Abstract:
Over the past two decades, digital platforms have made their way into virtually every sphere of life. This trend of platformization has facilitated new forms of monetized language and culture instruction, including on both social media platforms and language-specific tutoring platforms. This talk discusses how platformization and its underlying logic have facilitated the rise of a new category of language instructor who combines language and culture instruction with entertaining content and a distinctive self-brand: the platform language teacherpreneur (PLT).
The talk discusses how PLTs discursively construct language and culture in their efforts to brand themselves in the highly competitive context of digital platforms. The talk argues that platform logic encourages PLTs to construct essentialized versions of culture that reinforce problematic stereotypes about language and identity. In advancing this argument, the talk combines analysis of: 1) specific platforms’ affordances; 2) representations of culture in teachers’ self-branding materials; and 3) interviews with individual teachers from Mainland China and Hong Kong. The talk concludes by discussing some of the implications of platformization for intercultural communication.
About the Speaker:
Nate Ming Curran is an Assistant Professor of Intercultural Communication at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His work appears in more than 20 international journals, including: Applied Linguistics; Information, Communication & Society; Media, Culture & Society; International Journal of Communication; and Critical Studies in Television.
Background Readings:
Casilli, A. A., & Posada, J. G. (2019). The Platformization of labor and society. In M. Graham & W. H. Dutton (Eds.), Society and the internet: How networks of information and communication are changing our lives ( 2nd ed., pp. 293–306). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Khamis, S., Ang, L., & Welling, R. (2017). Self-branding, ‘micro-celebrity’ and the rise of social media influencers. Celebrity Studies, 8(2), 191-208.
Wang, J., & Curran, N. M. (2024). Competing for Views and Students: The Implications of Platformization for Online Language Teaching. TESOL Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.3354
Yu, C. (In press) Online collaborative translation in the platform society. In Baumgarten, S. & Tiber, M. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Translation Technology and Society. Routledge.