
Textual Cacophony
Online Video and Anonymity in Japan
Daniel Johnson(Author)
Cornell University East Asia Program (Publisher)
Published on 15. October 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-1-5017-7226-9 (ISBN)
Description
Textual Cacophony explores the behaviors and routines of communication within anonymous internet culture in Japan. Focusing on the video sharing website Niconico, social media aggregation sites, and the notorious 2channel message board, Daniel Johnson uncovers these sites' complex cultures of writing that obscure meaning through playful and opaque forms of deviant script and overwhelming waves of text. Those practices conflate language with images, meaning with play, and confound individual representation with aggregate forms of social identity.
Johnson argues that online media cultures in and around Japan are entwined with a cultural logic and visual syntax of cacophony that expresses ambivalence toward representation, media form, and distinct experiences of time. This aesthetic of cacophony provides an alternative way of expressing social identity and belonging, with an unmarked sense of anonymity providing a counter-form to the dissolving institutions and relationships of neoliberal Japan. Textual Cacophony investigates what it means and feels like to participate in this influential online culture.
Johnson argues that online media cultures in and around Japan are entwined with a cultural logic and visual syntax of cacophony that expresses ambivalence toward representation, media form, and distinct experiences of time. This aesthetic of cacophony provides an alternative way of expressing social identity and belonging, with an unmarked sense of anonymity providing a counter-form to the dissolving institutions and relationships of neoliberal Japan. Textual Cacophony investigates what it means and feels like to participate in this influential online culture.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Cornell University Press
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
16 b&w halftones - 16 Halftones, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 152 mm
Width: 228 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
284 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5017-7226-9 (9781501772269)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
10/2023
Cornell University East Asia Program
€18.49
Available for download
Person
Daniel Johnson is Assistant Professor of Japanese at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.