A Special-themed collection with the journal Platforms & Society

Out now! Special-themed collection “Ambient Amplification: Memecry Across Platforms,” with Platforms & Society, edited by Elena Pilipets and Marloes Geboers and including 10 individual articles

What comes into focus when we approach memes through the affective interplay of user practices and algorithmic systems? The editorial introduction to Volume One situates the collection’s ten methodological and conceptual reflections around a series of shifts that “foreground the background” of contemporary platform cultures: from viral events toward surrounding adaptations and remixes; from metrics to affinity-based algorithmic approximation; from memes as content to vibe-based riffing on affective orientations; and from visibility to ambiguity resistant to quantification.

Please find links to the individual articles below. Happy reading, and stay tuned for the forthcoming call for contributions to Volume Two!

All contributions:

• Elena Pilipets and Marloes Geboers Ambient Amplification: Memecry Across Platforms
• Susanna Paasonen Affect and memes: Ambiguity abounds 
• Stijn Peeters and Tom Willaert ‘Dark metrics’ and the mainstreaming of political extremism on Dutch-speaking Telegram
• Nicola Righetti and Richard Rogers Coordinated inauthentic behaviour on Facebook? A typology of manufactured attention 
• Sal Hagen, Daniël de Zeeuw, and Tommaso Venturini Digital rhythmanalysis: Studying memetic and affective rhythms on the post-viral Web
• Marcus Bösch and Tom Divon Dancing in uniform: Thirst trap propaganda in military image wars on TikTok 
• Boris Noordenbos and Marc Tuters The counter-hegemonic hegemon: A cross-platform analysis of a Kremlin-backed strategic narrative
• Marloes Geboers, Elena Pilipets, Idil Galip and Julia Bee Amplification, communities, platforms: Reclaiming space with Idil Galip and Julia Bee
• Jing Zeng, Qinghao Guan, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández, and Xiran Liu How do multi-modal large language models understand non-English visual hate?
• Fraser Crichton and Guillén Torres (Re)Generating Hate 
• Elena Pilipets and Marloes Geboers Synthetic imaginaries of “sensitive” AI: On ambient amplification and jail(break)ing as method