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FCJManager

FCJManager has written 15 posts for The Fibreculture Journal : 22

FCJ-163 Olympic Trolls: Mainstream Memes and Digital Discord?

Tama Leaver Curtin University Introduction During 2012, the Australian and international press frequently deployed the accusation of ‘trolling’ as part of a wider moral panic about supposedly anonymous online abuse facilitated by social media. The term trolling has been applied to a range of activities, many of which are simultaneously labelled abuse, (cyber)bullying and general […]

FCJ-159 /b/lack up: What Trolls Can Teach Us About Race

Tanner Higgin Independent Scholar I hate racists (even if I sometimes play one on the internet). Paulie Socash (Phillips, 2012) Closing Pools, Posing Questions I’d been a fringe observer of 4chan and /b/ for years, aware but ignorant of its pleasures and horrors. Then in a particularly aimless night of YouTube browsing, I watched something […]

FCJ-166 ‘Change name to No One. Like people’s status’ Facebook Trolling and Managing Online Personas

Tero Karppi University of Turku, Finland Whitney Phillips (2012: 3) has recently argued that in order to understand trolls and trolling we should focus on ‘what trolls do’ and how the behaviour of trolls ‘fit[s] in and emerge[s] alongside dominant ideologies.’ [1] For Phillips dominant ideologies are connected to the ‘corporate media logic.’ Her point […]

FCJ-162 Symbolic violence in the online field: Calls for ‘civility’ in online discussion

Shannon Sindorf University of Colorado, Boulder Introduction In light of early high hopes for the democratic potential of online discussion, the reality of attacks, hostility, vitriol, and at times racist and sexist sentiments can be alarming (Coffey and Woolworth, 2004; Carlin, Schill, Levasseur, and King, 2005; Hlavach and Frievogel, 2011; Richardson and Stanyer, 2011; Herring, […]

FCJ-154 Trolls, Peers and the Diagram of Collaboration

Nathaniel Tkacz University of Warwick I begin with two images. The first image is actually a diagram. [1] Call it the new diagram of work; specifically, of working together online. It is the diagram of collaboration. The diagram of collaboration is abstracted from any particular setting or function. There is no representation of time, and […]

FCJ-164 ‘Don’t be Rude on the Road’: Cycle Blogging, Trolling and Lifestyle

Steve Jones Nottingham Trent University Introduction In her introduction to Cyclebabble: bloggers on biking (2011: ix), the British journalist Zoe Williams argues that, whatever cyclists’ differences, ‘We revel in our differences: Lycra mankini or tweed trousers tucked into your sock? Traffic lights – a suggestion or an order? Racer or hybrid, helmet or commando, freewheel […]

FCJ-167 Spraying, fishing, looking for trouble: The Chinese Internet and a critical perspective on the concept of trolling

Gabriele de Seta Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. ‘There is always need for a certain degree of civilisation before it is possible to understand this kind of humor" Wang Xiaobo, Civilisation and Satire’ Introduction: Why trolls, why China? As an interdisciplinary field, Internet research is in the challenging position of […]

FCJ-161 Productive Provocations: Vitriolic Media, Spaces of Protest and Agonistic Outrage in the 2011 England Riots

Anthony McCosker Swinburne University, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences Amelia Johns Deakin University, Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation To act, then, is neither arriving at a scene nor fleeing from it, but actually engaging in its creation. (Isin, 2008: 27) Introduction The intense social upheaval that spread through a number of UK cities in […]

Issue 22: Trolls and the Negative Space of the Internet

Troll Theory? We only talk about trolls inside a polemic. To aver that someone is trolling is to allege that their participation conceals the aims of their disruption; by implication, they are to be excluded or dismissed. The Internet’s folk wisdom for trolls says: ‘Do not feed them!’ This remedy rests on a belief that acknowledgement and […]

FCJ-155 EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU STILL HAVE TO STEER: defining trolling to get things done

Andrew Whelan University of Wollongong This is an article investigating trolling as an observable and reportable phenomenon, and how it comes to be sensible as such to those who describe interactional or discursive forms as trolling. The interest is not so much in what trolling ‘really is’ or what trolling ‘really means’ or what trolling […]

FCJ-158 Tits or GTFO: The logics of misogyny on 4chan’s Random – /b/

Vyshali Manivannan Rutgers University Introduction: The adoption of ‘cumdumpster’ On June 15, 2008, a 4channer identified as female using the colloquial portmanteau ‘femanon’, posted an erotic photograph of herself on the Random – /b/ board, and requested advice regarding a recent breakup, a marriage proposal, and whether she could easily commit marital infidelity. She asserted […]

FCJ-157 Still ‘Searching for Safety Online’: collective strategies and discursive resistance to trolling and harassment in a feminist network

Frances Shaw University of Sydney ‘Trolling in a feminist forum’ redux The issues of trolling and cyberbullying are often linked in the media (see for example Brockie, 2012, which is emblematic of these discourses). Although both harassers and trolls are present as a problem for feminist blogs, I see trolling and harassment as separate issues. […]

FCJ-160 Politics is Serious Business: Jacques Rancière, Griefing, and the Re-Partitioning of the (Non)Sensical

Steve Holmes. Department of English, George Mason University. Lulzpolitik ‘We do not sleep, we do not eat, and we do not feel remorse. We will tear you apart from outside and in, we have all the time in the world.’ (Anonymous) Trolling is a difficult phenomenon to classify in terms of its political orientation. Some […]

FCJ-165 Obama Trolling: Memes, Salutes and an Agonistic Politics in the 2012 Presidential Election

Benjamin Burroughs University of Iowa If the 2008 American Presidential election is known for being the first modern Internet campaign, then perhaps the 2012 American election should be known as the first real social media campaign. While social networking was a major part of the 2008 campaign, with users enacting socio-technical linkages primarily between Youtube […]

FCJ-156 Hacking the Social: Internet Memes, Identity Antagonism, and the Logic of Lulz.

Ryan M. Milner College of Charleston Violentacrez and the Antagonistic Internet ‘A troll exploits social dynamics like computer hackers exploit security loopholes…’ (Adrian Chen, 2012 October 12) In October 2012, reddit – a popular link aggregation service and public discussion forum – was embroiled in a prominent controversy. Adrian Chen, a journalist for the news […]