Abstract
While Dubai, the small emirate in the United Arab Emirates, tends to be associated with luxurious social media images of elite social actors, startling architecture, and consumer status symbols, this study addresses migrant, domestic, and service workers’ everyday digital placemaking. To explore these issues, a global semiotic framework reorientates traditional notions of the geopolitical context in terms of Dubai’s social mediascape. TikTok is taken as a case to explore a corpus of Dubai-related hashtags and content being shared by migrant, domestic, and service workers. The central argument of the article is that, while Dubai’s social media cultures reflect hegemonies of Gulf governance and TikTok’s algorithms, they are also infused by workers’ affective digital-placemaking as a form of neoliberal resilience to communicative capitalism and deterritorialization in the social media age. Overall, the article provides much-needed insights into how social mediashapes and is shaped by transnational social actors’ digital placemaking in the Middle East region.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
More From: Social Media + Society
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.