Scale and the digital: The miniaturizing of global knowledge

Abstract

Popular performance cultures, once largely diffused through lived interaction and physical migration, are currently being disseminated on video-sharing websites. This article maintains that performances circulated through videos become miniaturized. The miniaturization of actual performance cultures through their transmission on online videos in turn elicits a relation between individual users and global popular knowledge: users may experience a sense of control over online data as well as sensations of intimacy and closeness to the global culture of digital performances. The miniaturization of virtual knowledge and its potential to engender feelings of control and intimacy are illustrated through the lens of the specific case study of salsa dance. This research integrates diverse areas of inquiry such as theories of affect, miniaturization and space, communication technology as a process of miniaturization, the history of salsa dance, ethnographic research of salsa dance as well as a content survey of videos featured on YouTube.

Keywords

affect dance miniatures miniaturization performance popular knowledge salsa video-sharing websites

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