1:00-1:50 (Hybrid) : Researching ‘Creativity and Culture’ in Short Video Platforms

Dr D. Bondy Valdovinos KAYE

Abstract

This talk presents an overview of three different perspectives on the study of short video platforms. Beginning with a brief overview of the platform (Kaye et al., 2022), the first research perspective is digital media studies and the ‘parallel platformization’ of cultural production on TikTok and its sister app Douyin in Chinese and international markets (Kaye et al., 2020). The second is psychological research perspectives to explore how short video platforms afford and constrain social creativity among jazz musicians collaborating on TikTok (Kaye, 2022). The third is science and technology studies (STS) through a case study of sociotechnical norms and practices of giving attribution, or giving proper credit for reusing works, on TikTok (Kaye et al., 2021). Though this talk focuses on the short video platform TikTok, these perspectives offer a variety of productive interdisciplinary approaches for the empirical study of other short video platforms, accompanied by reviews of the methodologies employed for each different approach.

References

Kaye, D. B. V. (2022). Please duet this: Collaborative music making in lockdown on TikTok.

Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, 15(1), Article 1.

https://ojs.meccsa.org.uk/index.php/netknow/article/view/654

Kaye, D. B. V., Chen, X., & Zeng, J. (2021). The co-evolution of two Chinese mobile short video apps: Parallel platformization of Douyin and TikTok. Mobile Media & Communication, 9(2), 229–253. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050157920952120

Kaye, D. B. V., Rodriguez, A., Langton, K., & Wikström, P. (2021). You made this? I made this: Practices of authorship and (mis)attribution on TikTok. International Journal of Communication,15. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/14544

Kaye, D. B. V., Zeng, J., & Wikström, P. (2022). TikTok: Creativity and culture in short video. Polity Press.

2:00-2:50 (Hybrid) : Improvising methods: adapting to medium-specificities of livestreams and short videos

Dr Dino Ge ZHANG

Abstract

This talk is a cross-medium reflection of ethnographic/digital methods, building on my research since 2015, on multiple Chinese video platforms from Douyu (a predominantly livestreaming platform) to BiliBili (a hybrid subcultural-going-mainstream platform)to Kuaishou (a regional-failed-to-go-global short video platform) to WeChat (WeChat in this case is seen as a platform of circulating video objects). Practically speaking, each platform has its own sociotechnical specificities that cannot be overridden with a unified methodological principle – the doing of digital ethnography thus relies on devising a repertoire of methods and/or toolsets on-the-go or in Rogers (2013)’s words “methods of the medium” (but extended to the specific platform), not necessarily “anything goes” but certainly it requires a certain degree of experimental spirit that is sensitive to the capriciousness of platform shifts. But this approach of “live methods” (Back and Puwar 2012) also needs to come to terms with the failure of being untimely instead of incessantly chasing the “real-time” and therefore being trapped in the now. At this juncture, anthropological critiques of structural solidity are also very helpful in getting over the presupposition of identifying or even constructing a durable structure in our research. 

Back, L., & Puwar, N. (2012). A manifesto for live methods: Provocations and capacities. Sociological Review, 60(S1), 6–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2012.02114.x

Rogers, R. (2013). Digital Methods. MIT Press.