Writing
I like Open Access scholarship and I try to make most of my publications available online in some form. I do my best to disseminate my writing beyond academic paywalls and to participate reflexively in the co-creation of my research topics. If you can’t access any of the links below, feel free to get in touch.
Journal articles:
de Seta, G., Pohjonen, M., & Knuutila, A. (2024). Synthetic ethnography: Field devices for the qualitative study of generative models. Big Data & Society, 11(4), 1–15.
de Seta, G. (2024). Synthetic probes: A qualitative experiment in latent space exploration. Sociologica, 18(2), 9–23.
de Seta, G. (2024). From ASCII lanterns to synthetic livestreams: Three decades of Chinese digital folklore. Communication and the Public.
Gunderson, M., Solberg, R., Kronman, L., de Seta, G., & Rettberg, J. W. (2023). Machine vision situations: Tracing distributed agency. Open Research Europe.
de Seta, G. (2023). Digital depth: A volumetric speculation. Magazén: International Journal for Digital and Public Humanities, 4(2), 245–270.
Berti, P., De Vincentis, S., & de Seta, G. (2023). Into the megadungeon: An introduction. Magazén: International Journal for Digital and Public Humanities, 4(2), 183–190.
de Seta, G., & Shchetvina, A. (2023). Imagining machine vision: Four registers from the Chinese AI industry. AI & Society 39(1), 2267–2284.
de Seta, G. (2023). QR code: The global making of an infrastructural gateway. Global Media and China, 8(3), 362–380.
de Seta, G. (2023). China’s digital infrastructure: Networks, systems, standards. Global Media and China, 8(3), 245–253.
Rettberg, J. W. et al. (2022). Representations of machine vision technologies in artworks, games and narratives: A dataset. Data in Brief, 42, 1–18.
de Seta, G. (2021). Huanlian, or changing faces: Deepfakes on Chinese digital media platforms. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 27(4). [zh]
Conn, V. L., & de Seta, G. (2021). Sinofuturism(s). Verge: Studies in Global Asias, 7(2), 74–80.
Zhang, G., & de Seta, G. (2021). Introduction: ASIA.LIVE: Inaugurating livestream studies in Asia. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 8(1-2), 5–14.
de Seta, G. (2021). Gateways, sieves and domes: On the infrastructural topology of the Chinese stack. International Journal of Communication, 15, 2669–2692.
de Seta, G. (2021). Scaling the scene: Experimental music in Taiwan. Cultural Studies, 35(1), 162–182.
de Seta, G. (2020). Sinofuturism as inverse orientalism: China’s future and the denial of coevalness. SFRA Review, 50(2-3), 86–94. [zh]
de Seta, G. (2020). Sociality, circulation, transaction: WeChat’s infrastructural affordances. Verge: Studies in Global Asias, 6(2), 65–82.
Stevens, Q., & de Seta, G. (2020). Must Zhongzheng fall? Varied responses to memorial statues of Taiwan’s former dictator. City, 24(3-4), 627–641.
de Seta, G. (2020). Three lies of digital ethnography. Journal of Digital Social Research, 2(1), 77–97. [es]
Abidin, C., & de Seta, G. (2020). Private messages from the field: Confessions on digital ethnography and its discomforts. Journal of Digital Social Research, 2(1), 1–19.
Plantin, J.-C., & de Seta, G. (2019). WeChat as infrastructure: The techno-nationalist shaping of Chinese digital platforms. Chinese Journal of Communication, 12(3), 257–273.
de Seta, G. (2018). Biaoqing: The circulation of emoticons, emoji, stickers, and custom images on Chinese digital media platforms. First Monday, 23(9).
de Seta, G. (2018). Wenming bu wenming: The socialization of incivility in postdigital China. International Journal of Communication, 12, 2010–2030.
Chiu, H., & de Seta, G. (2017). Headbanging in Taiwan. Metal Music Studies, 3(2), 335–343.
de Seta, G. (2016). Neither meme nor viral: The circulationist semiotics of vernacular content. Lexia. Rivista di Semiotica, 25–26.
de Seta, G., & Olivotti, F. (2016). Postcolonial posts on colonial pasts: Constructing Hong Kong nostalgia on social media. Medien & Zeit, 31(4).
de Seta, G. (2015). Postdigital wangluo: The Internet in Chinese everyday life. Anthropology Now, 7(3).
de Seta, G., & Proksell, M. (2015). The aesthetics of zipai: From WeChat selfies to self-representation in contemporary Chinese art and photography. Networking Knowledge, 8(6).
Herold, D. K., & de Seta, G. (2015). Through the looking glass: Twenty years of Chinese Internet research. The Information Society 31(1).
de Seta, G. (2014). “Meng? It just means cute”: A Chinese online vernacular term in context. M/C Journal 17(2).
de Seta, G. (2013). Spraying, fishing, looking for trouble: The Chinese Internet and a critical perspective on the concept of trolling. Fibreculture 22.
Book chapters:
de Seta, G. (2024). An algorithmic folklore: Vernacular creativity in times of everyday automation. In C. Arkenbout & I. Galip (Eds.), Critical meme reader III: Breaking the meme (pp. 233–253). Institute of Network Cultures.
de Seta, G. (2024). Ethnographic approaches to digital folklore. In M. M. Skoric & N. Pang (Eds.), Research handbook on social media and society (pp. 240–254). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Conn, V. L., & de Seta, G. (2023). Let a hundred sinofuturisms bloom. In T. J. Taylor, I. Lavender III, G. L. Dillon, & B. Chattopadhyay (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of CoFuturisms (pp. 345–355). Routledge.
de Seta, G. (2021). The politics of muhei: Ethnic humor and Islamophobia on Chinese social media. In S. Udupa, I. Gagliardone, & P. Hervik (Eds.), Digital hate: The global conjuncture of extreme speech (pp. 162–174). Indiana University Press.
de Seta, G. (2021). The model. In H. Schulze (Ed.), The Bloomsbury handbook of the anthropology of sound (pp. 411–426). Bloomsbury Academic.
de Seta, G. (2021). A “no-venue underground”: Making experimental music around Hong Kong’s lack of performance spaces. In D. Charrieras & F. Mouillot (Eds.), Fractured scenes: Underground music-making in Hong Kong and East Asia (pp. 95–105). Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.
de Seta, G. (2020). China.AI. In C. Renaud, F. Graezer Bideau, & M. Laperrouza (Eds.), Realtime: Making digital China (pp. 157–169). Lausanne, Switzerland: EPFL Press.
de Seta, G. (2020). Digital folklore. In J. Hunsinger, L. Klastrup, & M. M. Allen (Eds.), Second international handbook of internet research (pp. 167-180). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
de Seta, G. (2019). Pepe goes to China, or, the post-global circulation of memes. In A. Bown & D. Bristow (Eds.), Post memes: Seizing the memes of production (pp. 389-401). Earth, Milky Way: Punctum Books.
Zhang, G., & de Seta, G. (2019). Being “red” on the internet: The craft of popularity on Chinese social media platforms. In C. Abidin & M. L. Brown (Eds.), Microcelebrity around the globe: Approaches to cultures of internet fame (pp. 57–67). Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Publishing.
de Seta, G. (2018). Years of the Internet: Vernacular creativity before, on and after the Chinese Web. In N. Brügger & I. Milligan (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Web History (pp. 520–536). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
de Seta, G. (2017). Trolling, and other problematic social media practices. In J. Burgess, A. Marwick, & T. Poell (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social media (pp. 390–411). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
de Seta, G., & Proksell, M. (2017). V-Day selfies in Beijing: Media events and user practices as micro-acts of citizenship. In A. Kuntsman (Ed.), Selfie citizenship (pp. 29–37). London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.
de Seta, G., & Zhang, G. (2015). Stranger Stranger or Lonely Lonely? Young Chinese and dating apps between the locational, the mobile and the social. In I. A. Degim, J. Johnson, & T. Fu (Eds.), Online courtship: Interpersonal interactions across borders (pp. 167–185). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Institute of Network Cultures.
Liu, X., & de Seta, G. (2015). Chinese fansub groups as communities of practice: An ethnography of online language learning. In P. Marolt & D. K. Herold (Eds.), China online: Locating society in online spaces (pp. 125–140). Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge.
de Seta, G. (2012). The noise connection: Experimental music in China as a networked subculture. In A. Keidan (Ed.) The study of Asia – Between antiquity and modernity (pp. 38–44). Cagliari, Italy: Coffee Break Project.
Encyclopedia entries:
de Seta, G. (2016). Egao and online satire, China. In J. A. Murray & K. M. Nadeau (Eds.), Pop culture in Asia and Oceania (pp. 227–230). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
de Seta, G. (2016). Great Firewall, China. In J. A. Murray & K. M. Nadeau (Eds.), Pop culture in Asia and Oceania (pp. 232–235). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
de Seta, G. (2016). Weishidai (Micro-era), China. In J. A. Murray & K. M. Nadeau (Eds.), Pop culture in Asia and Oceania (pp. 271–274). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Reports:
Rettberg, J. W., Gunderson, M., Kronman, L., Solberg, R., & de Seta, G. (2024). Machine vision in everyday life: Final report. University of Bergen.
Karaboga, M., Frei, N., Puppis, M., Vogler, D., Raemy, P., Ebbers, F., Runge, G., Rauchfleisch, A., de Seta, G., Gurr, G., Friedewald, M., & Rovelli, S. (2024). Deepfakes und manipulierte Realitäten – Technologiefolgenabschätzung und Handlungsempfehlungen für die Schweiz. Bern, Switzerland: vdf Hochschulverlag AG.
Proksell, M. & de Seta, G. (2020). DSL Magazine: Issue 11 (Art, the Internet, & China). Paris, France: DSL Collection.
Reviews:
de Seta, G. (2021). Blockchain chicken farm: And other stories of tech in China’s countryside, by Xiaowei Wang. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 8(3), 265–269.
de Seta, G. (2020). Zoning China: Online video, popular culture, and the state, by Luzhou Li. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 7(3), 235–238.
de Seta, G. (2020). Digital China’s informal circuits: Platforms, labour and governance, by Elaine Jing Zhao. China Information, 34(2), 294–295.
de Seta, G. (2020). Illiberal China: The ideological challenge of the People’s Republic of China, by Daniel F. Vukovich. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture.
de Seta, G. (2020). Information fantasies: Precarious mediation in postsocialist China, by Xiao Liu. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 7(1–2), 145–148.
de Seta, G. (2020). Ambient media: Japanese atmospheres of self, by Paul Roquet. International Journal of Communication, 14, 1753–1755.
de Seta, G. (2019). Super-sticky WeChat and Chinese society, by Yujie Chen, Zhifei Mao, and Jack Linchuan Qiu. Mobile Media & Communication, 7(3), 435–436.
de Seta, G. (2019). Contesting cyberspace in China: Online expression and authoritarian resilience, by Rongbin Han. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 96(3), 927–928.
de Seta, G., & Friedman, K. (2019). Sensefield: An exhibition of experimental ethnography (Project report). Museum Anthropology Review, 13(1), 96–102.
de Seta, G. (2018). Children in China, by Orna Naftali. Social Anthropology, 26(2), 288–290.
de Seta, G. (2018). Networking China: The digital transformation of the Chinese economy, by Yu Hong. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 5(1–2), 162–165.
de Seta, G. (2017). The question concerning technology in China: An essay in cosmotechnics, by Yuk Hui. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 4(3), 316–319.
de Seta, G. (2016). Culture, aesthetics and affect in ubiquitous media: The prosaic image, by Helen Grace. Asiascape: Digital Asia, 3(3), 203–205.
de Seta, G. (2016). Softimage: towards a new theory of the digital image, by Ingrid Hoelzl and Rémi Marie. Social Media + Society, 2(3).
de Seta, G. (2015). Society and the Internet: How networks of information and communication are changing our lives, edited by Mark Graham & William H. Dutton. Communication Booknotes Quarterly 46(2), 63–65.
de Seta, G. (2015). Memes in digital culture, by Limor Shifman. New Media & Society 17(3), 476-480.
de Seta, G. (2015). Technomobility in China: Young migrant women and mobile phones, by Cara Wallis. Asiascape: Digital Asia 2(1-2), 169–171.
de Seta, G. (2014). Situated practices on China’s changing Internets: From the users of mobile ICTs and apps to Weibo posters and social networkers, Hong Kong, 18.-21. (Conference report). ASIEN: The German Journal on Contemporary Asia 133, 115–116.
de Seta, G. (2014). People’s pornography: Sex and surveillance on the Chinese Internet, by Katrien Jacobs. Porn Studies 1(1-2), 208–211.
Dissertations:
de Seta, G. (2015). Dajiangyou: Media practices of vernacular creativity in postdigital China. Hong Kong, China: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
de Seta, G. (2011). Mediation through noise: Experimental music in China. Leiden, the Netherlands: Universiteit Leiden.
Translations:
Land, N. (2018). Il numogramma decimale [Decimal numogram] (G. de Seta & P. Berti, Trans.). KABUL Magazine.
Land, N. (2017). Collasso [Meltdown] (G. de Seta & P. Berti, Trans.). Lo Sguardo, 24(2), 269–279.
Other writing:
de Seta, G. (2024). Ball-ache, cow pussy, and dick hair: Vulgarity in Chinese internet language. Global China Pulse.
de Seta, G. (2023). Poor saturation: On Tiktokcore and algorithmic audio vernaculars. A Pure Excuse to Fill Up the Space, 8–11.
de Seta, G. (2021). Heikeji 黑科技 [‘black technology’]. A New AI Lexicon.
de Seta, G. (2021). APAIC report on the holocode crisis. Surveillance & Society, 19(4), 474–479.
Hagerty, A. et al. (2021) Mapping algorithmic assumptions: Reflections from a Society for Psychological Anthropology roundtable. Somatosphere.
de Seta, G. (2020). Optical governance: The roles of machine vision in China’s epidemic response. Strelka Mag.
de Seta, G. (2020). Il sinofuturismo è il nuovo tecno-orientalismo?. NOT.
de Seta, G. (2019). Through the air, into the ear: Fujui Wang’s Hollow Noise. In C. Wang (Ed.), & S. Lin (Trans.), Light interdiction (pp. 13–16). Berlin, Germany: IDOLONSTUDIO.
de Seta, G. (2019). Models of listening. No Man’s Land.
de Seta, G. (2019). FM treasures: Datscha Radio Taipei. No Man’s Land.
de Seta, G. (2019). The persistence of glitch: Chromesthesia Resonance. No Man’s Land.
de Seta, G. (2018). Sight-specific: On Fujui Wang & Yi Lu’s sound objects. In Y. Lu & F. Wang (Eds.), Soundwatch Soundobject (pp. 30–37). Taipei, Taiwan: Soundwatch Studio.
de Seta, G. (2018). Into the Red Stack. Hong Kong Review of Books.
de Seta, G. (2018). Three lies of digital ethnography. anthro{dendum}.
Abidin, C., & de Seta, G. (2018). Private messages from the field: Confessions on digital ethnography and its discomforts. anthro{dendum}.
Proksell, M., & de Seta, G. (2017). A cabinet of moments: Collecting and displaying visual content from WeChat. Membrana, 3, 88–94.
de Seta, G., Graeter, S., & Cross, J. (2017). Our electric backup. Cultural Anthropology.
de Seta, G. (2017). Gabriele de Seta’s postdigital China. CaMP Anthropology.
de Seta, G. (2017). 論自拍. Guava Anthropology.
de Seta, G. (2017). Fraying the soundscape: Beyond noise and silence in the Chinese rural-urban interzone. Noise & Silence.
de Seta, G. (2016). Direct-casting: An interview with Dino Zhang on livestreaming in China. Cyborgology.
de Seta, G. (2016). The no-venue underground: Sounding Hong Kong’s lack of performance spaces. Sound Matters.
de Seta, G. (2016). The social life of sad frogs, or: Pepe goes to China. Cyborgology.
de Seta, G. (2016). Buying plastic sprouts to sell cuteness. PopAnth.
de Seta, G. (2016). Xianqiao diary: Artists in village residence (中文). Village Taipei URS.
de Seta, G. (2016). Xianqiao diary: Repainting village life (中文). Village Taipei URS.
de Seta, G. (2016). Selfies, trolling and one-night stands: From Chinese internet culture to digital media practices. The University of Nottingham China Policy Institute Blog.
de Seta, G. (2015). Philip Zhai: Read his poems in Chinese here!. One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age.
de Seta, G. (2014). *digital*media*junk*ware*lore*. In Junkware, The junk venture book (pp. 18–20). Shanghai, China: Junkware.
de Seta, G. (2014). Dajiangyou: Fieldwork notes about Chinese digital folklore. NewHive.
Burrows, J., Coppoolse, A., de Seta, G., Zhang, G., & Zuser, T. (2014). Arcade/Border/City: Reading Benjamin’s Passagenwerk in Hong Kong. Immediacy 2014: Media Utopias & Dystopias.
de Seta, G. (2013). Détournement. American Asparagus 1.
Interviews:
Mapondera, C. (2024). Algorithmic folklore: How we imagine AI. Global Digital Futures.
Shchetvina, A., & Fridzema, N. (2024). Algorithmic folklore [interview with Gabriele de Seta]. Matter of Imagination.
Hogan, M. (2023). Fake, with Gabriele de Seta. The Data Fix.
Zhao, M. (2023). ‘He is always perfect in my heart’. Radio Free Asia.
O’Key, D., Roast, A., Stainforth, L. & Thurley, O. (2022). Episode 4: Gabriele de Seta. Serious Play.
Hobson, C. (2022). In conversation with Gabriele de Seta. Imperfect notes on an imperfect world.
Tesquet, O. (2021). Le QR Code, on ne s’en passe plus!. Télérama.
Khong, E. L. (2019). Hong Kong and the art of dissent. Financial Times.
Zhang, P., & Chen, L. (2019). The emergence and evolution of China’s internet warriors going to battle over Hong Kong protests. South China Morning Post.
Nova, N. (2019). Interview: Gabriele de Seta. Millénaire3: Regards croisés sur l’intelligence artificielle.
Surcouf, O. (2019). Korean apps conquer Asia with cute emojis. Asia Times.
Tai, K. (2018). Chinese internet culture (with Gabriele de Seta). Fernostwärts.
Margree, P. (2017). Antinaturalism. We Need No Swords.
Tai, K. (2015). Made in China / Einmal Internet auf kommunistisch. WIRED Germany.
Lialina, O. (2015). Dreaming the Chinese Web. One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age.
Valentine, B. (2015). All Internet is local: Digital folklore in China. Rhizome.