Social semiotics and platform studies: an integrated perspective for the study of social media platforms

ABSTRACT

The development of web 2.0 was powered by web services that are software systems designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. It was the choice of standards enabling such interactions that favored communication among different systems and their mash ups. Facebook was the first social networking site to launch a service for developers that exposed its web services and the correlated APIs (application programming interfaces). This choice allowed programmers to create tools that could live within Facebook and turned the social networking site into a platform by enacting its programmability. In order to investigate the possibilities and the constraints offered by social media platforms, there seems to arise the necessity to integrate the analysis of frontend texts (such as posts or comments) and of social media communicative properties with the exploration of an underlying layer constituted by the network of relationships created within an application ecosystem and developed by using web services. The aim of the paper is to present a multi-layered approach to the study of social media platforms that combines the emerging subfield of Semiotic Technology with Platform Studies. The model is here applied to the analysis of Facebook Login Service.     

Carpool Karaoke: deconstructing the directly lived experience of hearing oneself singing

The various ways whereby spatial conditions afford to monumentalize culture and to appropriate geographically demarcated places in terms of individual and collective meaning structures has been amply documented in urban cultural studies. However, considerably less attention has been paid to how cultural identity is produced against the background of musical temporality. By way of a phenomenological inquiry into the staged spectacle of James Corden’s (the host of CBS Network’s Late Late Show) Carpool Karaoke, this paper addresses the issues of directly lived experience and authenticity as facets of cultural identity. By critically discussing the assumptions of self-presence and auto-affectivity while singing and listening to one’s sung voice against the background of pre-recorded songs, the notion of directly lived musical experience is put to the test. Furthermore, by examining the dramaturgical scaffolding of Carpool Karaoke, the analysis points to wider implications for post-modern cultural studies in terms of an identified ironic reversal of modernist universal criteria of legitimacy in favor of a celebration of post-modern being-with inauthentically. The analysis of the selected Carpool Karaoke corpus utilizes a resourceful blend of phenomenological method, semiotics and interpretive videography while challenging embedded orthodoxies in the extant literature.     

The Awkward Class: a foundation for peasant studies

ABSTRACT

Teodor Shanin's The Awkward Class helped to launch two immensely important research directions. First, resistance by Russian peasants to modernizing agricultural policies by both Tsarist and Soviet governments opened new questions about collectivization of agriculture, and made Russian history relevant to the study of ‘developing societies.’ Second, the idea of cyclical mobility of peasant households challenged the then widely held assumption that peasants were destined to disappear. Instead of explaining ‘persistence’ of peasants, Shanin explored distinct logics of peasant households and communities. This helped to define a new inter-disciplinary field called peasant studies.     

论我国高等警察教育改革路向

我国高等警察教育应实行通识教育基础上的宽口径专业教育,学生不仅要有宽厚的知识基础,还要对整个刑事司法过程有完整的认识,要培养全人警察。应整合高等警察教育,逐步将高等警察学历教育归并到普通大学,警察机关专事职业培训,造就具有宽厚知识基础、人文关怀、实战能力强的新型警察。     

哥萨克的起源与社会属性分析 一种哥萨克学的研究视角

20世纪末,随着苏联的解体,哥萨克问题成为俄罗斯社会焦点之一,哥萨克研究进入一个新的阶段,并形成一门新的学科:哥萨克学。由于诸多因素,目前国内哥萨克学的研究尚不充分,对哥萨克的认识比较粗略和模糊,特别是关于哥萨克的起源和社会属性问题。这种状况制约了对哥萨克历史、文化、文学等方面的研究。哥萨克的起源和社会属性问题是哥萨克学研究首要解决的问题,也是学者争议比较大的问题。系统地研究这两个问题,可以为进一步研究哥萨克学提供基础性学术资料。哥萨克学也可以为俄罗斯研究提供一个新的视角。     

浅谈新时期我国公安机关境外追逃问题

随着国际交往的密切,给犯罪分子逃往境外,利用国境的屏障逃避打击创造了的便利条件,从而使公安机关的境外追逃工作受各种条件的制约,面临严峻的挑战。研究切实可行的境外追逃理论和采取行之有效的追逃措施,让境外追逃工作走上科学化、信息化的良性轨道是公安机关当前和今后工作的主要方向。