A Hearn
Biographic Data
| ID | 50342 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Hearn |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Hearn |
| SIGNATURE | HEARN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Western University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4598-0930 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 276 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The dominion of influence
Special section
The collateralized personality
This paper explores the force of automation and its contradictions and resistances within (and beyond) the financial sector, with a specific focus on computational practices of credit-scoring and lending. It examines the operations and promotional discourses of fintech start-ups LendUp.com and Elevate.com that offer small loans to the sub-prime consumers in exchange for access to their online social media and mobile data, and Zest AI and LenddoEF…
“Into Human Flesh and the Human Heart”
Fintech start-ups, such as Zest AI and LenddoEFL, promise enhanced levels of financial inclusion via the creation of “re-socialized” credit profiles derived from accessing clients’ online banking habits and social media accounts. As our social data becomes credit data, the performance of “appropriate” online selfhood can now, quite literally, become money. This article explores the reputational demands, disciplines, and contradictions of ostensib…
International Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative
Future tense
This brief essay considers the impact of the current conjunctural crisis on ideas about, and access to the ‘future’. It explores ways in which cultural critics and scholars might learn to think ‘scandalously’ in order to imagine and build a more equitable and humane world
The Beguiling
Arguing that questions of power expressed through aesthetic form are too often left out of current approaches to digital culture, this article revives the modernist aesthetic category of glamour in order to analyze contemporary forms of platformed cultural production. Through a case study of popular feminism, the article traces the ways in which glamour, defined as a beguiling affective force linked to promotional capitalist logics, suffuses digi…
Verified
What new styles of selfhood and self-presentation, forms of social status, and arbiters of “authenticity” are being authorized and propagated in the wake of big data and affective capitalism? How are they functioning, for whom, and to what end? This article takes up these questions via an examination of a sought-after user identity badge, the Twitter verification checkmark, figuring it as both an affective lure that incentivizes specific styles o…
Trump’s “Reality” Hustle
This brief editorial links Trump’s popularity to reality television’s messages of promotionalism and the spread of overt forms of self-branding and reputation-seeking across the population at large thanks to social media. Against the backdrop of growing economic insecurity, most people must now assiduously self-promote and hustle in order to find or protect their jobs. Trump supporters are not ‘dupes’ buying the hype then; they recognize that Tru…
Witches and bitches
The governance of affect by capital has seen its ideological legitimation and emblematic site of production in the mainstream television industry, specifically reality television programs, as they provide templates for affective self-presentation to the public at large. As even a cursory glance at most reality television production demonstrates, it is most often women’s bodies and self-concepts that bear the burden of signifying and legitimating …
Cultural studies of data mining
Student Rights in an Age of Austerity? ‘Security’, Freedom of Expression and the Neoliberal University
In this profile, we examine a worrying trend taking place in institutions of higher education around the world: a notable increase in their managerial corporatization and neoliberalization, combined with greater repression of freedom of expression on campuses under the aegis of 'securitization'. We focus attention specifically on how these twinned trends have impacted student activism in a post-2008 austerity-driven economic environment. Drawing …
Situation Critical
This brief essay argues that fewer scholars and students in Communications and Cultural Studies seem to want to engage in the practice of critique, or to expose themselves to the risks that can come with it. It examines some of the ways in which we might read this scarcity of critique through the lens of recent administrative and structural changes that have been taking place within and across university systems in the West
Promotional Prime Time
Drawing on critical cultural theory, the industry trade press, and an exploratory content analysis of prime-time television, this article examines the under-researched phenomenon of “internal network promotions.” The authors argue that internal promotions constitute a central component of the growing promotional orientation of Canadian prime-time television. They provide a theoretical overview of the practices of branding and a general descriptio…
Confessions of a Radical Eclectic
This paper explores the contributions of autonomist Marxist theory to my understanding of reality television, self-branding and social media. Autonomist Marxist ideas help to bridge the classic media studies divide between critical political economy and cultural studies, illuminating the very material connections between television’s mode of production, its texts, and its broader cultural context and impact. Concepts such as the social factory, i…
Reality Television, The Hills and the Limits of the Immaterial Labour Thesis
This paper will examine the immaterial labour thesis as proposed by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri through a case study of reality television production practices, specifically those of the MTV program, The Hills. Because immaterial labour is rooted in individual intelligence, affect, and social communicative capacities, Hardt and Negri contend that economic value in the form of labour power can no longer be adequately measured and quantified an…
Insecure
What is real? Whose lives are real? How might reality be remade? (Butler 2004, 33) In a world marked by deepening political, economic, cultural and environmental insecurity, it is little wonder tha
Meat, Mask, Burden`
This article will argue that the `reflexive project of the self' (Giddens) has become an explicit form of labour under post-Fordist capital in the form of `self-branding'. Here, work on the self is purposeful and outer-directed; self-production is heavily narrated, marked by the visual codes of the mainstream culture industry, and subject to the extraction of value. The article will explore inflections of self-branding across several different me…
John, a 20-year-old Boston native with a great sense of humour
Reality television programming simultaneously narrates the conditions of the social factory and produces new forms of labour in and through them. This essay explores the nature of the labour performed by the shows' participants and argues that it involves the self-conscious development and management of public persona based on templates of the self supplied by corporate media culture. This labour of self-presentation operates simultaneously as wo…
Meat, Mask, Burden`
This article will argue that the `reflexive project of the self' (Giddens) has become an explicit form of labour under post-Fordist capital in the form of `self-branding'. Here, work on the self is purposeful and outer-directed; self-production is heavily narrated, marked by the visual codes of the mainstream culture industry, and subject to the extraction of value. The article will explore inflections of self-branding across several different me…
Cultural studies of data mining
Verified
What new styles of selfhood and self-presentation, forms of social status, and arbiters of “authenticity” are being authorized and propagated in the wake of big data and affective capitalism? How are they functioning, for whom, and to what end? This article takes up these questions via an examination of a sought-after user identity badge, the Twitter verification checkmark, figuring it as both an affective lure that incentivizes specific styles o…
Insecure
What is real? Whose lives are real? How might reality be remade? (Butler 2004, 33) In a world marked by deepening political, economic, cultural and environmental insecurity, it is little wonder tha
The Beguiling
Arguing that questions of power expressed through aesthetic form are too often left out of current approaches to digital culture, this article revives the modernist aesthetic category of glamour in order to analyze contemporary forms of platformed cultural production. Through a case study of popular feminism, the article traces the ways in which glamour, defined as a beguiling affective force linked to promotional capitalist logics, suffuses digi…
Student Rights in an Age of Austerity? ‘Security’, Freedom of Expression and the Neoliberal University
In this profile, we examine a worrying trend taking place in institutions of higher education around the world: a notable increase in their managerial corporatization and neoliberalization, combined with greater repression of freedom of expression on campuses under the aegis of 'securitization'. We focus attention specifically on how these twinned trends have impacted student activism in a post-2008 austerity-driven economic environment. Drawing …
Witches and bitches
The governance of affect by capital has seen its ideological legitimation and emblematic site of production in the mainstream television industry, specifically reality television programs, as they provide templates for affective self-presentation to the public at large. As even a cursory glance at most reality television production demonstrates, it is most often women’s bodies and self-concepts that bear the burden of signifying and legitimating …
Trump’s “Reality” Hustle
This brief editorial links Trump’s popularity to reality television’s messages of promotionalism and the spread of overt forms of self-branding and reputation-seeking across the population at large thanks to social media. Against the backdrop of growing economic insecurity, most people must now assiduously self-promote and hustle in order to find or protect their jobs. Trump supporters are not ‘dupes’ buying the hype then; they recognize that Tru…
John, a 20-year-old Boston native with a great sense of humour
Reality television programming simultaneously narrates the conditions of the social factory and produces new forms of labour in and through them. This essay explores the nature of the labour performed by the shows' participants and argues that it involves the self-conscious development and management of public persona based on templates of the self supplied by corporate media culture. This labour of self-presentation operates simultaneously as wo…
Confessions of a Radical Eclectic
This paper explores the contributions of autonomist Marxist theory to my understanding of reality television, self-branding and social media. Autonomist Marxist ideas help to bridge the classic media studies divide between critical political economy and cultural studies, illuminating the very material connections between television’s mode of production, its texts, and its broader cultural context and impact. Concepts such as the social factory, i…
John, a 20-year-old Boston native with a great sense of humour
Reality television programming simultaneously narrates the conditions of the social factory and produces new forms of labour in and through them. This essay explores the nature of the labour performed by the shows' participants and argues that it involves the self-conscious development and management of public persona based on templates of the self supplied by corporate media culture. This labour of self-presentation operates simultaneously as wo…
Insecure
What is real? Whose lives are real? How might reality be remade? (Butler 2004, 33) In a world marked by deepening political, economic, cultural and environmental insecurity, it is little wonder tha
Meat, Mask, Burden`
This article will argue that the `reflexive project of the self' (Giddens) has become an explicit form of labour under post-Fordist capital in the form of `self-branding'. Here, work on the self is purposeful and outer-directed; self-production is heavily narrated, marked by the visual codes of the mainstream culture industry, and subject to the extraction of value. The article will explore inflections of self-branding across several different me…
Reality Television, The Hills and the Limits of the Immaterial Labour Thesis
This paper will examine the immaterial labour thesis as proposed by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri through a case study of reality television production practices, specifically those of the MTV program, The Hills. Because immaterial labour is rooted in individual intelligence, affect, and social communicative capacities, Hardt and Negri contend that economic value in the form of labour power can no longer be adequately measured and quantified an…
Confessions of a Radical Eclectic
This paper explores the contributions of autonomist Marxist theory to my understanding of reality television, self-branding and social media. Autonomist Marxist ideas help to bridge the classic media studies divide between critical political economy and cultural studies, illuminating the very material connections between television’s mode of production, its texts, and its broader cultural context and impact. Concepts such as the social factory, i…
Promotional Prime Time
Drawing on critical cultural theory, the industry trade press, and an exploratory content analysis of prime-time television, this article examines the under-researched phenomenon of “internal network promotions.” The authors argue that internal promotions constitute a central component of the growing promotional orientation of Canadian prime-time television. They provide a theoretical overview of the practices of branding and a general descriptio…
Situation Critical
This brief essay argues that fewer scholars and students in Communications and Cultural Studies seem to want to engage in the practice of critique, or to expose themselves to the risks that can come with it. It examines some of the ways in which we might read this scarcity of critique through the lens of recent administrative and structural changes that have been taking place within and across university systems in the West
Cultural studies of data mining
Student Rights in an Age of Austerity? ‘Security’, Freedom of Expression and the Neoliberal University
In this profile, we examine a worrying trend taking place in institutions of higher education around the world: a notable increase in their managerial corporatization and neoliberalization, combined with greater repression of freedom of expression on campuses under the aegis of 'securitization'. We focus attention specifically on how these twinned trends have impacted student activism in a post-2008 austerity-driven economic environment. Drawing …
Trump’s “Reality” Hustle
This brief editorial links Trump’s popularity to reality television’s messages of promotionalism and the spread of overt forms of self-branding and reputation-seeking across the population at large thanks to social media. Against the backdrop of growing economic insecurity, most people must now assiduously self-promote and hustle in order to find or protect their jobs. Trump supporters are not ‘dupes’ buying the hype then; they recognize that Tru…
Witches and bitches
The governance of affect by capital has seen its ideological legitimation and emblematic site of production in the mainstream television industry, specifically reality television programs, as they provide templates for affective self-presentation to the public at large. As even a cursory glance at most reality television production demonstrates, it is most often women’s bodies and self-concepts that bear the burden of signifying and legitimating …
Verified
What new styles of selfhood and self-presentation, forms of social status, and arbiters of “authenticity” are being authorized and propagated in the wake of big data and affective capitalism? How are they functioning, for whom, and to what end? This article takes up these questions via an examination of a sought-after user identity badge, the Twitter verification checkmark, figuring it as both an affective lure that incentivizes specific styles o…
Future tense
This brief essay considers the impact of the current conjunctural crisis on ideas about, and access to the ‘future’. It explores ways in which cultural critics and scholars might learn to think ‘scandalously’ in order to imagine and build a more equitable and humane world
The Beguiling
Arguing that questions of power expressed through aesthetic form are too often left out of current approaches to digital culture, this article revives the modernist aesthetic category of glamour in order to analyze contemporary forms of platformed cultural production. Through a case study of popular feminism, the article traces the ways in which glamour, defined as a beguiling affective force linked to promotional capitalist logics, suffuses digi…
International Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative
“Into Human Flesh and the Human Heart”
Fintech start-ups, such as Zest AI and LenddoEFL, promise enhanced levels of financial inclusion via the creation of “re-socialized” credit profiles derived from accessing clients’ online banking habits and social media accounts. As our social data becomes credit data, the performance of “appropriate” online selfhood can now, quite literally, become money. This article explores the reputational demands, disciplines, and contradictions of ostensib…
The collateralized personality
This paper explores the force of automation and its contradictions and resistances within (and beyond) the financial sector, with a specific focus on computational practices of credit-scoring and lending. It examines the operations and promotional discourses of fintech start-ups LendUp.com and Elevate.com that offer small loans to the sub-prime consumers in exchange for access to their online social media and mobile data, and Zest AI and LenddoEF…
The dominion of influence
Special section
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (15 works) · Law (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Media studies (9 works) · Art (7 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Social science (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works)