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

as a belonging to a specific scientific world defines a researcher. Concepts, methods, attitudes, and theories
have to, at least to some extent, be redefined based upon new common agreements. Such a process
demands researchers to occasionally leave their own “truths” and be open and curios in the common world.
3M
New Media Gatekeepers: Ecosystems of Access and Denial (Chair, Jack Bratich)
Virginia Crisp
Pirate Gatekeepers: Distribution Practices within Film Filesharing Forums
This paper considers what role ‘pirates’ have to play within film distribution and to what extent they
reinforce or destabilize the existing power dynamics of the cultural industries? Indeed, piracy is often said to
threaten the very existence of the film industry by giving audiences free access (albeit illegally) to a limitless
smorgasbord of media content. Indeed, for the technically literate, who can afford the equipment, know
where to go, and know what they are looking for, rare films have never been more accessible. However, this
paper will suggest that in certain contexts film piracy is in fact tightly controlled by online gatekeepers who
are in turn subtly influenced by the official film industry. By looking at two filesharing communities that
specialize in East Asian cinema, this paper will examine how formal film distribution companies are able to
exert considerable influence in the most unlikely of contexts: online pirate networks.
Janneke Adema Revisiting the Book Review
This paper explores gatekeeping in academic publishing by looking at post-publication reviewing practices. It
specifically explores the book review: how has it developed as a publication form and how does it currently
function as a filtering device? It critically examines the mechanisms behind book reviewing’s selecting and
sorting of academic research, how it shapes what counts as research, and how there is a lack of transparency
with respect to how selection takes place. Following current research on algorithmic culture (Striphas 2015,
Gillespie 2014) this paper will argue that many of the new algorithm-based post-publication review practices
(from Amazon’s recommendations to Twitter retweets), albeit perceived as more objective, continue to
thwart our ability to interrogate their underlying decision-making mechanisms. To rethink the book review
and with that scholarship in a digital context, this paper will examine potential post-publication review
alternatives and in the process will suggest different ways to perceive research-in-progress.
Margie Borschke
Of Distribution
Gatekeepers and Gatecrashers: What The Vinyl Revival Can Teach Us About The Aesthetics
This talk will consider the advantages and disadvantages to employing the metaphor of gatekeeping to
consider questions of filtering, access and denial in our era of digital networks. I will argue that gatekeeping
is a primarily a question of distribution rather than production and show how we can learn more about these
practices if we consider the aesthetic dimensions of distribution practices and the materiality of media.
Drawing on my recent research on media use in popular music culture, I will consider the much-celebrated
revival of vinyl records to consider how users employ analog media technologies to work with the biases and
affordances of digital network technologies.
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