Female entrepreneurship and social capital: Exploring the relationship between social connection and women-owned social media-based businesses in Bangladesh
Article
Businesswomen in Bangladesh are using social media to do business from their homes, in support of their financial development. Social capital theory is applied to investigate the role that family and other close and external networks play in conducting business through social media. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 businesswomen to understand why they chose social media for their business, and to identify the type of support they got from their social connections and the hurdles they encountered. Content analysis examined their Facebook and Instagram pages for two weeks to understand the support that their external networks provided. This study finds that family and other close networks encouraged women entrepreneurs with loans, free labour, and product promotions that contributed in building and sustaining the businesses, while external networks helped with more formal or institutional support. Meanwhile, customers provided intangible support that encouraged the businesswomen to start, survive, and succeed.
Critical Pleasures: Reflections on the Indonesian Horror Genre and its Anti-Fans
Article
Drawing on ethnographic audience research carried out during 2013-2014, this article examines how young, urban, tertiary-educated Indonesians engage with the Indonesian horror genre. For most of these consumers, Indonesian horror films are the subject of ridicule and derision. With reference to Bourdieu’s theories of taste and distinction, I illustrate how the imagined “mass audience” of Indonesian horror functions as a symbolic “other,” emphasizing the cultural capital of more discerning, critical audiences. In exploring these audience members’ critical engagement with Indonesian horror, I also apply recent theories of “anti-fandom” that have come out of US cultural studies. There are many resonances between Indonesian anti-horror sentiment and US anti-fandom, but also some important divergences. I use these gaps and disjunctures as a departure point for reflecting on some of the challenges and opportunities of working at the intersection of Asian studies, media studies and cultural studies in the contemporary scholarly context.
