If you are (understandably) off Twitter, you may have missed that recently, several CCSN core members and affiliates united in Sheffield to attend and present at the Association of Internet Researchers 2024 conference. Here are some of our highlights from AoIR 2024.
Creators Cultures in The Global South
Several panels contributed to a much-needed intervention into the Western-centric notion of creator studies, with participants helping to reconceptualize understandings of power, precarity, and resistance. This included panels on Global Influencer Cultures along with a roundtable on Global South Creator Cultures featuring several CCSN affiliates (Tugce Bidav, Smith Mehta, Arturo Arriagada).
The Precarity, Perils & Promises of Emerging Creator Economies was one of our favourites, covering such a wide array of topics to show the breadth of creator culture, its challenges and opportunities from all over the world. From health and wellness creators on CrystalTok (Malcom Ogden) to recreational and hobbyist music producers in rural India (Gayas Eapen), from the role of motivational speakers in political intermediaries in India (Sagorika Singha) to the ways that content creators seeking to produce thoughtful content are incentivized to produce trope-reaffirming content (Matthew Howard), all the way to understanding how journalists in India make sense of their work under authoritarian conditions (Fathima Nizaruddin), these fantastic presentations offered nuanced, descriptive analyses of interesting case studies that forward the emerging field of creator studies.
Foreshadowing The US Election Result
While it was the result many of us were dreading, the presidential election in the United States was foreshadowed by some presentations at the conference.
Adrienne Massanari’s work on the platform governance panel and her most recent book, Gaming Democracy, argued that if we are to understand platform governance and global politics right now, we have to look at gamers. Similarly, multiple CCSN core members - Brandon C. Harris, Jessica Maddox, Christopher Persaud and Christine Tran - presented on a livestreaming panel, focusing on the strong androcentric aspect of platform governance on Twitch, showing the spreading of this type of narrative in gaming and streaming circles.
With El*n M*sk changing Twitter affordances and adopting game speak and several online Tr*mp supporters parroting the narrative of some of the misogynistic sides of online gaming, scholars will have to pay attention to gaming’s influence on politics: AoIR felt like a forewarning of what was coming.
These presentations highlight that game studies have been studying misogyny and harassment in online spaces for decades but offer timely interventions since El*n M*sk’s identity as a “gamer” features so strongly in his public persona (link). Now that many reporters have raised the importance of streamers, podcasters, and other creators in the U.S. presidential election (link), the spotlight is on gaming culture.
The election result also got several people in our network to abandon Twitter, so if you are looking to rebuild your Internet Studies connections, CCSN member Jess Maddox has your back with this BlueSky Internet Studies starter pack: go.bsky.app/LVrPemK
The Weird, Wonderful and the Sex-Positive
It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however: AoIR2024’s panels showcased the best of digital subcultures, ranging from Jeff Sheng’s analysis of plant marketplaces revealing someone paid $15,000 for a plant (!?!) to CCSN affiliate Ashley Mears’ exploration of Magician TikTok and its in-bred conflicts, between performer secrets and virality. Ludmila Lupinacci also presented continuing work on the relationship between social media platforms and “vibes,” highlighting the importance of emotion, feeling, and affect in online practice.
In a panel on creator economies, presenters from all over the world highlighted unique challenges and tensions in ambivalence in platform work. Richard Meng of the University of the Arts London discussed his work on queerbaiting on Douyin; Maria Gemma Brown of the University of Queensland discussed how spiritual creators on TikTok manipulate discourses about algorithms for promotion; CCSN affiliates Taylor Annabell of Utrecht University discussed how easy (or difficult!) platforms make it to disclose sponsored content; and Camilla Volpe of the University of Naples discussed how thriftshop sellers refuse the “influencer” identity in favour of desiring “a real job.”
This year, AoIR also featured a wealth of queer and sex-positive panels platforming sextech, sexual content moderation and queer expression, critiquing data surveillance of these demographics and interrogating the meaning and importance of their platformed authenticity.
AoIR featured its youngest “presenter” as Daniel Joseph and CCSN core member Sophie Bishop, accompanied by their well-behaved, smiley, and supported baby Romy, delivered a field-defining presentation on the necessity of linking platform governance with discussions surrounding advertising and political economy.
Until baby Romy joins the content creator ranks, TikTok's kidfluencers took the spotlight in a timely panel on the child's place on platforms. CCSN core member Tom Divon from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, joined by CCSN affiliate Taylor Annabell and Catalina Goanta from Utrecht University explored how parents capitalise on childhood moments, translating them into revenue streams, and turning their kids into brand ambassadors. They underscored the hidden nature of these practices within TikTok’s policies, advocating for nuanced governance and ethical frameworks to responsibly guide children's interactions with both their parents and audiences on platforms.
Self-reflexivity, Platforms and The Academy
Several affiliates - including Jean Burgess and Nancy Baym - considered the role of AI in reshaping the socio-technical landscape and provoked discussions about the AI industry’s relationships with our everyday cultures and various actors, such as governments, media outlets, and academia. While these presentations help us make sense of LLMs and AI imaginaries, we’ll continue to consider the promises and perils of GenAI for creators in the years ahead. To this end, Vanessa Richter offered a take on the role of TikTok internet personalities in creating--or questioning the AI hype cycle, significantly influencing our collective vision of the future with AI.
Several CCSN core members took an autoethnographic approach to examine wider academic life as they considered the parallel trajectories of creators and scholars. Organized by Christine Tran and Nelanthi Hewa, the panel on “influencer creep in the academy” drew from Sophie Bishop’s work to reflect on the free labour, challenging visibility and precarity that are creeping into the academy from the creative cultures we examine as scholars. With presentations by Tran and Nelanthi along with Brooke Erin Duffy, and Jessica Maddox and Carolina Are, the panel became a ‘group therapy’ session for researchers to share their struggles in an increasingly precarious industry.
The Eras Tour
AoIR’s 25th-anniversary panel, The Eras Tour (with Swiftie branding, of course!), offered a look back at the evolution of internet research, charting its journey in five-year snapshots from 2000 to today. Seven esteemed AoIR members shared provocations, each reflecting on a distinct "era" of AoIR's journey.
The conversation opened with CCSN affiliate Nancy Baym and Steve Jones, who revisited the foundational years (2000-2004), reflecting on the nascent field’s struggle to gain scholarly recognition and pondering whether internet research has permeated so thoroughly that it may soon dissolve into traditional disciplines.CCSN affiliate Susanna Paasonen (2005-2009) then focused on the seismic rise of social media, a shift that redefined online interaction and intimacy.
The panel progressed with Limor Shifman (2010-2014), reflecting on an era that saw the rise of memes as a social commentary and cultural currency, reshaping online vernaculars globally. Raquel Recuero (2015-2019) then explored the challenge of social media’s impact on public discourse, particularly in Latin America, emphasizing concerns over restricted API access and the implications for future research. Crystal Abidin (2020-2024) highlighted the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic, the rise of automation, and content creator culture—each accompanied by a pervasive sense of grief and loss.Finally, Catherine Knight Steele (future) underscored the importance of centering discussions of race, digitality, and Black Joy in internet research to foster more inclusive and critical public dialogues.
While the panel offered a reflective journey through AoIR’s history, we felt the lack of deeper critical engagement with how each era’s innovations and challenges have truly shaped—and perhaps limited—the association’s trajectory and scholarly focus. This 25th anniversary is a pivotal moment to reassess how we, as internet scholars, might more rigorously engage with the role of internet research in shaping the future. It invites us to envision not only what will bring us pride at AoIR’s 50th anniversary but also what omissions could leave us profoundly saddened by any missed opportunities.
Ending on a high: Bumper Cars and Karaoke
AoIR ended with a party to remember, which managed to trigger FOMO even among our non-academic followers. The CCSN team showed up in full Halloween gear, with Tom Divon as a Skeleton Bride, Carolina Are as Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Brooke Erin Duffy as a unicorn princess.
From show-stopping karaoke performances ranging from Baby Got Back and Thriller to Total Eclipse of the Heart (a conference classic) to bumper cars and Helter Skelters, AoIR2024’s leaving party at Sheffield’s Magna Science Adventure Centre was one for the books.
Bring on Rio 2025!