Netflix Australia launch could be imminent

Netflix\u27s success has been a phenomenon in the United States and where it has migrated as a source for the distribution of film and television content in recent years. Now producing and distributing original series such as House of Cards and Arrested Development, Netflix is building a successful model that could move into the australian market in future months

Intercommunication and persona: the intercommunicative public self

Through two concepts, this paper investigates how online culture is shifting our understanding of media, communication and what could be described as the public sphere. The concept of intercommunication is developed to explicate how online culture blends what has often been seen as separate domains: there is now a higher fluidity between what is seen as media and what is seen as a form of communication. In effect, there is now an interpersonal mediation of communication through social media where what we like and dislike is shared and exchanged. The result of this different structure of communication is a transforming public sphere that highlights how the personal dimension of communicationis privileged. To unpack this shifted structure of media and communication, the paper develops the concept of persona. Persona, as a structure and presentation of personal identity for different publics, helps us understand how the individualhas to present themselves strategically and tactically in this intercommunicative world. Through a series of examples that analyse memes, social network identity, and communication, and new iterations of what could be construed as private,public, and professional identity, the paper investigates this emerging "intercommunicative public self.&rdquo

Recognition culture (blog)

In response to Stuart Hall\u27s Kilburn Manifesto where Hall considers celebrity culture as one of the inhibitors in forming a new political collective and agency, this article explores what it labels as a politics of recognition and a recognition culture and the different ways the current generation of the technologies of the social produce different formations of collectives

Seriality and persona

 Persona is a public presentation of identity. One of the key values of a persona is its consistency in its presentation of the self. This article is designed to be the first exploratory steps and overview in charting the idea of seriality in relation to persona and its utility as a concept to describe the constancy and transformation of identity that is now elemental to understanding contemporary persona or the public presentation of the self and its online manifestations. Seriality in terms of persona is first investigated from its entertainment culture origins – with its use in the constitution of characters in fiction in novels, films, games and most prevalently in television. Several examples of serial persona will be analysed with an emphasis on how television has constructed often the most powerful personas: Kevin Spacey’s persona as Frank Underwood in House of Cards is discussed in greater detail in terms of the economic, cultural and affective value of serial persona and its associated formations of risk. It then explores the blending of the fictional and the real in seriality through how popular music performers – in particular Eminem - construct an authentic register of persona to allow for the exploration of the self through emotion and connection. The article concludes with thinking how seriality is connected to the constitutions of online identity and links the concept with aspects of virality and meme culture and their constructions of value, patterns and constancy as it relate to the presentation of the public self

Renewing cultural studies

Renew is an awkward word. Its prefix seems to make its idea of something \u27new\u27 impossible. And everyday experience further underlines the contradiction. My first memory of using the word \u27renew\u27 was related to the anxiety of library overdue books: renewing those books was a pragmatic way to avoid the impending fines. This is a useful starting point for pondering any cultural moment of renewal. Renew describes the impetus towards change while acknowledging the past\u27s weighted effect on producing any transformation. It articulates a challenged continuity rather than a break or discontinuity with a particular past. Where I would like to take this idea of renewal is into the realm of cultural studies and its continuing intellectual project through two efforts or essays