Departmental Papers (ASC)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
1-2020
Publication Source
Social Media + Society
Start Page
1
Last Page
11
DOI
10.1177/2056305119898779
Abstract
Arguing that questions of power expressed through aesthetic form are too often left out of current approaches to digital culture, this article revives the modernist aesthetic category of glamour in order to analyze contemporary forms of platformed cultural production. Through a case study of popular feminism, the article traces the ways in which glamour, defined as a beguiling affective force linked to promotional capitalist logics, suffuses digital content, metrics, and platforms. From the formal aesthetic codes of the ubiquitous beauty and lifestyle Instagram feeds that perpetuate the beguiling promise of popular feminism, to the enticing simplicity of online metrics and scores that promise transformative social connection and approbation, to the political economic drive for total information awareness and concomitant disciplining, predicting and optimizing of consumer-citizens, the article argues that the ambivalent aesthetic of glamour provides an apt descriptor and compelling heuristic for digital cultural production today.
Copyright/Permission Statement
Alison Hearn & Sarah Banet-Weiser. “The Beguiling: Glamour In/As Platformed Cultural Production.” Social Media + Society, January 2020 Copyright © [2020] (Sage). Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications
Keywords
digital media, platforms, aesthetics, feminism, glamour
Recommended Citation
Banet-Weiser, S. (2020). The Beguiling: Glamour in/as Platformed Cultural Production. Social Media + Society, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119898779
Date Posted: 20 February 2023
This document has been peer reviewed.