Bethan Jones
Biographic Data
| ID | 3606236 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bethan Jones |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bethan |
| FAMILY NAME | Jones |
| SIGNATURE | JONES B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Aberystwyth University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7727-2387 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Algorithmic Afterlives: The Ethics of Reviving the Dead
From oral storytelling traditions to Victorian seances communing with the dead has long been a part of human existence. But as technology advances, our means of connecting with the past proliferate; as Kasket suggests “technology is [now] where the dead live” (2019, 7) and the dead are increasingly online. Websites and apps like PeopleAI and MyHeritage’s Deep Nostalgia utilise deep learning algorithms to evoke, re-frame, re-work and distort the p…
Ruptures, Dissent and Cancellation: Studies on Digital Fandoms in Crisis
Scholars working across fan studies, internet studies and politics have noted the increasing use of cancellation practices across media, politics and culture and within digital spaces. Cancel culture is “the withdrawal of any kind of support (viewership, social media follows, purchases of products endorsed by the person, etc.) for those who are assessed to have said or done something unacceptable or highly problematic, generally from a social jus…
The Limits of Digital Immortality: Deathbots and the Fragility of the Self
“We Never Have to Say Goodbye”, promises You, Only Virtual, a commercial platform whose service claims to reconstruct a person from their digital data and make them available for interaction after death. You, Only Virtual is one of a growing number of commercial services—alongside Almaya, Here after AI, or Seance AI—that have come to be grouped under the informal designation of “deathbots”. Deathbots are AI-mediated interactive simulations of the…
Reaffirming sensory ethnography: Sensing regenerative tourist practices in dark-sky protected zones
This paper affirms the importance of ethnography as a mechanism for identifying regenerative practices in tourism research through exploring a dark-sky destination. National parks in the United Kingdom have initiated leisure-based festivals to raise ecological awareness and preserve protected dark-sky reserves. Yet, scholars have paid little attention to how public engagement in dark-sky festivals can raise ecological awareness of light pollution…
Squee from the Margins: Fandom and Race, Rukmini Pande (2018)
Review of: Squee from the Margins: Fandom and Race , Rukmini Pande (2018) Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 233 pp., ISBN 978-1-60938-618-4, p/bk, $67.50 ISBN 978-1-60938-619-1, e-book, $67.50
The effectiveness of Nurture Groups at supporting social and emotional outcomes: A systematic review
Play your way into production: Game-based skills development for the film and TV industry
Screen industry employers report that they are unable to recruit graduates with the right skills for entry-level roles in film and television, citing a lack of business awareness and various “soft skills” as barriers to employment. Traditionally, such knowledge and skills are obtained through in-person work experience on set, but work experience is usually unpaid and therefore inaccessible to many. However, recent research in the use of applied/s…
The dark matters: Dark-sky leisure events as regenerative spaces for climate justice
Globally, the unprecedented brightening of the night sky poses severe consequences for all living things (Kyba et al. Citation2023). The call to protect dark skies has led to an increase in national parks hosting leisure-based festivals to raise awareness about the impact of light pollution. Taking an ecological justice lens that recognises environmental crises are deeply intertwined with social challenges, this paper contributes new knowledge by…
The importance of professional skills within the changing media landscape of the UK screen industries: A case study of the ‘disruptive’ phenomenon of virtual production
Rapid technological developments are changing media practices within the screen industries, with these shifts exacerbating already existent skills shortages and gaps.This paper focuses on the case study example of virtual production, a new media practice of making film and television content, to demonstrate the continuing importance of professional (or 'transferable') skills.Professional skills are skills required to act efficiently in different …
From fan citizenship to ‘fanspiracies’: Politics and participatory cultures in times of crisis
Fan practices and behaviours have increasingly moved beyond fan communities into the political, economic and cultural structures of every day life. The proliferation of social media platforms has allowed both the progressive and reactionary aspects of fandom to converge in the public sphere, drawing on similar techniques, pleasures, and practices in order to interpret the world in a culture where the boundaries between popular and political commu…
Exploring Civil Partnership From the Perspective of Those in Mixed-Sex Relationships: Embracing a Clean Slate of Equality
Civil partnerships first became available to mixed-sex couples in England and Wales in December 2019. To date, there has been no research exploring the perspectives of mixed-sex couples who choose to become civil partners. We interviewed 21 people, as individuals or in couples, who were considering, planning, or had already entered into a civil partnership. Our thematic analysis resulted in two themes. In Free from the patriarchal baggage of marr…
Forensic Fandom: True Crime, Citizen Investigation and Social Media
Jason Mittell has proposed “forensic fandom” as a mode of television engagement that encourages research, collaboration, analysis and interpretation (2009, 2015). Although Mittell discusses fans of the TV show Lost, the idea of forensic fandom with its emphasis on obtaining, scrutinizing and displaying media as evidence in order to prove a point has other applications. Not least for true crime fandom. True crime fans are no strangers to analyzing…
I’ll see you again in twenty five years”: Life Course Fandom, Nostalgia and Cult Television Revivals
Since they first aired in the 1990s, Twin Peaks and The X-Files have been enduring hallmarks of cult television. This reputation only increased with the news that the shows were to be revived and, perhaps unsurprisingly, media discourse surrounding the revivals harkened back to the shows’ peaks. Yet this discourse also drew heavily on concepts of generational fandom and nostalgia. This article is interested in how and why fans of The X-Files and …
Neo-Cult and the Altered Audience: Reviving Cult TV for the Post-TV Age
From The X-Files to Friends, Gilmore Girls to Twin Peaks, revivals of beloved TV series have dominated the airwaves and streaming services over the last decade. The media landscape has changed significantly since these series’ original airings, however, and webisodes, video games, social media hashtags and fan communities exist alongside—and act upon—the “original” text. By focusing on The X-Files and Twin Peaks revivals this chapter theorizes th…
Roundtable: The Past, Present and Future of Fan Fiction
Fanfiction as a cultural practice has rapidly evolved in recent years, from a community-based form of social interaction to a globally recognised form of narrative world-building [...]
Transcultural fan studies in practice: A conversation
At the end of 2018, a group of fan scholars led by Lori Morimoto journeyed to Japan for a fan studies field trip. The purpose was multifaceted: to speak at a symposium on transcultural popular culture; to bring together fans and fandom studies from both sides of the Pacific; and to augment their classrooms with practical experience. Eight participants share their experiences and reflect on what it means to be a transcultural fan scholar at the da…
AskELJames, Ghostbusters , and #Gamergate: Digital Dislike and Damage Control
Social media has begun to play a key role in developing relationships between fans and producers yet it has also afforded the possibility for those relationships to develop in both positive and negative ways. This chapter explores the darker underbelly of fandom and social media by examining three key case studies: (1) the EL James Twitter Q&A, which was overtaken by tweets criticizing James for her Fifty Shades of Grey series; (2) the online rea…
“Are you ready for this?” “I don’t know if there’s a choice”
This chapter examines fan reactions to news of the revival, drawing on research conducted in May 2015, and the preliminary results of research conducted in April 2016, with fans of the show. The announcement of a new series, then, resulted in much fannish anticipation even before fans really knew what the series would entail. During the summer of 2014, Vulture published an interview with The X-Files creator, Chris Carter, in which he confirmed th…
Star Trek and American Television
What a Third Restatement of Conflict of Laws Can Do
More than forty years after the Second Restatement of Conflict of Laws, the American Law Institute (ALI) has begun work on a Third. Forty years is a long time, and the magnitude of the gap since the Second Restatement is itself a reason to think a Third is appropriate. But there are other reasons that it is time for a Third. In this essay, we want to explain why we think American choice of law has progressed to the point that a new Restatement is…
Giffing a fuck: Non-narrative pleasures in participatory porn cultures and female fandom
Pornography has long been associated with the development of leading-edge technologies and new media forms, so it should be of little surprise that adult entertainment now circulates online in the form of moving-image GIFs – the 256-colour compressed image files ubiquitous within digital culture. Several critics and cultural commentators have picked up on the rise of this so-called ‘microporn', linking sexually explicit GIFs with supposedly dimin…
Crowdfunding: A New Media & Society special issue
As guest editors of this special issue of New Media & Society, we examine the concept of crowdfunding, where grassroots creative projects are funded by the masses through websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, a practice that has been steadily gaining attention in the last few years, across many different sectors of society. We introduce the nine articles comprising the special issue and unravel the developments and challenges involved in th…
Fifty shades of ghey: Snark fandom and the figure of the anti-fan
Early work in fan studies examined fan activities as forms of resistance, enabling fans to reclaim ownership of popular culture. Jonathan Gray (2003) and Cornel Sandvoss (2005) , however, argue that to fully understand what it means to interact with texts we must also examine anti-fans. This article builds on Gray and Sandvoss’s work by expanding on Francesca Haig’s (2013) discussion of ‘snark’ fandom. We suggest that the Fifty Shades of Grey tri…
Introduction to the special issue: Reading the Fifty Shades ‘phenomenon’
Crowdfunding: A New Media & Society special issue
As guest editors of this special issue of New Media & Society, we examine the concept of crowdfunding, where grassroots creative projects are funded by the masses through websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, a practice that has been steadily gaining attention in the last few years, across many different sectors of society. We introduce the nine articles comprising the special issue and unravel the developments and challenges involved in th…
Giffing a fuck: Non-narrative pleasures in participatory porn cultures and female fandom
Pornography has long been associated with the development of leading-edge technologies and new media forms, so it should be of little surprise that adult entertainment now circulates online in the form of moving-image GIFs – the 256-colour compressed image files ubiquitous within digital culture. Several critics and cultural commentators have picked up on the rise of this so-called ‘microporn', linking sexually explicit GIFs with supposedly dimin…
What a Third Restatement of Conflict of Laws Can Do
More than forty years after the Second Restatement of Conflict of Laws, the American Law Institute (ALI) has begun work on a Third. Forty years is a long time, and the magnitude of the gap since the Second Restatement is itself a reason to think a Third is appropriate. But there are other reasons that it is time for a Third. In this essay, we want to explain why we think American choice of law has progressed to the point that a new Restatement is…
Fifty shades of ghey: Snark fandom and the figure of the anti-fan
Early work in fan studies examined fan activities as forms of resistance, enabling fans to reclaim ownership of popular culture. Jonathan Gray (2003) and Cornel Sandvoss (2005) , however, argue that to fully understand what it means to interact with texts we must also examine anti-fans. This article builds on Gray and Sandvoss’s work by expanding on Francesca Haig’s (2013) discussion of ‘snark’ fandom. We suggest that the Fifty Shades of Grey tri…
Introduction to the special issue: Reading the Fifty Shades ‘phenomenon’
Crowdfunding: A New Media & Society special issue
As guest editors of this special issue of New Media & Society, we examine the concept of crowdfunding, where grassroots creative projects are funded by the masses through websites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, a practice that has been steadily gaining attention in the last few years, across many different sectors of society. We introduce the nine articles comprising the special issue and unravel the developments and challenges involved in th…
Giffing a fuck: Non-narrative pleasures in participatory porn cultures and female fandom
Pornography has long been associated with the development of leading-edge technologies and new media forms, so it should be of little surprise that adult entertainment now circulates online in the form of moving-image GIFs – the 256-colour compressed image files ubiquitous within digital culture. Several critics and cultural commentators have picked up on the rise of this so-called ‘microporn', linking sexually explicit GIFs with supposedly dimin…
Star Trek and American Television
What a Third Restatement of Conflict of Laws Can Do
More than forty years after the Second Restatement of Conflict of Laws, the American Law Institute (ALI) has begun work on a Third. Forty years is a long time, and the magnitude of the gap since the Second Restatement is itself a reason to think a Third is appropriate. But there are other reasons that it is time for a Third. In this essay, we want to explain why we think American choice of law has progressed to the point that a new Restatement is…
“Are you ready for this?” “I don’t know if there’s a choice”
This chapter examines fan reactions to news of the revival, drawing on research conducted in May 2015, and the preliminary results of research conducted in April 2016, with fans of the show. The announcement of a new series, then, resulted in much fannish anticipation even before fans really knew what the series would entail. During the summer of 2014, Vulture published an interview with The X-Files creator, Chris Carter, in which he confirmed th…
AskELJames, Ghostbusters , and #Gamergate: Digital Dislike and Damage Control
Social media has begun to play a key role in developing relationships between fans and producers yet it has also afforded the possibility for those relationships to develop in both positive and negative ways. This chapter explores the darker underbelly of fandom and social media by examining three key case studies: (1) the EL James Twitter Q&A, which was overtaken by tweets criticizing James for her Fifty Shades of Grey series; (2) the online rea…
Transcultural fan studies in practice: A conversation
At the end of 2018, a group of fan scholars led by Lori Morimoto journeyed to Japan for a fan studies field trip. The purpose was multifaceted: to speak at a symposium on transcultural popular culture; to bring together fans and fandom studies from both sides of the Pacific; and to augment their classrooms with practical experience. Eight participants share their experiences and reflect on what it means to be a transcultural fan scholar at the da…
Roundtable: The Past, Present and Future of Fan Fiction
Fanfiction as a cultural practice has rapidly evolved in recent years, from a community-based form of social interaction to a globally recognised form of narrative world-building [...]
Forensic Fandom: True Crime, Citizen Investigation and Social Media
Jason Mittell has proposed “forensic fandom” as a mode of television engagement that encourages research, collaboration, analysis and interpretation (2009, 2015). Although Mittell discusses fans of the TV show Lost, the idea of forensic fandom with its emphasis on obtaining, scrutinizing and displaying media as evidence in order to prove a point has other applications. Not least for true crime fandom. True crime fans are no strangers to analyzing…
I’ll see you again in twenty five years”: Life Course Fandom, Nostalgia and Cult Television Revivals
Since they first aired in the 1990s, Twin Peaks and The X-Files have been enduring hallmarks of cult television. This reputation only increased with the news that the shows were to be revived and, perhaps unsurprisingly, media discourse surrounding the revivals harkened back to the shows’ peaks. Yet this discourse also drew heavily on concepts of generational fandom and nostalgia. This article is interested in how and why fans of The X-Files and …
Neo-Cult and the Altered Audience: Reviving Cult TV for the Post-TV Age
From The X-Files to Friends, Gilmore Girls to Twin Peaks, revivals of beloved TV series have dominated the airwaves and streaming services over the last decade. The media landscape has changed significantly since these series’ original airings, however, and webisodes, video games, social media hashtags and fan communities exist alongside—and act upon—the “original” text. By focusing on The X-Files and Twin Peaks revivals this chapter theorizes th…
The importance of professional skills within the changing media landscape of the UK screen industries: A case study of the ‘disruptive’ phenomenon of virtual production
Rapid technological developments are changing media practices within the screen industries, with these shifts exacerbating already existent skills shortages and gaps.This paper focuses on the case study example of virtual production, a new media practice of making film and television content, to demonstrate the continuing importance of professional (or 'transferable') skills.Professional skills are skills required to act efficiently in different …
From fan citizenship to ‘fanspiracies’: Politics and participatory cultures in times of crisis
Fan practices and behaviours have increasingly moved beyond fan communities into the political, economic and cultural structures of every day life. The proliferation of social media platforms has allowed both the progressive and reactionary aspects of fandom to converge in the public sphere, drawing on similar techniques, pleasures, and practices in order to interpret the world in a culture where the boundaries between popular and political commu…
Exploring Civil Partnership From the Perspective of Those in Mixed-Sex Relationships: Embracing a Clean Slate of Equality
Civil partnerships first became available to mixed-sex couples in England and Wales in December 2019. To date, there has been no research exploring the perspectives of mixed-sex couples who choose to become civil partners. We interviewed 21 people, as individuals or in couples, who were considering, planning, or had already entered into a civil partnership. Our thematic analysis resulted in two themes. In Free from the patriarchal baggage of marr…
Squee from the Margins: Fandom and Race, Rukmini Pande (2018)
Review of: Squee from the Margins: Fandom and Race , Rukmini Pande (2018) Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 233 pp., ISBN 978-1-60938-618-4, p/bk, $67.50 ISBN 978-1-60938-619-1, e-book, $67.50
The effectiveness of Nurture Groups at supporting social and emotional outcomes: A systematic review
Play your way into production: Game-based skills development for the film and TV industry
Screen industry employers report that they are unable to recruit graduates with the right skills for entry-level roles in film and television, citing a lack of business awareness and various “soft skills” as barriers to employment. Traditionally, such knowledge and skills are obtained through in-person work experience on set, but work experience is usually unpaid and therefore inaccessible to many. However, recent research in the use of applied/s…
The dark matters: Dark-sky leisure events as regenerative spaces for climate justice
Globally, the unprecedented brightening of the night sky poses severe consequences for all living things (Kyba et al. Citation2023). The call to protect dark skies has led to an increase in national parks hosting leisure-based festivals to raise awareness about the impact of light pollution. Taking an ecological justice lens that recognises environmental crises are deeply intertwined with social challenges, this paper contributes new knowledge by…
Algorithmic Afterlives: The Ethics of Reviving the Dead
From oral storytelling traditions to Victorian seances communing with the dead has long been a part of human existence. But as technology advances, our means of connecting with the past proliferate; as Kasket suggests “technology is [now] where the dead live” (2019, 7) and the dead are increasingly online. Websites and apps like PeopleAI and MyHeritage’s Deep Nostalgia utilise deep learning algorithms to evoke, re-frame, re-work and distort the p…
Ruptures, Dissent and Cancellation: Studies on Digital Fandoms in Crisis
Scholars working across fan studies, internet studies and politics have noted the increasing use of cancellation practices across media, politics and culture and within digital spaces. Cancel culture is “the withdrawal of any kind of support (viewership, social media follows, purchases of products endorsed by the person, etc.) for those who are assessed to have said or done something unacceptable or highly problematic, generally from a social jus…
The Limits of Digital Immortality: Deathbots and the Fragility of the Self
“We Never Have to Say Goodbye”, promises You, Only Virtual, a commercial platform whose service claims to reconstruct a person from their digital data and make them available for interaction after death. You, Only Virtual is one of a growing number of commercial services—alongside Almaya, Here after AI, or Seance AI—that have come to be grouped under the informal designation of “deathbots”. Deathbots are AI-mediated interactive simulations of the…
Reaffirming sensory ethnography: Sensing regenerative tourist practices in dark-sky protected zones
This paper affirms the importance of ethnography as a mechanism for identifying regenerative practices in tourism research through exploring a dark-sky destination. National parks in the United Kingdom have initiated leisure-based festivals to raise ecological awareness and preserve protected dark-sky reserves. Yet, scholars have paid little attention to how public engagement in dark-sky festivals can raise ecological awareness of light pollution…
Sociology (15 works) · Media studies (12 works) · Political science (10 works) · Art (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Digital Games and Media (7 works) · Fandom (7 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (7 works) · Media Studies and Communication (6 works) · History (5 works)