Episode 4: Cultures Online

What new cultural forms are developing in the vast universe of the internet? How can observers and scholars keep up with the accelerated pace of human creativity online?

What new cultural forms are developing in the vast universe of the internet? How can observers and scholars keep up with the accelerated pace of human creativity online? And how do racial aesthetics, money, and power play out in internet cultures?

 

 

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Our guests

Episode notes

Two influential scholars of digital culture explore the significance of internet-native forms like memes, viral videos, and fan-fiction websites as cultural artifacts. They consider what happens when people are given a place where anyone can say (almost) anything at any time. Lauren and Richard think critically about the assumption that the internet is making culture more democratic—in other words, easier to produce and to access—given that age-old practices like cultural appropriation continue to thrive online.

 

View a transcript of the episode here.

 

Mentioned in this episode

Further reading

Lauren recommends:

Richard recommends:

 

This episode was produced by Annie Galvin and Jess Engebretson and is licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0). icon