Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

Abstract:
“Which Humans?: The Anthropocene and its Publics”
Viewing environmental politics through the lens of the Anthropocene colours understanding in
consequential ways. It foregrounds the non-human and brings into focus the entangled past and
present of socio-nature. At the same time, it invests the future of this tangled relationship with a
sense of imminent doom. Apocalyptic visions of the Anthropocene loom over struggles for
environmental justice, dwarfing their seemingly mundane concerns. What are the discursive
effects of the Anthropocene concept as it travels from climate science into the wider world of
environment-development action? How does it engender new ways of thinking and acting? Which
ideas and actors are legitimized, and which are excluded? I shall illustrate my talk with examples
from the Indian subcontinent.
Jean Burgess (Queensland University of Technology), Jean Burgess (@jeanburgess) is Professor of Digital
Media and Director of the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology.
Burgess’s work aims to improve the public understanding of digital media technologies and cultures. Her
co-authored and co-edited books include YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture (Polity Press,
2009), Studying Mobile Media: Cultural Technologies, Mobile Communication, and the iPhone (Routledge,
2012), A Companion to New Media Dynamics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), and Twitter and Society (Peter Lang,
2014); with two new books in preparation – the Handbook of Social Media (Sage) and Twitter: A Biography
(New York University Press).
Abstract:
“Hookup apps’ vernacular data cultures”
Dating and hookup apps are animated by and generative of multiple, intersecting data cultures;
these data cultures are entangled with multiple, intersecting cultures of gender and sexuality. The
apps’ publishers routinely monetise and redeploy location-based, behavioural, and external social
media data; and data analytics are at the heart of their broader commercial value proposition. But
the same metrics that generate value in these data markets are also used by technically proficient
users to modify and improve their own experience or “performance” on dating and hookup sites, or
to develop add-ons and “off-label” applications of them extending far beyond the intent of the
developers. In this paper, I discuss in detail a number of such examples; and the ways that
vernacular data cultures articulate to particular cultures of gender and sexuality – as in, for
example, the use of data science and hacks to manipulate and “game” dating sites by “pickup
artists” – understood as a particularly marked formation of geek masculinity, one with far more
widespread manifestations in digital culture. The paper concludes with the implications and
opportunities of vernacular data cultures for digital media research more broadly, including
especially for the public understanding of digital media technologies.
John Erni (Hong Kong Baptist University), John Nguyet Erni is Chair Professor in Humanities and Head of
the Department of Humanities & Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University. An elected Fellow and
Member of the Executive of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities, he has published widely on
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