International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. Artificial intelligence (AI) can create works deceptively resembling paintings, graphics, or photographs. This article examines how to treat these works, and under what circumstances, if any, they should be understood as art. The focus is placed on the work itself in the l’art-pour-l’art-tradition, on the reception, on the skills involved in the creation, and on the authors themselves. Besides looking at literary sources touching on the aforementioned aspects, the evaluation considers the perspective of people with an affinity for art ..read more

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article focuses on young people as producers of cultural heritage and, in particular, on their drawing practices. Based on ten in-depth interviews with youth (aged 11–20) living in Sweden, we explore young people's digital drawing practices and what these mean to their everyday lives. This is relevant to the production of descriptive metadata when young people's pictures become a part of cultural heritage. Our analysis illustrates how young people engage with pictures that circulate across time, space, relationships and mediums, c ..read more

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article suggests a new model for artist engagement by analysing challenges independent visual artists face in Serbia due to the shift to neoliberal capitalism. The aim is to address the alienation of independent visual artists from broader socio-political issues and to improve their social status through a socio-emancipatory mission of artistic practice. The methodology involves analysing international working conditions for artists, different cultural policy models, and alternative modes of artistic engagement, as well as case st ..read more

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. The Mexican state has been an active agent in the construction of cultural institutions and infrastructure for more than a century. But the symbolic and political currency of the cultural sector is not reflected in stable conditions for creative workers who exist precariously. In this article, we explore a manifestation of the simultaneous state of prominence and precarity in procurement regimes implemented by federal government agencies before the Covid-19 crisis, and support programmes from the federal and local government of Mexico ..read more

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article delves into the collaborative efforts that unfolded in the creation of the 2012 exhibition ‘TOKUSATSU: Special Effects Museum – Craftsmanship of Showa and Heisei Eras Seen through Miniatures’, which in turn paved the way for the establishment of institutional facilities for popular culture. Specifically, this article explores the collaborative dynamics of two recently established facilities: the Anime Tokusatsu Archive Center in Tokyo (2017) and the Sukagawa Tokusatsu Archive Center (2020) in Sukagawa, Fukushima. Sukagawa ..read more

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. To mediate the tensions between state regulation and content-creator incentives, Chinese social media platforms have developed an interesting practice of using platform official accounts to communicate their rules to the creator community. These accounts anthropomorphize platforms, enabling platforms to represent their regulatory bodies using fictional human characters or animated figures. The phenomenon of platform anthropomorphization in the Chinese context stems from a different ontological understanding of platform governance. The ..read more

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. Transmedia storytelling is a strategy adopted by media franchises and brands to create participatory story-worlds for their consumers; it incorporates a range of forms, actors, and texts, all of which have varying degrees of narrative authority in determining the events that occur. This article focuses on tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons to show how play cultures in Singapore are shaped by transmedia storytelling techniques. In doing so, it makes two contributions to existing research: first, it shifts scholarly focus ..read more

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. There is a major blindspot regarding our understanding of different structural models of platformization beyond the dominant Anglo-American markets. This article develops a typology of political economic models of platformization by using the case of music platformization. In order to generate such a typology, the article proposes that we start by identifying variables present in any music market around the world. Three different variables are proposed: (1) platform dependence; (2) dominance of ‘global’ platforms; and (3) the degree of ..read more

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. This article investigates the influence of YouTube's monetization metrics on content creation practices and their reflection of geopolitical and economic factors. Using the case study of “Team Azimkiya,” a Bangladeshi YouTube channel primarily targeting South Korean viewers, the study introduces the concept of “global CPM arbitrage.” CPM, or cost per 1000 impressions, estimates advertising revenue for channels. Global CPM arbitrage characterizes content creators’ strategic approach to leverage varying CPM rates across geographic region ..read more

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Ahead of Print. The short-video platform TikTok/Douyin becomes a space not only for individuals to express and articulate their interests, but also for the authorities to negotiate with the public on various ideological boundaries. This article specifically examines a Douyin campaign in which the platform attempts to prescribe a standard of body exposure that falls within the tolerance level of the authorities and, meanwhile, favours users’ interests to gain support. To conceptualize such discursive negotiations and the relevant tactics, we propose th ..read more