- Convenor:
-
Shoji Yamada
(NICHIBUNKEN)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Media Studies
Short Abstract
The papers in this panel address media formations across a broad temporal span that focus on how amateur and fan practices generate commons-like environments. It explores how these environments are sustained, transformed, or undone by shifting technologies, regulations, and market pressures.
Long Abstract
Amateur and fan-driven practices operating at the margins commercial activities do more than circulate existing cultural commodities. These practices incubate aesthetic experiments, spawn unforeseen media forms, and foster modes of communication that would not otherwise exist. Japan, with its varied history of amateur media movements, globally resonant fan cultures, and recent efflorescence of platform-based creative communities, offers exceptionally fertile ground for investigating the productive dimension of cultural commons.
The three papers in this panel address distinct media formations across a broad temporal span. From early twentieth-century amateur radio, filmmaking, and TV broadcasting to the contested terrain of manga scanlation since the 2010s and the rapidly evolving world of VTubers today, what unites these papers is their shared focus on how amateur and fan practices generate commons-like environments and how these environments are sustained, transformed, or undone by shifting technologies, enforcements, and market pressures.
The first paper surveys the boom-and-bust cycles of amateur media in 20th-century Japan, including radio in the 1920s, filmmaking from 1930s to 70s, and grassroots TV broadcasting in the 1970s. The paper asks why these practices succeeded in fostering a sense of the common at certain moments and why that sense was difficult to maintain.
The second paper examines manga scanlations: fan-produced translations that once fueled the global spread of manga but have since been redefined as piracy that must be policed. The landscape of manga translation has shifted dramatically with the rise of official simultaneous releases, platform-based translation programs, and AI-assisted workflows. This paper traces these changes and considers what is lost, reconfigured, or newly contested when translation moves from an informal communal activity to an institutionally managed infrastructure.
The third paper examines VTubing (=the generation of YouTube videos by use of an animated avatar with the original voice of the VTuber) culture as an example of an internet-based cultural commons. The presenter, a professor and active VTuber, uses participant observation and sociological research to analyze how freely available software and the accumulated layers of internet culture allow amateur creators to participate in content creation and community building, even as corporate VTubers dominate public attention.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
The paper takes a comparative view of amateur radio, amateur filmmaking, and amateur TV broadcast practices over the 20th century in Japan. This allows for conclusions on how and why these amateur media practices are at certain times successful in creating a sense of commons – until they are not.
Paper long abstract
The paper asks what patterns we can discern in the cycles of the emergence and receding of various amateur media practices in Japan over the 20th century. Taking a comparative view of the lifecycles of electric media practices such as amateur radio, amateur filmmaking, and amateur TV broadcasts will allow for drawing conclusions on how and why these practices are successful in creating a sense of commons – until they are not (and sometimes are again later). Different technological affordances and differing systems of governance influence the “boom and bust” cycles of amateur radio (1920s), amateur film (1930s, then 1950s, then 1970s) or TV broadcasts (1970s). But the paper also investigates how these media technologies allow for the creation of networks that bring a precarious sense of a commons into existence, and why they cannot sustain it.
To explore that issue, the paper draws on Thomas Lamarre’s analysis of how the production of media-technological distribution can create a sense of “coming into common” and relates it to Nakai Masakazu’s idea of “common labor” to better understand the interaction of the media-technological situation and the formation of a commons through “amateur” activities. In terms of the larger historical arc, the paper concludes with a consideration of the changes in the status of the term “amateur” itself towards the end of the 20th century.
Paper short abstract
This paper revisits scanlation—fan-made manga translation—through the lens of cultural commons. Tracing changes in manga translation and its associated milieus since the 2010s, it highlights the challenges industry- and institution-led efforts face in promoting manga translation globally.
Paper long abstract
Fan-generated manga translations, or so-called scanlations, have long been regarded as one of the key drivers of manga’s global circulation, cultivating transnational readerships and informal infrastructures of access. From the 2010s onwards, however, the growth of overseas markets and the expansion of the e-book market have increasingly reframed scanlation as ‘piracy’ to be policed and eradicated, and as a practice that has already ‘done its job’ and should now disappear.
In parallel, this period has seen a series of industry attempts to scale up official translation, from simultaneous releases to the proliferation of platform-based translation programmes. Most recently, the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into manga translation and the rise of manga translation business that utilises machine translation have substantially increased the volume and speed of multilingual releases. At the same time, however, such endeavours have provoked widespread criticism on online platforms concerning the ethics of translation and automation, revealing new tensions around labour, expertise, and value.
In light of these developments, the paper revisits scanlation through the lens of cultural commons, with a particular focus on manga translation into English. It analyses how the nature of fan translation practices and the socio-technical milieus in which they are situated have shaped scanlation’s roles in mediating access, enriching the translation landscape, and negotiating legitimacy and cultural value. The analysis also draws on textual examples, policy documents, and industry discourses to uncover the changing articulations of ‘piracy’, modes of creativity, and participation.
The paper then compares these historical configurations with those surrounding contemporary official manga translation after the intensified policing of scanlation as piracy. By juxtaposing fan-based, commons-like environments with more institutionalised, policy-driven regimes of translation, including initiatives led by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs and others, it elucidates both the challenges and the possibilities of current efforts to promote manga translation internationally. In doing so, it asks what is lost, reconfigured, or newly imagined when manga translation moves from informally governed cultural commons to more tightly managed and partially automated infrastructures.
Paper short abstract
The presenter, who is both a university professor and an active VTuber, will give a presentation based on data obtained through participant observation and sociological research of VTuber activities, discussing content production and community building in an internet-based cultural commons.
Paper long abstract
VTuber culture has been expanding since the 2020s. Yano Research Institute Ltd. has issued a report predicting that the VTuber market will reach 126 billion yen in 2025, 120.0% growth over the previous year.
ANYCOLOR Corporation, operator of the VTuber group "Nijisanji," became a publicly listed company in 2022, and Cover Corporation, operator of the VTuber group "hololive," became a publicly listed company in 2023. While the rise of these "Corporate VTubers" is notable in VTuber culture, there is also the activity of amateur "Individual VTubers," which has continued since Kizuna AI appeared on YouTube in 2016 as the original "virtual YouTuber."
It is said that there are currently over 60,000 VTubers, with the majority being amateur Individual VTubers. The presenter also has a channel as VTuber "Zombie Sensei," with 4,000 subscribers.
The existence of platforms like YouTube is essential for these Individual VTubers, as well as Corporate Star VTubers, to be able to be active. Also behind VTubing Activity is the abundance of free applications related to these platforms, as well as the vast accumulation of technology and culture related to the Internet and video.
Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and X use their algorithms to control user behavior and are fraught with the problem of the attention economy. However, this report focuses on the cultural and community creation that occurs within such an environment.
By participating in the practices of VTubers, the author has been able to discover new forms of culture, content, communication, and community. In this presentation, he will present the findings of fieldwork conducted while working as a VTuber himself.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed): | 2020年代に入り、VTuber文化が拡がりを見せている。株式会社矢野経済研究所は、2025年度のVTuber市場を前年比120.0%の1,260億円と予想するレポートを出している。 VTuberグループ「にじさんじ」を運営するANYCOLOR株式会社は2022年に、そして、VTuberグループ「hololive」を運営するカバー株式会社は2023年に、それぞれ上場企業となった。こうした「企業VTuber」の躍進が目立つVTuber文化だが、その背景には、2016年にキズナアイが元祖「バーチャルYoutuber」としてYouTube上に現れてから現在に至る、アマチュアによる「個人VTuber」の活動があった。 VTuberは現在、6万人以上いるとも言われているが、その大部分がアマチュアの個人VTuberである。発表者もまた、VTuber「ゾンビ先生」として、チャンネル登録者数4000人を抱えている。 企業のスターVTuberだけでなく、こうした個人のVTuberが活動できているのには、YouTube等のプラットフォームの存在が欠かせないが、そこには、それらにかかわるフリーのアプリケーションの充実や、インターネットに関わる技術や文化の分厚い蓄積がある。 YouTubeやFacebook、Xなどのプラットフォームは、そのアルゴリズムによって、利用者の行動を管理する側面やアテンションエコノミーの問題をはらんでいる。しかし、VTuber文化の詳細に分け入ると、それだけでは終わらない新たな文化やコンテンツ、コミュニケーション、コミュニティの様態を見いだすことができる。 本発表では、自らVTuberとして活動しながら、フィールドワーク調査を実施して明らかになった成果を発表する。 |