blind peer review. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at the above two email addresses.
NOTE: Accepted full-length paper contributions will be published in the same Communication, Culture & Critique issue as a Forum section on the related topic of “Global TV Images of Female Masculinity in the 2010s.” The Forum, which seeks shorter essays, has a separate CFP.
February 2021: Currently open access again at https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476420918828
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the essay after it is no longer accessible at the journal website.]
from a homoerotic “boys’ love” novel, this paper examines the
practices and discourses of producers, viewers, and the state with
respect to queer representation and readings in the People’s
Republic of China (PRC), where media is regulated not just for
sexual content but also sociopolitical principles. Even as the series
made the central relationship between the two male characters
non-romantic, official paratextual content fed fan passion for
queer readings. However, by and large, fans have had
a collaborative relationship with producers, illustrating how queerbaiting
discourses, almost absent in this case, are crucially dependent
on larger contexts of media production and regulation. Fans
were careful in how they discussed their enthusiasm for a romantic
pairing and the two lead actors, but subsequent government censorship
of Guardian a few weeks after its debut suggests that the
queerness of both fan readings and the source material became an
issue, as well as reflecting societal and state ambivalence concerning
women’s sexual expression and the commodification of male
bodies in consumer culture. Thus, the analysis here is contextualized
within broader social and political conditions in the PRC with
respect to sexuality, gender, and the moral-political dictates of the
state.
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the full paper.]
[Message me if you would like a pdf of the essay after that date.]
Open access at https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcaa011
not what I term ‘romonormative,’ i.e. it does not privilege monogamous romantic relationships or downplay same-sex eroticism. The series also encodes a distinct Singaporeanness without inscribing homonormative or homonationalist discourses, instead presenting different modes of gay men’s intimacies as comprising a queerly specific Singapore. As such, People Like Us’s production and narrative characteristics exemplify new evolutions for the rom-com genre.
[Message me if you'd like a pdf of the full article.]
https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/mainstreaming-gays/9781978831339
Citation:
Ng, Eve. 2022. Cancel Culture: A Critical Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan.
Link:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-97374-2