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

In the early 2000s, services like Napster and The Pirate Bay took piracy from outdoor counterfeit markets
into the domestic sphere. The media industry’s harsh attempts to stop file sharing were often criticized for
being un-proportional and violating people’s right to privacy and to access to culture and information.
Recently the copyright debates have waned, largely because of the expansion of streamed media that
provides what appears to be free (or cheap) access to culture. At the same time the conflicts over privacy
have increased, partly for the same reason: with the growth of streamed media, data mining also becomes
more widespread. This presentation takes this development as a starting point to discuss data mining and
new modes of enclosure in a post-piratical society.
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Populism, politics and the popular (Chair, Martha Evans)
Waddick Doyle The Rise of Populist Political Brands and the Narrative of Exclusion: Berlusconi, Trump and Sarkozy
The reputations of political populists in three countries, Italy, USA and France, have developed through
television; business and celebrity gossip have been transformed into political brands. The three political
figures have competed for attention by the mediatised transgression of taboos and television audiences and
sports fans are shifted into the political domain as supporters. Emotions generated by reality television or
sport in narratives of competition and exclusion are shifted into discourses of threatened national identity.
Redemption is promised through the exclusion of “others” notably Muslims just as contestants are expelled
from the media world of reality television. The circulation and repetition of stories and images in social
media intensifies these values and feelings. These political figures came to represent a narrative of exclusion,
which in turn reflected a transformation of values through the assertion of identity. This paper argues that
shifting border narratives of popular culture assist in generating xenophobic populism.
Tim Highfield* & Kate Miltner* The Trumping of the political GIF: Visual social media for political commentary in the
2016 US Presidential election
Everyday social media and digital technologies have become well-established for political purposes, from
live-tweeting debates to sharing memes, linking to articles, and changing profile pictures in solidarity with
causes. This paper examines how the animated GIF is used to offer political commentary and opinion.
Associated with internet cultures, user-generated content, and vernacular creativity, the GIF has also
become popularly adopted for the visual dissemination of news and information, aided by Twitter,
Facebook, and Tumblr’s support for the format. The GIF also allows users to construct multiple levels of
meaning through the visual, showcasing the emotive, unusual, ironic, and provocative. Focusing on the social
media coverage of the 2016 US Presidential election, and especially the polarizing figure of Donald Trump,
this paper explores how the GIF offers new and creative ways of expressing support and opposition, critique
and play, and responding to events for a digitally and politically literate audience.
Sara Tomkins
“Bern Your Enthusiasm”: Larry David, Bernie Sanders, and Race-based Comedy in Presidential Politics
During the 2016 American presidential primaries, the comedian Larry David appeared on Saturday Night Live
to parody Democratic candidate, Bernie Sanders. Central to David’s portrayal of Sanders is a satirical take on
the role of race and ethnicity in the election. In particular, David’s performance addresses Sanders’
Jewishness as well as his trouble appealing to black voters despite his long term involvement with African
American causes. Drawing on scholarship around race-based comedy, I will investigate how David uses
Jewishness (both Sanders’ and his own) as a performative resources to critically interrogate political
discourse on race. I argue that David’s parody of Sanders demonstrates the potential and limits of comedy as
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