Short video platforms, from TikTok/Douyin to Kuaishou and others, as well as the introduction of short video elements to older platforms, marks one of the major shifts in our contemporary global media ecology.  The sudden rise and influence of these modes of communication, also mean that methodological discussions of how best to research the content, communities and wider implications of Short Video platforms are in many ways in their infancy. Moreover, the increasing rate of change within these digital media ecologies posit significant challenges to how we frame Short Video methodologies. This half-day workshop invites scholars who are researching Short Videos, or plan to start a Short Video project to work with researchers who have recently completed projects on Short Video platforms. 

Funded and hosted by the University of Sheffield Digital Society Network (DSN) and the School of East Asian Studies (SEAS) this workshop is intended to help scholars develop their short video methodologies, and reflect upon the wider implications of these developments. Despite the long history of East Asian platform design thinking on global markets (Steinberg 2019), the prominence of these ‘up and coming’ modes of communication are often approached in ahistorical or technoculturally ethnocentric ways. Short Video platforms remind us of the importance of East Asian platform designs and content developments in the ways media content is imagined, consumed and desired. With these conversations in mind, this workshop also invites researchers to consider how researching digital media today increasingly necessitates embracing ‘Asia as method’ approaches (Chen 2010).

Steinberg, M., 2019. The platform economy: How Japan transformed the consumer internet. U of Minnesota Press.

Chen, K.H., 2010. Asia as method: Toward deimperialization. Duke University Press.