Krishnan Vasudevan
Biographic Data
| ID | 4908267 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Krishnan Vasudevan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Krishnan |
| FAMILY NAME | Vasudevan |
| SIGNATURE | VASUDEVAN K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maryland, College Park |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9001-135X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 62 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Platform frictions, platform power, and the politics of platformization
Since the 1990s, friction has pervaded Silicon Valley discourses as a metaphor for obstacles to the flow of capital, and its eradication has become a mission statement of platform capitalists. However, despite their aspirations of endless growth, friction persists because the process of platformization, through which platforms scale, is never seamless. In this introduction to a Special Issue on friction and platform capitalism, we locate friction…
The Planet’s Champion” Daniel Bryan
Daniel Bryan’s WWE Championship reign, from November 13, 2018, to April 7, 2019, provides an interesting case study to analyze the intersection of politics, mediated sport, neoliberalism, and colorblind ideology in professional wrestling storylines. This study conducts uses textual analysis to uncover how WWE utilized Bryan’s reign to communicate ideologies in their weekly programming. The findings suggest that Bryan’s persona as a villainous lef…
Gamification and work games
In 2018, Uber released an overhauled mobile application for its independent contractor workforce, who had become increasingly dissatisfied by the lack of autonomy, transparency, and flexibility while working on the platform. Based on the gamification of work, the application linked individualized rewards with Uber’s need to maintain a frictionless marketplace. However, as recent studies of gig economy have revealed, workers resist gamified algori…
Hacking Culture Not Code
This study develops upon recent scholarship about the Russian government's digital influence campaign to cultivate Black Americans during the 2016 election by rooting their efforts within a century-long strategy to exploit racial inequality to discredit and damage American democracy. Guided by Shifman’s (2013) construct of memetics, we employed a novel methodology that combined journalistic fact-checking and critical, qualitative analysis to stud…
Visit to Wëlakamike
In this fictional essay, two ethnographers visit Wëlakamike, a community started by a group of citizens who became disillusioned by the failure of nation states to reign in capitalism and manmade climate change. The researchers learn that the technologies and practices designed by community members are used to minimize harm to the environment by human activity while encouraging citizens to engage in spirited democratic practices and artistic inte…
Design of Communication
This essay examines two contexts for understanding how design informs peoples’ understanding of news and information. The construct of frictionless design articulates how social networking platforms, such as Facebook, employ persuasive design to manipulate user behavior in ways that optimize advertising revenues. This necessitates that scholars critically examine the design elements of digital interfaces such as color, affordances, feedback, and …
Oppositional Designs
This study develops upon recent scholarship about subversive design that emerged in response to hegemonic structures such as capitalism, by introducing how racial identity informs disruptive design practices. Based upon a two-year ethnography with nine black artists during a period of racial unrest, this study presents how their experiences as black Americans informed distinctive, critical design dispositions. The participants’ deeply personal an…
Taxi Drivers as Reporters
Taxi driving is an arduous form of labor, occupied by a largely immigrant workforce in major US cities such as Chicago and New York. Taxi drivers barely scrape by and in recent years community organizations and unions have advocated for this marginalized social group through civic action and media production. This study examined eight years of the UTCC Voice, a bi-monthly newsletter published by the United Taxiworkers Community Council of Chicago…
Depth of Field
Visual journalists were early adopters of DSLR cameras as a technology for the production of video journalism. While early DSLR cameras used by visual journalists were capable of capturing high-definition moving images with superior quality when compared to smaller sensor video cameras, they were designed for photography and thus presented several challenges in the context of filmmaking. DSLR cameras are often rigged with additional stabilization…
Gaming Social Capital
Recent research suggests that social interactions in video games may lead to the development of community bonding and prosocial attitudes. Building on this line of research, a national survey of U.S. adults finds that gamers who develop ties with a community of fellow gamers possess gaming social capital, a new gaming-related community construct that is shown to be a positive antecedent in predicting both face-to-face social capital and civic par…
I Love Big Bird
During the 2012 elections, several narratives built around humor, zingers, and gaffes blurred the lines between news and entertainment. This paper examines how political journalists used humor on Twitter during the first 2012 presidential election debate. This study also explores the character of such humor, how jokes relate to other forms of Twitter interactivity, and who, or what are the targets of these jokes. Twitter use by political reporter…
Gamification and work games
In 2018, Uber released an overhauled mobile application for its independent contractor workforce, who had become increasingly dissatisfied by the lack of autonomy, transparency, and flexibility while working on the platform. Based on the gamification of work, the application linked individualized rewards with Uber’s need to maintain a frictionless marketplace. However, as recent studies of gig economy have revealed, workers resist gamified algori…
I Love Big Bird
During the 2012 elections, several narratives built around humor, zingers, and gaffes blurred the lines between news and entertainment. This paper examines how political journalists used humor on Twitter during the first 2012 presidential election debate. This study also explores the character of such humor, how jokes relate to other forms of Twitter interactivity, and who, or what are the targets of these jokes. Twitter use by political reporter…
Gaming Social Capital
Recent research suggests that social interactions in video games may lead to the development of community bonding and prosocial attitudes. Building on this line of research, a national survey of U.S. adults finds that gamers who develop ties with a community of fellow gamers possess gaming social capital, a new gaming-related community construct that is shown to be a positive antecedent in predicting both face-to-face social capital and civic par…
Taxi Drivers as Reporters
Taxi driving is an arduous form of labor, occupied by a largely immigrant workforce in major US cities such as Chicago and New York. Taxi drivers barely scrape by and in recent years community organizations and unions have advocated for this marginalized social group through civic action and media production. This study examined eight years of the UTCC Voice, a bi-monthly newsletter published by the United Taxiworkers Community Council of Chicago…
Oppositional Designs
This study develops upon recent scholarship about subversive design that emerged in response to hegemonic structures such as capitalism, by introducing how racial identity informs disruptive design practices. Based upon a two-year ethnography with nine black artists during a period of racial unrest, this study presents how their experiences as black Americans informed distinctive, critical design dispositions. The participants’ deeply personal an…
Gaming Social Capital
Recent research suggests that social interactions in video games may lead to the development of community bonding and prosocial attitudes. Building on this line of research, a national survey of U.S. adults finds that gamers who develop ties with a community of fellow gamers possess gaming social capital, a new gaming-related community construct that is shown to be a positive antecedent in predicting both face-to-face social capital and civic par…
I Love Big Bird
During the 2012 elections, several narratives built around humor, zingers, and gaffes blurred the lines between news and entertainment. This paper examines how political journalists used humor on Twitter during the first 2012 presidential election debate. This study also explores the character of such humor, how jokes relate to other forms of Twitter interactivity, and who, or what are the targets of these jokes. Twitter use by political reporter…
Depth of Field
Visual journalists were early adopters of DSLR cameras as a technology for the production of video journalism. While early DSLR cameras used by visual journalists were capable of capturing high-definition moving images with superior quality when compared to smaller sensor video cameras, they were designed for photography and thus presented several challenges in the context of filmmaking. DSLR cameras are often rigged with additional stabilization…
Oppositional Designs
This study develops upon recent scholarship about subversive design that emerged in response to hegemonic structures such as capitalism, by introducing how racial identity informs disruptive design practices. Based upon a two-year ethnography with nine black artists during a period of racial unrest, this study presents how their experiences as black Americans informed distinctive, critical design dispositions. The participants’ deeply personal an…
Taxi Drivers as Reporters
Taxi driving is an arduous form of labor, occupied by a largely immigrant workforce in major US cities such as Chicago and New York. Taxi drivers barely scrape by and in recent years community organizations and unions have advocated for this marginalized social group through civic action and media production. This study examined eight years of the UTCC Voice, a bi-monthly newsletter published by the United Taxiworkers Community Council of Chicago…
Design of Communication
This essay examines two contexts for understanding how design informs peoples’ understanding of news and information. The construct of frictionless design articulates how social networking platforms, such as Facebook, employ persuasive design to manipulate user behavior in ways that optimize advertising revenues. This necessitates that scholars critically examine the design elements of digital interfaces such as color, affordances, feedback, and …
Visit to Wëlakamike
In this fictional essay, two ethnographers visit Wëlakamike, a community started by a group of citizens who became disillusioned by the failure of nation states to reign in capitalism and manmade climate change. The researchers learn that the technologies and practices designed by community members are used to minimize harm to the environment by human activity while encouraging citizens to engage in spirited democratic practices and artistic inte…
Gamification and work games
In 2018, Uber released an overhauled mobile application for its independent contractor workforce, who had become increasingly dissatisfied by the lack of autonomy, transparency, and flexibility while working on the platform. Based on the gamification of work, the application linked individualized rewards with Uber’s need to maintain a frictionless marketplace. However, as recent studies of gig economy have revealed, workers resist gamified algori…
Hacking Culture Not Code
This study develops upon recent scholarship about the Russian government's digital influence campaign to cultivate Black Americans during the 2016 election by rooting their efforts within a century-long strategy to exploit racial inequality to discredit and damage American democracy. Guided by Shifman’s (2013) construct of memetics, we employed a novel methodology that combined journalistic fact-checking and critical, qualitative analysis to stud…
Platform frictions, platform power, and the politics of platformization
Since the 1990s, friction has pervaded Silicon Valley discourses as a metaphor for obstacles to the flow of capital, and its eradication has become a mission statement of platform capitalists. However, despite their aspirations of endless growth, friction persists because the process of platformization, through which platforms scale, is never seamless. In this introduction to a Special Issue on friction and platform capitalism, we locate friction…
The Planet’s Champion” Daniel Bryan
Daniel Bryan’s WWE Championship reign, from November 13, 2018, to April 7, 2019, provides an interesting case study to analyze the intersection of politics, mediated sport, neoliberalism, and colorblind ideology in professional wrestling storylines. This study conducts uses textual analysis to uncover how WWE utilized Bryan’s reign to communicate ideologies in their weekly programming. The findings suggest that Bryan’s persona as a villainous lef…
Sociology (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Media studies (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Journalism (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Media Studies and Communication (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Art (3 works)