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on Cultural Economics |
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Issue of 2026–02–09
five papers chosen by Roberto Zanola, Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale |
| By: | Semra Ay (BaÅŸkent University, Ankara, Turkey) |
| Abstract: | Accelerated video playback, now a standard feature in the interfaces of platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, has been offering the act of viewing in a mode of time-efficient consumption. This study focuses on how speed-watching practices—enabled through interface options such as 1.5x, 2x, or even 3x playback—diminish sensory engagement and reconfigure moving images into commodified, extractable units. Accelerated playback erodes the tactile and immersive dimensions of audiovisual media, reducing visual experience to a superficial and instrumental encounter. Drawing on the concepts of the attention economy and dromology, the paper situates speed-watching within a broader cultural logic governed by acceleration. In this context, aesthetic and narrative dimensions are subordinated to a utilitarian logic that prioritizes speed, control, and content volume. By analyzing speed-watching within the platform-driven dynamics of contemporary digital media, the study argues that the desire to consume more in less time not only reshapes user–content relationships but also redefines the very terms of aesthetic experience. |
| Keywords: | Video, Consumption, Aesthetic, Digital Media, Attention Economy |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:raiswp:0585 |
| By: | Seungah Oh (Shawnigan Lake School, Shawnigan Lake, Canada) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the pride–shame complex at work in national cultural memory through the lens of three dance traditions: ballet, jazz, and hip-hop. Ballet embodies nationalistic pride rooted in exclusionary aristocratic histories, whereas jazz and hip-hop provide marginalized communities with ways to negotiate shame and transform it into cultural power and resistance. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital and Halbwachs’s theory of collective memory, the paper argues that the coexistence of pride and shame strengthens national identity. As an embodied cultural practice, dance gives shape to the tensions between celebration and exclusion, offering a means for ethical engagement with historical injustices and the promotion of an inclusive cultural memory. This study contributes to interdisciplinary discourses concerning social memory, identity, and cultural politics. |
| Keywords: | pride-shame complex, national cultural memory, ballet, jazz, hip-hop, cultural capital, collective memory, embodied culture, social identity, cultural politics, historical injustice |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:raiswp:0570 |
| By: | Skerdilajda Zanaj (DEM, Université du Luxembourg); Anastasia Litina (University of Macedonia); Emma Thill (DEM, Université du Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | "Culture shapes economic and social life, yet some traits erode quickly, while others persist across generations. Migrant experiences towards Europe or the United States illustrate this puzzle. In addition, some traits, such as fertility norms, tend to converge relatively quickly, whereas others, such as religiosity, exhibit substantially greater persistence. We develop a dynamic model of cultural transmission that endogenizes both cross-cultural group interaction and parental influence on cultural openness defined as a parentally transmitted willingness to adopt a new cultural trait when beneficial. Parents first shape cultural transmission by choosing their children’s openness to alternative traits. As young adults, individuals then decide how much to interact with other groups and, conditional on interaction, whether to switch traits. This endogenizes peer exposure and makes cultural change a deliberate choice. Within a generation, a higher group-level propensity to switch reduces group size, while tighter norms can expand or shrink a group depending on the relative utility of its trait. Across generations, parental investments in openness generate three long-run equilibria: convergence to a single trait, coexistence with interaction, or segregation without interaction. By jointly modeling parental transmission and peer-driven switching, we show that cultural persistence or change reflects purposeful micro-level decisions." |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:luc:wpaper:25-20 |
| By: | William Triplett (Hampton University, School of Religion, USA) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how the Black Church is re-priming worship in the digital era by embracing virtual space, live streaming, and the digital environment. Through narrativebased qualitative research and analysis of documents, this work will discuss how congregations establish sacred online spaces, maintain communal life during social rupture, and use technology to develop spiritual intimacy. In-depth case study examples of Hosanna Community Church, Trinity United Church of Christ, and Metropolitan AME Church help understand theological adjustment and pastoral approaches toward digital ministry. The findings capture the role of moral imagination, Ubuntu theology, and sacred resistance in informing innovative virtual congregational worship experiences. This study adds to the emerging body of knowledge in digital theology and provides practical recommendations to faith leaders who strive to find their way in a hybrid and fully online ministry in a postpandemic world. By doing so, the study also brings to light opportunities and challenges, such as digital equity, community authenticity, and generational engagement. It further places the Black Church in the wider discourse about theology and technology, illustrating how its experience is a source of inspiration to other faith communities facing similar processes of digital transformation. |
| Keywords: | digital church, Black Church, online worship, theology and technology, virtual ministry |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:raiswp:0576 |
| By: | Sueyoul Kim; Ginger Zhe Jin; Eungik Lee |
| Abstract: | Using a comprehensive dataset of posts from a major platform for anime- and manga-style artwork, we study the impact of the launch of a prominent text-to-image generative AI. Focusing on the majority of incumbent creators who do not adopt AI as a primary tool, we show that the AI launch led to a significant decline in post uploads by illustrators, whereas comic artists were less affected, reflecting the need for tight stylistic alignment across sequential images in comics. We present empirical evidence for two underlying mechanisms. First, illustration posts experience a loss of viewer attention, measured by bookmarks, following the AI launch, which can significantly harm creators’ business models. Second, direct competition from AI-generated content plays an important role: illustrators working on intellectual properties (IPs, such as Pokémon) that are more heavily invaded by AI reduce their uploads disproportionately more. We further examine creators’ responses and show that illustrators with greater exposure to AI avoid using tags favored by AI-generated content after the AI launch and broaden the range of IPs they work on, consistent with a risk-hedging response to AI invasion. |
| JEL: | D22 J24 L86 O14 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34733 |