Brandon C Harris
Biographic Data
| ID | 209775 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brandon C Harris |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brandon C |
| FAMILY NAME | Harris |
| SIGNATURE | HARRIS B C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Alabama |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6771-7776 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Contextual governance & androcentric hegemony on Twitch.tv
Twitch’s Terms of Service (ToS) and Community Guidelines (CG) policies forbid discriminatory behavior and harassment, but many streamers from marginalized communities have been victimized while their harassers go unpunished. These inconsistencies in how safety violations are managed prompted the author(s) to perform a two-stage analysis of Twitch’s platform governance strategies to understand the relationship between platform governance and andro…
Groomers, ‘Titties’, & Streamers, Oh My: Toward an Understanding of Androcentric Platform Governance on Twitch
Twitch is the largest social live-streaming platform in the Global North, and has historically been an important advertising and community hub for the gaming industry (Johnson & Woodcock, 2018). Twitch’s owner, Amazon, demands increasing growth and profit (Yin-Poole, 2024), so the platform must continue attracting new streamers, viewers, and advertisers. However, these new audiences may be at odds with Twitch’s core base of white, Asian, cisgende…
Recontextualizing Violence in Real Time: Live Streaming & the Governance of Inconsistency on TWITCH.TV
How does inconsistency become an institution? Here, we examine platform governance and moderation on Amazon’s Twitch.tv as a cultural practice. Through case studies and thematic analysis, we showcase moments of regulatory inconsistency that are constitutive of how Twitch manages harm. Our analysis identifies contexts, temporalities, and violence as critical themes for identifying Twitch’s inconsistent moderation. We offer a playbook for better un…
Two Percent at the Picket Line: Media Coverage of U.S. Union Fights for Streaming Residuals
In late 2023, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) simultaneously struck against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the first dual strike since the 1960s. While several factors drove these strikes, this study focuses on residuals, particularly for streaming services. Streaming platforms like Netflix undermine traditional revenue…
Esports buffs: The perceived role of fans and fandoms in U.S. collegiate programs
Introduction Collegiate esports—organized competitive gaming—has expanded rapidly in the United States, drawing in student players, broadcasters, and support staff, as well as university employees. Universities have invested financially in esports, hoping to capitalize on gaming fandom to attract prospective students and enhance campus community integration. Little research, however, addresses collegiate esports fandom in depth. Methods Drawing o…
Recasting Twitch: Livestreaming, Platforms, and New Frontiers in Digital Journalism
Despite Twitch's dominant position in Western livestreaming markets, institutional journalists rarely produce content on the platform. This paper investigates how journalistic practices, cultures, business models, and institutions approach Twitch through three empirical sites: The Washington Post's experimentation with the app, left-leaning political influencer Hasan Piker, and the pro-QAnon 24/7 "news" channel, Patriots' Soapbox. The cases demon…
In/visible hurdles: US collegiate esports participants’ perceived barriers to play and involvement
Gaming and esports communities possess cultural barriers that exclude potential participants, limiting their access to social, cultural, and economic opportunities. In the United States, for instance, varsity esports players are increasingly supported by scholarships and tournament prizes, but persistent challenges make these benefits accessible to only a limited portion of the student body. Using a grounded theory analysis of 31 in-depth intervi…
Inevitable or Exploitative? A Case Study of Consumers’ Divergent Attitudes towards Video Game Crunch
As with many media industries, poor labor practices such as crunch—excessive, often unpaid overtime—are common within video game production. Researchers have addressed how industry structures normalize crunch, but game consumers’ integration in this process is less understood. This case study of comments (n = 1,080) on articles about crunch develops an overall perspective on consumer attitudes by coding whether comments support or critique crunch…
Don't Make Me Ratio You Again: How Political Influencers Encourage Platformed Political Participation
Ratioing describes when a reply earns more likes than an original post on social media. They also offer influencers opportunities to convert audience attention into political actions capable of temporarily shaping online discourse. Ratios are then one of many influencer-driven strategies that leverage platform features and affordances to direct audiences to specific actions that amplify the influencer's content in the crowded social media enterta…
The Covid Season: U.S. Collegiate Esports Programs’ Material Challenges and Opportunities During the 2020–21 Pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities were among the first institutions to shift to an online model. As they did so, nascent collegiate esports program lost access to campus spaces and in-person connections, potentially destabilizing this rising industry. Conversely, universities also worked to provide students remote access to resources, and many components of esports already occur online. Therefore, collegiate esports may have adjusted to …
Recasting Collegiate Esports: Independence and Interdependence of University Twitch Streamers
Few online communities exhibit the tensions between independence and interdependence better than collegiate esports. Twitch, the primary platform for live streaming esports, is central in such strife. The platform is a vital tool for colleges and athletes to forward brand, community, and entrepreneurship, while simultaneously its unbridled use indicates the need for administration and institutional interventions by universities. As such the propo…
‘Weekends became something other people did’: Understanding and intervening in the habitus of video game crunch
‘Crunch’ – a period of unpaid overtime meant to speed up lagging projects – is a common labor practice in the video game industry and persists despite many costs to developers. To understand why, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of Game Developer magazine (2000–2010) to explore how industry members perceive and discuss gamework (1) in a publication for developers, by developers and (2) during the first decade in which serious conversati…
The cruel optimism of “good crunch”: How game industry discourses perpetuate unsustainable labor practices
The video game industry’s labor practices have become an increasingly common topic of discussion throughout game studies and the gaming community, especially when it comes to “crunch” or periods of intense, extended overtime. Despite this attention, crunch persists, and the industry’s tendency to distinguish externally mandated or excessive crunch from self-directed or scheduled crunch continues to be problematic. This article considers the disti…
Recasting Twitch: Livestreaming, Platforms, and New Frontiers in Digital Journalism
Despite Twitch's dominant position in Western livestreaming markets, institutional journalists rarely produce content on the platform. This paper investigates how journalistic practices, cultures, business models, and institutions approach Twitch through three empirical sites: The Washington Post's experimentation with the app, left-leaning political influencer Hasan Piker, and the pro-QAnon 24/7 "news" channel, Patriots' Soapbox. The cases demon…
In/visible hurdles: US collegiate esports participants’ perceived barriers to play and involvement
Gaming and esports communities possess cultural barriers that exclude potential participants, limiting their access to social, cultural, and economic opportunities. In the United States, for instance, varsity esports players are increasingly supported by scholarships and tournament prizes, but persistent challenges make these benefits accessible to only a limited portion of the student body. Using a grounded theory analysis of 31 in-depth intervi…
Don't Make Me Ratio You Again: How Political Influencers Encourage Platformed Political Participation
Ratioing describes when a reply earns more likes than an original post on social media. They also offer influencers opportunities to convert audience attention into political actions capable of temporarily shaping online discourse. Ratios are then one of many influencer-driven strategies that leverage platform features and affordances to direct audiences to specific actions that amplify the influencer's content in the crowded social media enterta…
The cruel optimism of “good crunch”: How game industry discourses perpetuate unsustainable labor practices
The video game industry’s labor practices have become an increasingly common topic of discussion throughout game studies and the gaming community, especially when it comes to “crunch” or periods of intense, extended overtime. Despite this attention, crunch persists, and the industry’s tendency to distinguish externally mandated or excessive crunch from self-directed or scheduled crunch continues to be problematic. This article considers the disti…
The Covid Season: U.S. Collegiate Esports Programs’ Material Challenges and Opportunities During the 2020–21 Pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities were among the first institutions to shift to an online model. As they did so, nascent collegiate esports program lost access to campus spaces and in-person connections, potentially destabilizing this rising industry. Conversely, universities also worked to provide students remote access to resources, and many components of esports already occur online. Therefore, collegiate esports may have adjusted to …
Recasting Collegiate Esports: Independence and Interdependence of University Twitch Streamers
Few online communities exhibit the tensions between independence and interdependence better than collegiate esports. Twitch, the primary platform for live streaming esports, is central in such strife. The platform is a vital tool for colleges and athletes to forward brand, community, and entrepreneurship, while simultaneously its unbridled use indicates the need for administration and institutional interventions by universities. As such the propo…
‘Weekends became something other people did’: Understanding and intervening in the habitus of video game crunch
‘Crunch’ – a period of unpaid overtime meant to speed up lagging projects – is a common labor practice in the video game industry and persists despite many costs to developers. To understand why, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of Game Developer magazine (2000–2010) to explore how industry members perceive and discuss gamework (1) in a publication for developers, by developers and (2) during the first decade in which serious conversati…
The cruel optimism of “good crunch”: How game industry discourses perpetuate unsustainable labor practices
The video game industry’s labor practices have become an increasingly common topic of discussion throughout game studies and the gaming community, especially when it comes to “crunch” or periods of intense, extended overtime. Despite this attention, crunch persists, and the industry’s tendency to distinguish externally mandated or excessive crunch from self-directed or scheduled crunch continues to be problematic. This article considers the disti…
The Covid Season: U.S. Collegiate Esports Programs’ Material Challenges and Opportunities During the 2020–21 Pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities were among the first institutions to shift to an online model. As they did so, nascent collegiate esports program lost access to campus spaces and in-person connections, potentially destabilizing this rising industry. Conversely, universities also worked to provide students remote access to resources, and many components of esports already occur online. Therefore, collegiate esports may have adjusted to …
Inevitable or Exploitative? A Case Study of Consumers’ Divergent Attitudes towards Video Game Crunch
As with many media industries, poor labor practices such as crunch—excessive, often unpaid overtime—are common within video game production. Researchers have addressed how industry structures normalize crunch, but game consumers’ integration in this process is less understood. This case study of comments (n = 1,080) on articles about crunch develops an overall perspective on consumer attitudes by coding whether comments support or critique crunch…
Don't Make Me Ratio You Again: How Political Influencers Encourage Platformed Political Participation
Ratioing describes when a reply earns more likes than an original post on social media. They also offer influencers opportunities to convert audience attention into political actions capable of temporarily shaping online discourse. Ratios are then one of many influencer-driven strategies that leverage platform features and affordances to direct audiences to specific actions that amplify the influencer's content in the crowded social media enterta…
Esports buffs: The perceived role of fans and fandoms in U.S. collegiate programs
Introduction Collegiate esports—organized competitive gaming—has expanded rapidly in the United States, drawing in student players, broadcasters, and support staff, as well as university employees. Universities have invested financially in esports, hoping to capitalize on gaming fandom to attract prospective students and enhance campus community integration. Little research, however, addresses collegiate esports fandom in depth. Methods Drawing o…
Recasting Twitch: Livestreaming, Platforms, and New Frontiers in Digital Journalism
Despite Twitch's dominant position in Western livestreaming markets, institutional journalists rarely produce content on the platform. This paper investigates how journalistic practices, cultures, business models, and institutions approach Twitch through three empirical sites: The Washington Post's experimentation with the app, left-leaning political influencer Hasan Piker, and the pro-QAnon 24/7 "news" channel, Patriots' Soapbox. The cases demon…
In/visible hurdles: US collegiate esports participants’ perceived barriers to play and involvement
Gaming and esports communities possess cultural barriers that exclude potential participants, limiting their access to social, cultural, and economic opportunities. In the United States, for instance, varsity esports players are increasingly supported by scholarships and tournament prizes, but persistent challenges make these benefits accessible to only a limited portion of the student body. Using a grounded theory analysis of 31 in-depth intervi…
Groomers, ‘Titties’, & Streamers, Oh My: Toward an Understanding of Androcentric Platform Governance on Twitch
Twitch is the largest social live-streaming platform in the Global North, and has historically been an important advertising and community hub for the gaming industry (Johnson & Woodcock, 2018). Twitch’s owner, Amazon, demands increasing growth and profit (Yin-Poole, 2024), so the platform must continue attracting new streamers, viewers, and advertisers. However, these new audiences may be at odds with Twitch’s core base of white, Asian, cisgende…
Recontextualizing Violence in Real Time: Live Streaming & the Governance of Inconsistency on TWITCH.TV
How does inconsistency become an institution? Here, we examine platform governance and moderation on Amazon’s Twitch.tv as a cultural practice. Through case studies and thematic analysis, we showcase moments of regulatory inconsistency that are constitutive of how Twitch manages harm. Our analysis identifies contexts, temporalities, and violence as critical themes for identifying Twitch’s inconsistent moderation. We offer a playbook for better un…
Two Percent at the Picket Line: Media Coverage of U.S. Union Fights for Streaming Residuals
In late 2023, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) simultaneously struck against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the first dual strike since the 1960s. While several factors drove these strikes, this study focuses on residuals, particularly for streaming services. Streaming platforms like Netflix undermine traditional revenue…
Contextual governance & androcentric hegemony on Twitch.tv
Twitch’s Terms of Service (ToS) and Community Guidelines (CG) policies forbid discriminatory behavior and harassment, but many streamers from marginalized communities have been victimized while their harassers go unpunished. These inconsistencies in how safety violations are managed prompted the author(s) to perform a two-stage analysis of Twitch’s platform governance strategies to understand the relationship between platform governance and andro…
Business (11 works) · Political science (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Digital Games and Media (7 works) · Public relations (7 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (5 works) · Marketing (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Economics (4 works)