Textual Cacophony: Online Video and Anonymity in Japan

Daniel Johnson

Published by Cornell University Press 2023

Textual Cacophony

Online Video and Anonymity in Japan

Daniel Johnson

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501772283

Overview
Contents

About this book

Textual Cacophony explores the behaviors and routines of communication within anonymous internet culture in Japan. Focusing on the video sharing website Niconico, social media aggregation sites, and the notorious 2channel message board, Daniel Johnson uncovers these sites' complex cultures of writing that obscure meaning through playful and opaque forms of deviant script and overwhelming waves of text. Those practices conflate language with images, meaning with play, and confound individual representation with aggregate forms of social identity.

Johnson argues that online media cultures in and around Japan are entwined with a cultural logic and visual syntax of cacophony that expresses ambivalence toward representation, media form, and distinct experiences of time. This aesthetic of cacophony provides an alternative way of expressing social identity and belonging, with an unmarked sense of anonymity providing a counter-form to the dissolving institutions and relationships of neoliberal Japan. Textual Cacophony investigates what it means and feels like to participate in this influential online culture.

Author / Editor information

Daniel Johnson is Assistant Professor of Japanese at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Reviews

Thomas Lamarre, University of Chicago, author of The Anime Ecology:

Drawing on an impressive array of English-language film and media theory and Japanese critics, Daniel Johnson offers a careful and highly informative account of a range of practices associated with social media in Japan. Textual Cacophony is well positioned to make a major contribution to media studies in general and Japanese media studies specifically.

Paul Roquet, MIT, author of The Immersive Enclosure:

Textual Cacophony weaves a thoroughly interesting path through barrage-style media in Japan, illuminating how much this approach has spread beyond the country and how it cuts across different media formats. The implications extend far past the book's own fascinating context.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgment Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Note on Romanization Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: Lost in the Crowd Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Animated Writing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
2. Characters of Language Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
3. Repertoire and Accumulation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
4. Collecting, Copying, and Copyright Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
5. Scripted Laughter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Postscript: Out of Time Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 176
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 16
- Images: 16
- Other: 16 b&w halftones
Keywords: nico nico; 2channel; linguistics; japanese media; netspeak; social identity; social disconnection; anonymous communication; electronic text; political association

eBook

Published: October 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781501772283