A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Emily Lynell Edwards explores how office or knowledge work is performed on BeReal. Edwards cautiously explores the consciousness-raising potentials of these performances of work within the platform to illustrate how BeReal reflects broader shifts in contemporary labor politics.
Read moreJasmine Banks, Mel Monier, and Olivia Stowell examine the desires for authenticity and nostalgia at the core of BeReal’s affordances. These authors argue that the staying power of this app is yet to be seen, the structures of feelings evoked and constructed through the app’s design points towards enduring subject-making processes of the digital.
Read moreTaylor Annabell examines how the platform BeReal encourages visibility through smiling selfies. Annabell argues this directive of happiness reveals how the construction of authenticity has particular implications for young women.
Read moreJ.D. Swerzenski and Brendan McCauley examine how BeReal creates discursive boundaries of reality through its format and platform design. The authors argue BeReal shows how our contemporary conception of “real” is always already produced by and for screens.
Read moreYou’re working remotely at a local coffee shop. Waiting at the baggage carousel for your suitcase to arrive at the airport. Attending the funeral of a loved one. Standing in line at the bank. Suddenly, your phone pings with an all too familiar notification. It’s time to BeReal.
Read moreAnanya Reddy & Priya C. Kumar detail their findings on how college students understand impression management and BeReal.
Read moreTim Highfield explores BeReal through the platform and users’ relationship to temporal authenticity.
Read moreWhat exactly should we be anxious about when it comes to BeReal? Wisnewski-Parks’ claim is that we need to pay attention to what BeReal reveals about attitudes towards authenticity, identity, and agency, particularly as they relate to the vital social process of profile-building.
Read moreDan Vena and Sarah Woodstock argue that Netflix’s removal of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story from its LGBTQ TV category discards “unacceptable” queer history and protects the homonormativity of Netflix’s LGBTQ library.
Read moreDr. Jabari Evans discusses misogynoir and Black women’s erotic and cultural capital in Hip-Hop culture through Issa Rae’s Rap Sh!t
Read moreDr. Mia Fischer takes a closer look at the rightwing media’s rhetoric of fear-mongering regarding anti-trans legislation.
Read moreDr. Germaine Halegoua explores how life has been changed by digital imaginaries and infrastructures.
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