This volume explores drag in global online spaces as a distinct departure from the established success, and limitations, of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Centred around discourses of LGBTQ+ visibility and political mobilization, the volume addresses how these discourses have moved beyond the increasingly limited qualities of the television series to reconfigure the parameters of drag in emerging communities and spaces. By reconceiving of drag in new settings, this volume uncovers the crucial social and political potential for community-building in an increasingly fragmented and isolated global space. Chapters by a diverse team of authors delve into the recognition of new articulations of LGBTQ+ visibility and political mobility through drag in online space; the implications of drag celebrity for issues such as labor and profit in the digital sphere; the (re)appropriation of mainstream drag in emerging online environments and communities; and the reverberations of drag in underrepresented and underresearched areas of the world. Offering new insights into the rise of drag in a global digital public sphere, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of media studies, cultural studies, digital media and cultural studies, critical race studies, gender studies, sexuality studies, queer theory, film, and television studies.

This book explores drag performance in London since 2009 via the pubs, bars and clubs that make LGBTQ+ communities thrive. It studies the complex relationship between drag performance, LGBTQ+ venues and queer communities. In exploring drag performance, the book develops a greater understanding of the connection between drag performance and queer communities, in particular exploring how drag might facilitate queer communities and offer queer modes of survival and resistance for queer people. Through this, the book describes a contemporary moment in which drag performance is increasingly popular and increasingly important at a time when homophobic and transphobic violence is prevalent, and LGBTQ+ venues are often under threat of closure. Understanding the increased/increasing mainstream popularity of drag, the book examines drag performance that is connected to and resists mainstream attention in order to account for its complexity in London (and beyond). This book takes the author’s engagement with and love for drag and exerts a critical, political and queer pull in order to develop new terrains of queer studies and queer performance studies.

This book offers a collection of scholarly writing on the meanings of happiness in relation to consumption. The concept of happiness in relation to consumption deserves critical attention. While administrative marketing scholars might take for granted the notion that consumption and brand engagement produces positive affects in consumers, such as enjoyment and thrill, more analysis and theoretical exploration are needed to shed light on what that satisfaction and pleasure means in the context of an increasingly unjust and unequal world. This question is particularly pressing in terms of exploring consumer cultures in the global south. The chapters in this volume explore how material practices link to structures of power and exploitation. Taken together, they offer nuanced insight into what notions of a good and fulfilling life mean both to individual consumers and to the societies in which they participate, especially when those societies are characterised by inequality and poverty alongside wealth and elite consumption. This collection places the spotlight on consumption practices, that is, the various forms of social action including communication and marketing that are implemented in everyday life, in relation to the market economy, with and through it. This book will be of great value to students and scholars who are interested in the everyday practices of consumption within a range of fields such as business and management, sociology, media and cultural studies. The chapters in this book were originally published in Consumption Markets & Culture.

This book examines the nexus of East Asian media, culture, and digital technologies in the early 21st century from a Global South perspective. Providing an empirically rich analysis of the emergence of Asian culture, histories, texts, and state policies as they relate to both Asian media and global media, the author discusses relevant theoretical frameworks as East Asian popular culture and media have shifted the contours of globalization. After overviewing Western media/cultural theories and histories, the book explores the ways in which East Asia-focused analytical frameworks are able to shift people’s understanding of globalization and media, drawing upon examples from different East Asian countries to illustrate how current cultural flows have influenced and have been influenced by a handful of dimensions. Offering an important contribution to understanding the historical trajectory and recent developments of East Asia media, this book will interest students and scholars of media, communication, popular culture, cultural studies, Asian studies, politics and sociology.

This book is a cultural history of post-Wall urban, social, political, and cultural transformations in Berlin. Branding Berlin: From Division to the Cultural Capital of Europe presents a cultural analysis of Berlin’s cultural production, including literature, film, memoirs and non-fiction works, art, media, urban branding campaigns, and cultural diversity initiatives put forth by the Berlin Senate, and allows readers to understand the various changes that transformed the formerly divided city of voids into a hip cultural capital. The book examines Berlin’s branding, urban-economic development, and its search for a post-Wall identity by focusing on manifestations of nostalgic longing in documentary films and other cultural products. Building on the sociological research of urban branding and linking it with an interpretive analysis of cultural products generated in Berlin during that time, the author examines the intersections and tensions between the nostalgic views of the past and the branded images of Berlin’s present and future. This insightful and innovative work will interest scholars and students of cultural and media studies, branding and advertising, urban communication, film studies, visual culture, tourism, and cultural memory.

Reasserting the Disney Brand in the Streaming Era investigates the evolution of the Disney brand at a pivotal moment – the move from content creation to acquisition and streaming – and how the company reasserted its brand in a changing marketplace. Exploring how Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Fox positioned the company to launch the Disney+ streaming service, the chapters look at the history of those acquisitions, and the deployment of the content, brands, and intellectual property from those acquisitions, through an analysis of the original content that appeared on Disney+. Offering a focused investigation of how the content offered from these various media brands was adapted for Disney+ so that it reflects the Disney brand, the authors illustrate through close textual analysis how this content reflects elements of the "Classic Disney Style." The analysis positions these texts in relation to their industrial contexts, while also identifying important touchstone texts (both television and film) in Disney's catalog. This comprehensive and thoughtful analysis will interest upper-level students and scholars of media studies, political economy, Disney studies, media industries and new technology.

This book offers a thorough examination of digital work by women comedians in the US, exploring their use of digital media to perform jokes, engage with fans, remake their reputations, and become political activists. This book argues that despite its many adverse effects, digital work is changing comedy, empowering women to create new comic forms and negotiate the contentious political climate incited by former President Donald. J. Trump. Chapters are focused on video podcasting, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and the streaming platform Netflix – each containing informative case studies on significant women comedians who use them, including Sarah Silverman, Amy Schumer, Leslie Jones, Mindy Kaling, Colleen Ballinger, Lilly Singh, Ms. Pat, Whitney Cummings, Issa Rae, and others. To understand their strategies, this book examines the popularity of their digital content, their career outcomes in television and film, as well as the ups and downs of their critical reputations in magazines, newspapers, the trade press, and with their participatory audiences online. This insightful and timely work will appeal to scholars researching and teaching in the areas of media studies, digital communication, gender studies, and performance.

Focused on understanding and analyzing LGBTQ activism and protest globally, this edited collection brings together voices from different parts of the world to examine LGBTQ protests and their impact. Through the lens of media, culture, and sociopolitical structures, this collection highlights how cultural and technical factors like the emergence of social media and other digital platforms have impacted LGBTQ activism. This book draws on studies from countries as varied as Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Hungary, Morocco, China, and the US. The contributions provide important insight into how social media and digital platforms have provided space for self-expression and protest and encouraged advocacy and empowerment for LGBTQ movements. It also examines the diversity and similarities between different national contexts and the various obstacles faced, while spotlighting countries that are traditionally understudied in Western academia, in an important step toward decolonizing research. Each chapter, through the voices of activists and media scholars, moves beyond an oversimplified examination of queer protests to show, in rich detail, the exciting yet complicated terrain of queer protests throughout the globe. This book is suitable for media, communication, and cultural studies students; researchers; academics; and LGBTQ activists, as well as students and scholars from related academic disciplines.

London as Screen Gateway explores how London features within screen narratives and as a location of screen industry activity. Reflecting the diversity of roles the city plays both on screen and within the screen industries, the volume explores the intersection between London as a material place and its position within a cultural imaginary. Conceptualising London as an archival city, as a collection of specific places and spaces, and as a part of national and international cultural and economic flows, contributors from film studies, television studies and media studies approach London through the lenses of textual analysis, historical work, industry studies and user experience. Chapters explore how London has appeared on screen across film and television, how screen content frames notions of place and belonging within the diasporic communities across the city, how the city has become a hub for the UK and global screen industries and how it intersects with national and local media policy. This interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to scholars and students of film studies, television studies, media industry studies, games studies, cultural and media studies.