Virtual Identities and Digital Culture

Victoria Kannen is a Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Advisor of Research at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. She is the author of Gendered Bodies and Public Scrutiny: Women’s Stories of Staring, Strangers, and Fierce Resistance (2021). She is also the co-editor of The Spaces and Places of Canadian Popular Culture (2019). Aaron Langille is a Professor and Coordinator of the Game Design program at Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario. He is a regular columnist on CBC radio where he talks about games, technology, and the impact of our digital lives. He is currently writing two textbooks, one of which is on learning to program through analogies and, the other, is on learning to program through games.

Section 1: Online Identity and Connections 1. "Hey Handsome": Gay Dating Apps and a Critical Digital Pedagogy of Identity 2. "We’re here for you during this pandemic, just not financially or emotionally": What TikTok Reveals About Student Life During the Pandemic 3. Mediated Identities: How Facebook Intervenes in the Virtual Manifestation of our Identities 4. Reassessing Clicktivism: A Tool of the (Pandemic) Times 5. "Victims of the System": Anti-Government Discourse and Political Influencers Online 6. From Networks to Assemblages: An Analysis of Feminist Activism Against Digital Violence in Mexico 7. Navigating Nii’kinaaganaa (All My Relations) Online 8. Virtually Authentic? Digital Bodies, "Blank" Squares, and Staring Online.9. From a Group of Friends to a Mainstream Audience: Critical Role and New Media Publics Section 2: Games & Play 10. Not All Fun and Games in #MyPokeHood: The Politics and Pitfalls of Universal Game Design in Pokémon GO! 11. Lip Dubbing for Fido: Listening to the Internet through Viral Pet Video Memes 12. ‘Turn Off That Friggin’ Radio!’: The Canadian Soldier Figure and Identity Formation in Videogames 13. Inventing with Zoom: How Play and Games Uncover Affordances in Digital Environments 14. Interfaces and Their Affordances: Critical Game Design, Identity, and Community in MMORPGs 15. Better than the Real You? VR, Identity, Privacy, and the Metaverse 16. Our War Game: Hacker Games as Laborious Play 17. Listening to and Playing Along with the Soundscapes of Videogame Environments Section 3: Reimagining Traditional Media 18. Netflix as the New Television Screen: A Queer Investigation into Streaming, Algorithms, and Schitt$ Creek 19. The Missing Live Ingredient: The Search for Ephemerality in the Screening and Streaming of Theatre 20. From Video Tape Exchange Networks to On-Demand Streaming Platforms: The Circulation of Independent Canadian Film and Video in the Digital Era 21. Platforms and Poetry as a Popular Form of Engagement 22. Lil Nas X, TikTok, and the Evolution of Music Engagement on Social Networking Sites 23. "No Friends in the Industry": The Dominance of Tech Companies on Digital Music 24. Say Their Name: How Online News Reports the Death of Transgender People and its Intersection with Transnormativity 25. The ‘Affinityscapes’ of Young Adult Dystopias: A study of The Hunger Games Series’ Participatory Culture 26. Reboot and Rebirth: Artificial Intelligence and Spiritual Existence in The Good Place