ERMeCC Lunch Seminar

The cultural politics of social media: YouTubers with migrant backgrounds in Finland
Mikko Malmberg

Social media have been widely praised for their openness to culturally diverse voices and representations. For minorities who have often been ignored and misrepresented in traditional media, social media arguably provide an empowering space where they can self-represent their identities, provide counter-representations to large and diverse audiences and enhance their careers as media professionals. The video streaming social media platform YouTube–as the second most visited website globally–is at the forefront of this media transformation. However, YouTube particularly has also been criticized for promoting a highly commercialized culture of self-commodification and entertainment that undermines critical voices of minorities and re-enforces their marginalization. This talk presents the results of a study of the YouTube scene in Finland, a country with the lowest percentage of foreign-born inhabitants in Northern and Western Europe, where few YouTubers with migrant backgrounds have become increasingly visible within the last few years. Interviews with 12 of these YouTubers broaden our understanding of YouTube practices of ethnic minorities and challenge binary oppositions between entertainment and social criticism; commercialization and resistance.

Mikko Malmberg is a doctoral student at the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Social Sciences. His PhD project examines how media personalities of migrant background in Finland contest dominant representations of migrants and Finnishness. Malmberg has a master’s degree in Media Studies from Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Renegade fandom: exploring vigilantism in popular culture fandoms
Simone Driessen

Over the past few years, certain media franchises have gained a lot of criticism from small groups of fans. Think about fans that would like ‘abuser’ Johnny Depp to be excluded from the Fantastic Beasts-movies or some Star Wars-fans who are discontent with the casting of two female leads. This study explores these notions and online practices of discontent, ‘toxic’ fans through the lens of digital vigilantism. Therewith this study aims to bring the fields of surveillance- and fan studies together. Moreover, it illustrates how modes and practices of vigilantism are empirically manifest in online pop culture fandoms. It does so through scrutinizing the Harry Potter spin-off series Fantastic Beasts and its fans. A content analysis of Tweets and news articles related to developments in the franchise and the release of the movie(s) reveals how these fans denounced and shamed ‘domestic abuser’ Johnny Depp’s involvement in the movies. Likewise, producers David Yates and J.K. Rowling were publicly called out for not taking position against Depp. Although the fans’ actions did not lead to bullying an actor offline (which happened to Star Wars’ Kelly Marie Tran) – or preventing future involvement in the series (e.g. Kevin Spacey’s case), these opposing views might offer a valuable point of departure to understand challenges and issues like polarization in today’s society.  

Simone Driessen is a lecturer in the Media and Communication Department of Erasmus University Rotterdam.In June 2017, Simone obtained her PhD from the Erasmus Research Centre for Media, Communication and Culture (ERMeCC). Her PhD-project focused on the affordances of mainstream popular music in the everyday life of ageing audiences.