[Air-L] FW: [MCJ] M/C Journal 'cute' Issue Now Available

[Axel Bruns]

G'day !

This may be of interest to some of you. Includes scientific proof that the Internet is indeed made of cats.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Axel Bruns [mailto:editor at media-culture.org.au]
> Sent: Thursday, 1 May 2014 10:26
> To: Axel Bruns
> Subject: [MCJ] M/C Journal 'cute' Issue Now Available
> 
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 1 May 2014
> 
>                           M/C - Media and Culture
>            is proud to present issue two in volume seventeen of
> 
>                                 M/C Journal
>                    http://journal.media-culture.org.au/
> 
>              'cute' - Edited by James Meese and Ramon Lobato
> 
> Cute content is a fundamental but under-researched component of the Internet
> economy. Millions of people around the world start their day with videos of
> kittens, puppies and meerkats. Recent years have seen the rise of global
> animal brands, such as Maru and Grumpy Cat, along with new talent agencies
> for this purpose. Online portal I Can Haz Cheezburger has received millions
> of dollars in venture capital funding, becoming a diversified media business
> in its own right. YouTube channels, Twitter hashtags and blog rolls form an
> infrastructure across which a vast amount of cute-themed user-generated
> content, as well as an increasing amount of commercially produced and branded
> material, now circulates.
> 
> Cute content can also be understood as an aesthetic tradition. Tracing the
> history of animal imagery leads us to a range of practices - kitsch
> portraiture, stock photography, greeting card imagery - as well as newer
> online spaces, such as the 4chan message boards, which have resignified the
> captioned cat pic as a geek subcultural practice. Approaching cute content as
> a sphere of contemporary cultural production raises a number of questions for
> analysis. How can we contextualise digital cute content within a longer
> history of mediated human-animal interactions? What is the nature of animal
> celebrity and stardom? What textual forms does online cute imagery take in
> different national and regional contexts? This issue of M/C Journal explores
> 'cute' as a mode of textual production and as a sector of the Internet
> economy.
> 
> ===========================================================================
> Further M/C Journal issues scheduled for 2014:
> 
> 'persona':        article deadline 25 Apr. 2014,  release date 25 June 2014
> 'gothic':         article deadline 20 June 2014,  release date 20 Aug. 2014
> 'illegitimate':   article deadline 15 Aug. 2014,  release date 15 Oct. 2014
> 'counterculture': article deadline 10 Oct. 2014,  release date 10 Dec. 2014
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> M/C Journal 17.2 is now online: <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/>.
> Previous issues of M/C Journal on various topics are also still available.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Visit M/C Journal and M/C Reviews at <http://www.media-culture.org.au/>.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> All contributors are available for media contacts: mc at media-culture.org.au.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> M/C Journal
> Vol. 17, No. 2 (2014) - 'cute'
> Table of Contents
> http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/issue/view/cute
> 
> Editorial
> --------
> Kittens All the Way Down: Cute in Context
> 	Ramon Lobato,	James Meese
> 
> 
> Feature
> --------
> “It Belongs to the Internet”: Animal Images, Attribution Norms and the
> Politics of Amateur Media Production
> 	James Meese
> 
> 
> Articles
> --------
> The Alchian-Allen Theorem and the Economics of Internet Animals
> 	Jason Potts
> 
> Do Cats Know They Rule YouTube? Surveillance and the Pleasures of Cat Videos
> 	Radha O'Meara
> 
> Cute But Relaxed:  Ten Years of Rilakkuma in Precarious Japan
> 	Carolyn Shannon Stevens
> 
> “Meng? It Just Means Cute”: A Chinese Online Vernacular Term in Context
> 	Gabriele de Seta
> 
> Cute and Monstrous Furbys in Online Fan Production
> 	Catherine Barbara Caudwell
> 
> Cute-ifying Disability: Lil Bub, the Celebrity Cat
> 	Elaine M Laforteza
> 
> Because Neglect Isn't Cute: Tuxedo Stan's Campaign for a Humane World
> 	Shari Sanders
> 
> I Can Haz Likes: Cultural Intermediation to Facilitate “Petworking”
> 	Jonathon Hutchinson
> 
> 
> --
> M/C Journal              http://journal.media-culture.org.au/


--
Dr Axel Bruns   http://snurb.info/ - http://mappingonlinepublics.net/
ARC Future Fellow, 2014-17   http://www.amazon.com/author/axel.bruns/
Associate Professor, Media & Communication         a.bruns at qut.edu.au
ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation  http://cci.edu.au/
Creative Industries Faculty, Z1-515, CIP              @snurb_dot_info
Queensland University of Technology                    +61 7 31385548
Musk Ave, Kelvin Grove, Qld. 4059, Australia       CRICOS No.: 00213J