Banished Wizards and Moving Castles: Mapping the Web Sphere of Anime Streaming to Explore the Protocol of Control and Resistance

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Banished Wizards and Moving Castles

Mapping the Web Sphere of Anime Streaming to Explore the Protocol of

Control and Resistance

Master's Thesis by

Gyeongjin ‘Trisha’ Lee, 11441453

MA in Media Studies: New Media and Digital Culture Graduate School of Humanities,

University of Amsterdam Supervised by Alex Gekker

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This thesis paper aims to construct a roadmap of the Western anime fan web sphere with a focus on anime streaming sites. Based on 42 different anime streaming sites and their URLs, 3 different hyperlink maps were produced to reveal that the web sphere does not only consist of fan infrastructure or their activities but also on corporate and institutional action against piracy and journalistic interest from outside of the fandom. Furthermore, the semi-legal anime streaming sites were largely disconnected from the sphere, establishing their unique way of surviving against the disciplinary logic on the web. Three different strategies were discussed in this paper; domain changes, installations of CAPTCHA and usage of search engine flaws. Meanwhile, there were also legal entities reflecting the controls into their beings but not actively opposing semi-legal entities.

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Introduction

0.1. A Wizard's Moving Castle

There are many stories about the fleeing and hiding ones, from Anne Frank and Huckleberry Finn to Julian Assange. This research is also another tale about a wanted

criminal that has been fleeing and hiding away from those with power. Before we get into the real story, I would like to introduce you to a story that has a lot of similarity with what this research is about; A story of a wizard and his moving castle.

Howl's Moving Castle is a Japanese animated film (anime) written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, the most famous producer of the modern history of Japanese animation. One of the main characters, Howl, a young but powerful wizard, lives in a moving castle the ‘true’ form of which wanders around the faraway wilderness. However, the door of the castle is a portal that allows access to four different places; the kingdom's capital city, folksy harbor city, the wilderness and a bloody warfront. People talk in whispers about the villainy of the wizard Howl but admires his charming looks and attitude. The chief antagonist, a witch who rules the wilderness, wants Howl's youth, beauty, and power. Howl is so afraid of the witch that he keeps thousands of talismans to protect himself from the witch. The movie starts as the witch reaches out to Sophie, the protagonist and Howl's lover, to capture Howl. The witch uses hundreds of soulless henchmen that are made of black slime to find Howl, but they cannot find him as he uses one of his talismans to erase his sign. As the witch fails to capture Howl, the kingdom tries to do so as well, but Howl vanishes from their sight by blocking the access from the two of the four mentioned portals.

There are multiple, rather philosophical, interpretations about this 'moving castle' and surrounding symbolizations in this movie. However, as this thesis shall depict more in detail later on, this celebrated piece of anime shows an oddly great resemblance to the history of

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how the anime fandom has been surviving in web despite all threats. Now imagine, Howl and his friends living in the castle are the anime fandom, the castle is their web location that is never physically anchored anywhere but wanders around in wilderness of the world wide web and the witch and the kingdom are the industry and the governmental power that tries to put Howl and his friends under control. Keep this image in mind, because this research is a saga about how the wizard and his friends flee, hide and keep on surviving.

0.2. Anime and What Makes Anime Fandom Different

Who is Howl? Why did he decide to live in the moving castle in the wilderness? How does the moving castle differ from the other castles? When Howl was young, he fell in love with the beauty of a fallen star and ended up making a lifelong contract with the devil living inside the star. For the sin of selling his soul to the devil, Howl could not live in the village anymore. He went into the wilderness and the devil built a castle for him. Even though Howl's Moving Castle is called 'castle', it looked nothing like one. The castle lacks any permanent grounds and the looks rather like a giant bird that is always ready to fly away. Similarly, in this section, this research will introduce how anime fandom inevitably became based in the ever-changing wilderness of the world wide web, and how the moving castle of streaming sites, where they live in, is different from the platforms of other fan cultures.

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Image 1 Howl's Moving Castle (K. Anderson)

Anime, another name for Japanese animation, emerged in the 1910s and developed its current distinctive form in the 1960s. Anime's export began almost simultaneously with its birth and especially accelerated to become an important cultural export of Japan in the 1990s. As Kondo Seiichi, a Japanese diplomat, argues in his publication Japan's Soft Power and

Public Diplomacy, Anime is an effective media to convey Japan's philosophy and value to

international audiences and has been given a full support as an international ambassador of Japanese culture. In 2003, anime and its related products accounted for almost one-third of Japanese revenue in the world media market (Nakamura) and as Douglas McGray refers to in a famous article in Foreign Affairs, anime became Japan's new "soft power", beginning to wield an enormous influence in the world's consumption of popular culture (Napier 53). In other words, despite its strong regional connotation of being 'Japanese', Anime has become an internationally consumed and perceived cultural object through various strata (Lu 170).

As a result, Anime fan culture became one of the world's fastest-growing subcultures (Napier 48) and possesses three specificities that distinguishes it from the other fan cultures.

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The first is that anime fandom outside of Japan, especially that of America, is deeply rooted in the Internet, since the 1990s when the history of global fan culture has begun. In a 1995 article from Wired magazine, it is described how anime otaku became one of the more computer networked subcultures;

"Until recently, only a subculture of hard-core American fans devoured anime outside

of Japan. Often called otaku (Japanese slang for "obsessed fans") ... They are usually

young, often Asian-American, and almost always male. ... a sizable proportion are also

computer geeks. As recently as 1991, otaku hungry for an anime fix had limited

options. ... you were stuck, doomed to watch muddy, scratched-up, hundredth-generation

copies of bootlegged cassette tapes. Even if the cassette was in good condition, a tape of

a program pirated directly off Japanese television and mailed to the United States had

limited appeal to non-Japanese speakers.

No one has a good explanation why otaku and anime subculture thrived on the

Internet years ... But there's no question that anime otaku have one of the more computer

networked subcultures around. Anime fans expend countless hours online crafting Web

home pages festooned with animated art, uploading painstakingly compiled translated

scripts of anime programs, and engaging in endless flame wars on every aspect of anime

trivia (A. Leonard)."

Even though Leonard claims there is no clear explanation why anime fandom became so heavily web-based, it is possible to infer a number of scenarios. First of all, demographically, the first group of anime fans was 'computer geeks' that were capable of utilizing the internet network as their location for communication. Especially since the number of the fans was so small and geographically scattered that setting up an offline scene as big as the online scene would have been difficult. When the fandom has expanded enough to form a sizeable offline

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scene, digital consumption of the video clip over online connection would have been more convenient than cassette tape or CDs that the main channel for consuming animes would have moved to the online scene as well, making web anime fandom more solid.

But the scholarly scene of media studies and cultural studies saw the reason why non-Japanese anime fan culture started to be based on the internet to this extent was ultimately the limitation of the option. Most of Japanese anime was produced and aired mainly in Japan and even the exported pieces were aired through television broadcasting system. Even when there are 50 different anime titles aired in Japan, it was only a small portion that non-Japanese fans could access with authorized channels. Therefore, in order to watch animes that are not officially exported, foreign fans needed an alternative way to obtain the footage. The Internet, where the delivery of the contents is immediate and easy, became an ideal alternative.

Additionally, the majority of non-Japanese anime fans does not understand Japanese language. Even if the footage of anime were easy to obtain, they needed to be dubbed or subtitled. Otherwise, they were not consumable, which Jenkins refers to as 'the (lack of) availability of preferred texts' (Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture.). Therefore it started to have its own distributional process that were easily hence commonly facilitated through the Internet; Jorge Díaz Cintas and Pablo Muñoz Sánchez lists seven major translation tasks; as source acquisition, translation, timing, typesetting, editing, encoding, distribution and 'karaoke' for credits sequences (Cintas and Sánchez 40,42). In other words, "a transnational set of translation and distribution processes often takes place, from those in Japan uploading 'raw' anime broadcasts to the Internet, through to international teams (who may not all be resident in the same country) who work collectively to produce a dispersed and transnationalized subtitled version of anime online." (Denison 454).

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Casper the devil, Markl the orphan, and Sophie the heroine on run. The castle had to be moving in the wilderness, or these quirky characters would not have met and there would not have been a story to be told. The mutability of the castle allows it to act as a point of contact for those discrepant characters from various spaces. Similarly, the distribution process of anime, in the end, is based on a loose collective of individuals who may never actually meet in person and therefore yields a necessity for a web platform infrastructure to mediate all the individuals with different roles, including those who only consume (not participate in

translation or distribution).

The second distinctive characteristic of anime fandom is at platform specificity. Mainstream cultures have exposed platforms where cultural objects are distributed and

consumed and different fan activities happen in different places. Taking music as an example, there are a number of representative platforms, such as Spotify or iTunes, and they are largely commercialized and deeply connected to the music industry. The consumption in the

platforms is recognized by the music industry and it often directs to the income of the producer parties. They are the facilitator that industry cannot exist without them. In other words, just like ordinary castles, It is bound to the territory (metaphorically, the industry) to be ruled and they are physically anchored in places visible and accessible to authorities. However, in case of anime consumption in non-Japanese location, it largely depends on Anime streaming sites, the moving castles. The essential function of anime streaming sites is not very different from the mainstream culture's streaming services, but they do not operate in the same way. In relation to the bigger picture of fandom culture and anime industry, their role and dynamics are very distinctive.

Firstly, when it comes to their contents, streaming sites' role is not to just 'stream' what was offered. Their role is to gather all scattered information and data (or even generate them on

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their own) about the anime on the web, including raw anime footage, fan-generated subtitles, plot texts in the service language and other metadata, and to organize them into a format that can be searched and viewed by the fans. Second, the user experience or affordances that they commonly offer often includes a communicative forum for the fans. Mainstream video streaming services, such as Netflix, do not play a role in connecting individual viewers. Rather, content consumption and its discussion are separated, since streaming platforms generally avoid anything that can affect the user experience actually (binge-)watching the visual contents. Contrastingly, Anime streaming sites often have external web pages of forum and comment functions per anime titles or even individual episodes. Therefore, anime

streaming sites are not only a place for mere consumption but also a starting point of fan discussion and activities. Namely, it is where one becomes an anime fan and being an anime fan is defined. Lastly, with a relation to the first point that they have to gather and generate their own contents, the biggest difference of anime streaming sites from other mainstream culture is its relation to the industry where the contents are produced.

That leads us to the third specificity of anime fandom, the discussion of anime fan activity as piracy. Every kind of mainstream cultural industry nowadays suffers from piracy; music, movie, books. (Jetha, Berente and Kind) Everything can be downloaded through a few minutes of web search. However, it is a rare case that almost entire group of consumers of a certain industry are engaged in a linear space between piracy and legal fan activities.

Therefore, just like Howl's existence, on the run away from his enemies, anime fandom has been under constant pervasive threat.

In fact, throughout the history of web anime fandom, the distinction between fan practices and copyright infringement was never clear. Of course, industry producers had a tendency to react strongly to what they perceive as copyright infringement by fans. Yet, there was a strong

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resistance in fan communities as they do not view their activities as piracy, considering the amount of labor that fan community has to spare on making anime consumable. As it was discussed above, consumption of anime in non-Japanese locations needs fan labor to take care of translation and distribution. As Sean Leonard, a legal scholar from the University of Chicago writes: at the early 1990s, fans helped to pave the way for the popularity of anime today and without fan networks, and specifically without fan distribution, anime's success could never have happened (S. Leonard). Rayna Denison, a researcher in Japanese and Asian media studies, also explains the denial of piracy from the fan communities is because "fan producers view their practices as valid adaptations and interpretations that reinforce their legitimate consumption of media texts (451)." Especially when it comes to fan-subbing activity, she claims that "fan texts are at the liminal edge between fan creativity and piracy. Essentially, this is because fan-subtitled anime are texts augmented by, rather than created by, fans." Matt Hills, Henry Jenkins and Paul McDonald, all very prominent scholars in fandom studies, have dealt with this unique example of transnational media distribution, mainly in American media.

Historically, the tension in anime fan activities regarding copyright infringement was not as polarized as, in the current days.

"Even ten years ago, the impression of anime fansubbing was actually positive.

Antonia Levi for instance has claimed that even in the mid-1990s anime fan subtitling

was viewed as useful by industry officials, who looked to fan production to see where

potentially profitable markets might lie (Levi). However as the production of 'digisubs'

(anime fansubs made available as computer files) grows, the positive perception of the

fan pirate has diminished. This shift of perception coincides with the increasing

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of America now have more to lose through the illegal distribution of their wares

(Denison 450)."

Namely, the anime industry were profiting from or even exploiting what Napier defines as subcultural capital. Napier defines subcultural capital as 'knowledge about an area of fandom that allows one to feel comfortable with other like-minded fans, but also to gain status among fellow enthusiasts.' (Napier 15; Denison) What happens in the Japanese anime fandom on web, including pirating anime footage, putting amateur-made subtitles and creating

community upon it, makes anime and its related goods consumable for further range of fans. Ultimately, anime industry benefits from such unauthorized fan activities and hence the industry has been silently encouraging them despite their questionable legality.

In summary, anime fandom is largely based on web, with distinctive platforms for consumption and a unique tension with the industry that produces the product. With the combination with its cultural specialty in terms of art, literature and film study, these specificities of anime fandom generate numerous inquiries worthy of studying.

0.3. Anime in Academia and Positioning of this Research

Anime and its fandom have been extensively explored in the areas of film studies, philosophy, and art. As anime has a strong tendency of conveying an array of culturally specific ideas and values of Japan, many scholars have looked into the interpretation of its text, plots, visual elements and and other cultural elecments. Amy Shirong Lu, for example, inquired what elements of anime (such as background, context, character design and narrative) makes anime comprehensive and attractive for international audiences (fans). However, since this research would not inquire the cultural specificity of anime as cultural content, we will not go into this direction as deep as other fields, and the cultural significance of anime as a genre will remain outside the scope of this work.

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Rather, the scholarly field of fandom studies holds more relevance to this particular research project. In his 1992 publication, Textual Poachers, Jenkins became a key reference point for academic studies of fans, where 'he theorizes the practices of fans and consider the culture of fandom (Dunlap and Wolf 271).' On the other hand, Matt Hills, in his book Fan

Cultures, defines online fandom as 'communities of imagination' where participants'

performances are based on expectancy and benefit of an imaginary audience who randomly surf the Internet. Regardless the fact that their theoretical views on fandom studies do not necessarily align, 'both scholars are among those who have begun to take interest in how fans respond to texts from beyond their own shores, particularly in how fans respond to Japanese texts (Denison 449).' Especially, Henry Jenkins is among the very few scholars who have attempted to map anime fandom (in any form). He has usefully described these communities of imagination as forming a 'pop cosmopolitanism', where 'fans embrace difference and are seeking to escape the gravitational pull of their local communities in order to enter a broader sphere of cultural experience (155).'

While Matt Hills and Henry Jenkins uses anime fandom as a prominent example for their theorization of fan activities, there is a variety of literature on the topic of anime fandom culture, scattered through a number of different sub-topics; most prominently in the topics of fan-subbing as participatory media (Lee; Denison), regionally specific case study about globalization of anime (Napier, The World of Anime Fandom in America) and watching anime as piracy with its relation to copyright law (Hills; He). In other words, 'works on online anime fandom tends to be found in fields nominally separate from the study of both anime and fandom: translatology, legal studies, and cultural studies (Denison 453).'

Consequently, there is a big knowledge gap in existing academic work on anime fandom: it has been entirely rooted in refining scholarly perception of fan 'practice' and it has been

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missing out on establishing the descriptive work of the background of such practices. It has been widely agreed amongst scholars that globalized anime fan practice happens mostly

through the Internet and there are theorized explanations of how people behave in this

community in various strata of studies. However, minimal attention has been give to the

specificity of how the web landscape of such practices looks like. Especially, since most of the literature deals with fan-subbing and fan communication when it comes to anime fandom studies, the significance of anime streaming site as sociotechnical assemblages is neglected, even though those locations are where most of the fan behavior should start. As Bruno Latour, a leading sociologist, explains, it is the analyst's job to flatten the social landscape, to trace the connection and associations between actors and to render the site of the social visible. Therefore, this research (initially) aimed to investigate and map the online anime fandom ecology through contextualizing the infrastructure of global web anime fandom, specifically focusing on streaming sites.

However, during the early attempts to empirically map the web sphere of anime fandom, through digital methods (see chapter 2), it became evident that it was not easy or perhaps even impossible, due to their semi-legal hidden status. Rather, what became visible was a constant threat from the external actors and an ultimate instability of the community. Governments and the industry continuously made efforts to track down the anime fandom and take control of them and the anime fandom repeatedly enhanced their defensive mechanism and hid deeper into the web.

Therefore, the aim of the research took a slight turn. Due to its ever-changing nature, a descriptive research on the present anime fandom scene loses its value, unless it is placed in a bigger archival project. Rather, the instability that is caused by the powerful actors (industry and government with legal rights) and the survival strategy of less powerful actors (anime

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streaming sites) can be situated in political and philosophical consideration of modern-day power relations. Namely, the main inquiries that this research will be exploring are the inherently unstable nature of anime fan web infrastructure, especially by anime streaming sites, and their strategy to survive despite the threat from the external authorities in the online ecology.

Now, it is important to point out that this research is not in the same array of literature that explores the legality of anime fan activity and its controversial nature as piracy. Furthermore, it should not be aligned with those advocating fan activities in such discourse. Alternately, this research sees the discourse of piracy and legality as an objective threat that generates instability and triggers responding defensive mechanism. The focus here is not a normative claim but exploring how such discourses are negotiated and narrated in anime fandom and reflected through its obfuscatory tactics. The piracy discourse itself thus becomes an actor in the overall landscape of the streaming websites, visible and traceable thorough the methods below.

In the end, this research is all about the moving castle and its journey. Just like the movie does not question the devil inside it or the notorious rumors of Howl's villainy, this thesis does not focus on how anime fandom is accused of piracy. What matters for the story of Howl and the moving castle are the details. As the movie focuses on narrating the story of how the castle and Howl avoid getting captured by the authorities and continue fleeing and hiding, in the most detailed way possible, this research aims to do the same. How does the

castle decide the direction to go? Is there any pattern? How do the anime streaming sites

'move'? When and where do they go? What does it mean for the castle to have a magic door

that accesses multiple locations? Do the anime streaming sites also have multiple entrances?

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and the kingdom's strategy to capture Howl? How do the authorities search for the trace of

anime streaming sites and How do they shut them down? What are the talismans that protect

Howl and his castle from the witch and the kingdom's clutch? What are the strategic features

of anime streaming sites use to avoid the inspection of the authorities and their attack? What

is the consequence of Howl's continuous longing for more talisman? Is there any internal

influence that those defensive mechanism and strategies have on the anime streaming sites?

Are there any other wizards, if so, why aren't they being chased and what are the difference in

their living and Howl's? Are there any anime streaming sites that are not under threat from

the authorities? If so, what are the difference from the ones under threat? As the research goes on, all these questions will be answered by adding more details to the tale of anime streaming sites.

In the following chapter, core concepts, which readers have to understand in order to comprehend this research paper methodologically and theoretically, will be introduced. This research follows roughly two traditions of school to operationalize and theorize the study; Latour and Venturini's Social cartography for the operationalization of the experiment, and the philosophy of critique and power by Foucault, Deleuze, and Galloway for the theorization of the analysis.

Firstly, Social cartography is used to operationalize the empirical part of the research. Social cartography, or sociology of association, is an academic tradition that Bruno Latour, French philosopher, anthropologist, and sociologist, has come up with, redefining large part of established notions in modern sociology. From his early publication, he suggests a theoretical and methodological approach to sociology, commonly called as Actor-Network Theory, that social and natural world exists in constant changing in networks of relationships.

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In his book, Reassembling the social, he argues the researchers' role as to describe the

associations between different human and non-human actors and suggests a set of instruction to operationalize the action, objects, group, facts, and risks. Tommaso Venturini, an Italian researcher of New Media and former assistant of Bruno Latour, further explores the practical implications of aforementioned concepts of Latourian theories. He suggests multiple

specified guidelines on giving visibility to different viewpoints of the networks; such as the representativeness, influence, and interest. Methodologically and even ideologically, this research is inspired by these two scholars. Therefore in Chapter 1, by introducing their theoretical work and analytical guidelines, I shall operationalize the object of the study and further define what this research is looking for.

For theorization of the analytics, this research will follow the genealogy of discussion on control and power including Foucault, Deleuze, and Galloway. In particular, Galloway's 2004 publication, Protocol, offers a great guidance on thinking on how technology produces the control or the principle of organization in modern time, especially on world wide web. This research will be, therefore, based on the structural model that Galloway suggests in this book on how control is distributed through a network and on how regulation practically works. Consequently, it aims to theoretically explain how anime streaming sites come to live in an essential precariousness but still continues to survive, negotiating their life within the control system.

In Chapter two and three, applying the Latourian concepts of social cartography, the methods and findings of the empirical mapping on anime streaming sites will be introduced. This research uses the Issuecrawler tool, the network mapping software by the Govcom.org Foundation, Amsterdam. After a series of harvesting practice on the web to collect seed URLs of anime streaming sites to begin the crawl with, this research has conducted two different

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types of crawl with different aims; first, a snowball crawl to see an exhaustive network involving anime streaming sites and second, a co-link analysis to visualize the internal network scene between the anime streaming sites. This process will fulfill the initial aim of this research; to establish a descriptive sketch of web infrastructure of the anime streaming sites. Even though the surprise has been already spoiled that what was detected through this process is an inherent nature of instability in anime streaming sites for being under constant threat, this allows us for a smoother entry to the next chapter.

Chapter four showcase two sides of the same coin. First Section of the chapter is where this research will discuss the strategies that anime streaming sites pose to protect themselves, as well as the evolution of tactics from the authorities to track down and attack them.

Examples found on individual sites will be categorized into four different strata. The second section, on the other hand, talks about the surrenderers. While the majority of anime

streaming sites still remains in the realm of the runaways, there are a few anime streaming sites that have gotten permission from the industry and copyright law to distribute anime, legally. Including the fact that there is a monetary exchange involved, there are a few distinctive characteristics that distinguish them from the illegal streaming sites. Such characteristics appear in the form of imitation or resemblance of power and control in the bigger scale web environment, posing great examples of how control can be imposed and change one of the most anti-control groups of web entities.

At last, this thesis aims to be a case study on negotiation between the control and resistance on the web. As Galloway dedicates an entire book of his to a single question of 'how does control exist in the decentralized web', this research is a particular application of this question, focused on anime websites. Therefore I would like to open up this research by looking at the ideology and concepts that this research will be following, including that of Galloway.

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Chapter 1. The 'How' and 'Why' of the Research

There are two reasons why it is essential to understand and remember Chapter one throughout this entire research paper. Firstly, this chapter will introduce the discussions that this research deploys to operationalize and understand the core concepts. Secondly, this chapter suggests in which array of literature this research should be positioned and hence which branch of academic discussion it shall contribute to. In other words, this chapter explains how to understand this research and why this research is significant in the field of new media study.

Even though it has a seemingly similar function to a literature review of any other research paper, this chapter is particularly important since this research is based on two traditions of academia that redefine the conventional concepts and notions. In other words, there are additional necessity to emphasize how different the core concepts that this research deploys are from the conventional ones. Therefore this chapter consists of two parts. The first part is about a number of core concepts and analytical guidelines of Burno Latour's Actor-Network Theory and Social Cartography. He redefines what 'the social' should mean in sociology and hence what should newly be emphasized in the role of sociologist and what research object exactly to be looked into. It is an academic ideology that this research is firmly based on aligning with Venturini's practical guidelines, which gives an operational structure to this research, further outlined in the chapter thereafter.

The second part introduces a series of analyses from a number of scholars about how control and power exist in a highly digitalized era, particularly on the web. While modern time has been symbolized as the era of horizontal power structure and decentralized control system, hence the era of utter freedom, Foucault, Deleuze, and Galloway suggest how control still exists and even thrives in modern time, redefining the notion of living in the era of

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freedom. Galloway specifically focuses on how control is practiced in a web environment by an observable embedment in the system, or as he calls it, protocol. Based on this work, this research intends to introduce in its later chapters how the historical contemplation on the dynamics of the power and the resistance has evolved and brought in a better vocabulary and analytical insights into this topic.

Keep this in mind, let us begin with the first part, Latour and Venturini's social cartography.

1.1. ANT and Social Cartography: Why Map and How to Map

Latour is well known for his leadingly developing the social theory of Actor-Network

Theory (ANT). Based on ANT, Latour came up with the concept of social cartography, as a

practice or a crafting device to practice ANT for beginner sociologists. Despite its conceptual complication, simply said, ANT is a theoretical and methodological approach to social theory where everything in the social worlds exists in a continuous change of networks and

relationship (Simandan). In that sense, it is something beyond a theory in the specific field, but more of an extensively inclusive perspective to understand greatly various social/natural phenomena. Especially, what ANT is well known for is its rigid insistence on the fact that all factors involved in the social situations, including non-human objects, opinion, system, institutions and more, are in the same level of significance as human actors in unfolding the social. Therefore, it is important not to disregard the non-human actors in social research.

These concepts were then adapted for the description of online assemblages by Tomaso Venturini, an Italian new media scholar working predominantly from France and Switzerland. His history explains his interest and dedication to practicalize Latour's theoretical

complication of ANT and ambiguity of social cartography, which sublimates into his series of analytical guidelines for Social Cartography (or its other interchangeable titles, as Venturini himself often uses terms like cartography of controversies or controversy mapping instead of

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social cartography). In particular, this joint framework requires a redefinition of conventional sociological concepts of the social.

In traditional sociology, the social(or social factor) was considered as a pre-given substance before the actors and their performances. Sarcastically, referring to such conventions as using the word social as magic glue, Latour redefined the social to be a movement of the actors, 'the state of affairs of an issue that are precisely social being

performed by the actors' (Rogers, Sánchez-Querubín and Kil 15). He further exclaims that we

never act alone and such collective actions hence become an act of group formation, a constant effort to 'define group boundaries, limits and meanings' (16). In other words, '[A]ctors are unremittingly engaged in tying and untying relations, arguing categories and identities, revealing the fabric of collective existence' (Venturini 796). As the definition of the social is performative, the social becomes essentially temporary. The social is ‘both liquid and solid at the same time […] in a ceaseless mutual transformation […] the social is unremittingly constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed’ (Venturini 264).

As the ultimate object of study for sociologist (the social) is redefined in ANT, the role of the sociologist as a researcher is also shifted from the conventional sociology. In the array of literature that discusses ANT, especially in Latour's publication, Reassembling the Social, it is emphasized that the role of the researcher is to describe the associations and relations

between the actors through strictly empirical research, by which it means to trace and depict the associations created by the actors based on their performances. Namely, the role of a sociologist, especially as a practitioner of ANT, becomes 'to live, to know, [and] to practice in the complexities of tension' (Law and Hassard 12) and to assemble a performative, and therefore temporary, a map of the social. Following ANT as a main methodological perspective, this thesis aims to draw the relational assemblage of various actors in the web

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sphere of anime streaming sites by capturing their action within the social magma. This way of seeing a social construct is perfectly fitting to this particular research, especially in terms of how sociologists should treat their research topic. Instability of web anime fandom generates frequent change in the scene. In traditional sociology, it is

impossible to confront such instability with systemic analysis and change is rather considered as a limitation. However, by applying Latourian concepts, it is possible to discuss the

temporarily traceable action and still meaningfully consider it as an act of group formation. Therefore, the fast-changing nature of web already inherently shows its nature as social magma and the significant precarity of anime streaming sites can especially benefit from the theorization firmly based on the belief that the social cannot be fixed. Furthermore,

researchers' mission to describe, rather than to explain, fits the aim of this research, which ultimately is to unveil the black-boxed area of the web and purely add a detailed sketch to look at in related discussions.

The practical implications of ANT are explored further by Venturini through his research on social cartography and digital methods for social science. In fact, ANT initially was lacking elaboration on theoretical or methodological protocol. As a simple example, Latour's instruction on social cartography goes; "Just look at controversies and tell what you see." What does he mean by 'just'?

This inquiry ignited Venturini's motivation to fill in this lack of documentation, resulting two different publications in the Public Understanding of Science journal solely with the purpose to add more tangible structure to social cartography. The practicality of Venturini's theorization of social cartography lies in his offering of analytical guidelines. Emphasizing that the lack of single methodological discipline in social cartography is an implication to use multiple viewpoints and methodological approach, Venturini suggests 5 different

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observational layers to be deployed while researching the social (265-268).

 From statements to literature: Identify the full extent of the controversial arena. The first impression of any controversy is a chaotic nebula of statements and an avalanche of replies following each statement. Venturini calls these relational grouping of statements, a literature. The first task as a cartographer is to map the web of references and reveal how dispread discourses are woven into articulated literature.

 From literature to actors: Identify actors in the textual universe. Actors are anything doing something. When one is an actor, its presence or absence makes a difference.

 From actors to networks: Identify inter-actions, shaping relations and being shaped by relations. There is no such thing as an isolated actor.

 From networks to cosmoses: Identify the cosmoses, temporarily achieved states of stability, and the ideologies and meaning that actors attribute to them.

 From cosmoses to cosmopolitics: Identify a common world, the 'reality'. To shortly explain how the concepts of statement, literature, actors, networks, cosmos, and cosmopolitics can be applied to this particular case study on the web sphere of anime

streaming sites, statement is the actions that the anime streaming sites or other web entities make in the sphere (e.g. hyperlinking each other, implementing of certain features within internal interface). Literature is then the relational grouping that can be inferred by a number of common actions that the websites show (e.g. legality, institutional identity). The concept of actors shall include any web entities existing in the sphere, but by the second observational lens, the researcher must be textualized the positions of the actors. In order to achieve this, the researcher may use his guideline for second-degree objectivity (See the next paragraph for

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further explanation.). Network is the qualitative relations that the actors come to have as a result of actions (e.g. competition, opposition, alignment, aspirational support and more) and cosmos is the ideology that the sphere come to share(e.g. how copyright law and anime piracy should be treated within the web sphere of anime streaming sites). Cosmopolitics, lastly, should be in the end, how all aforementioned concepts are incorporated in the actual web sphere, forming a distinctive culture within it.

In his later publication, Venturini also suggests a strategic structure to enhance the

objectivity to identification (and possibly visualization as well) process of the actors and the network by attributing each actor a representation that fits its position and relevance in the dispute. By looking into the actors' 1) representativeness, 2) influence, and 3) interest’ (Venturini 798) the researcher will be able to achieve 'second-degree objectivity', revealing the full range of oppositions around matters of concerns. In the end, Venturini does not solidly speak of what to do or what should be the product of the research, rather, he gives suggestive guideline what to look at, with an emphasis on to multiplying the viewpoints. Therefore, to construct cosmopolitics, attributing adequate positions and identifications to each of the actors in the context of the particular social situation becomes crucial.

As Rogers, Sánchez-Querubín, and Kil have pointed out, conducting research based on ANT and social cartography through collecting web data and applying digital methods has an advantage in terms of accessibility, aggregability, and traceability. Associations between these elements can be identified through the traces left by digital behaviors and specifically those on display, resulting in work that can be stored, re-accessed, and re-evaluated. Finally, the associations of the objects can be identified, clustered, and mapped (44). Therefore,

considering the aforementioned adequacy of applying the theory to essentially a precarious community, Latourian operationalization is suitable for this research both in terms of research

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object and methodology.

The theory and guidelines of ANT and social cartography are especially crucial in Chapter 3. There, this research aggregates the actors in the web sphere of anime streaming sites and constructs an overview of cosmopolitics within it. Based on ANT, it will follow Venturini's guideline for secondary objectivity to validate the actors and its action with five different perspective lenses in order to construct a systemic analysis on the social of anime streaming sites.

Lastly, one more thing that is crucial for my analysis is ANT's ideas about hierarchy and scale. Even though Latour denies the idea of having this default and absolute frame of reference, commonly called social factor or the society, he does not deny the fact that there has to be something large in scale, hierarchy or ups and downs. How can we detect hierarchy through the methodological perspective of ANT?

When social time and space will have to be reshuffled according to ANT, we can discover what sort of relationship may exist for good between the actors. In other words, some benefit from far safer connections with many more places than others. 'What is now highlighted much more vividly than before are all the connections, the cables, the means of transportation, the vehicles linking places together. This is their strength but also, as we are going to see, their frailty.' (Latour 176). Now we come to wonder, when ANT simply makes the instability and frailty of anime streaming site in the web visible, how can we answer our inquiry of

where this instability comes from and what is the force that makes it 'unstable' but also 'alive'? How is the death and life of this community negotiated and what explains such tension in that process?

1.2. Philosophy of Control and Resistance

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other words, as a selectively favored assemblage. When the network of internet entities is reassembled, especially in case of the anime streaming sites, there are certain entities that appear on a more stable basis, forming firmer networks around them compared to the other entities. That is, groups of entities can break off from the networks in a selective manner, favoring certain other groups. Break-off entails the existence of a force causing it, performed internally or externally. Therefore, we cannot help but wonder, where this force comes from and through what process this force is performed.

In the realm of the natural sciences, such as physics, the ultimate aim of the academic pursuit is figuring out the specificity of a force; the subject, object and the medium or the process of the performance. In a similar context, the discourse on how social and political force operates has been one of the most fundamental discussions in the realm of social science. In this section, I would like to introduce a historical evolution of discourse on how control and power operate in the specific circumstantial variable of the postmodern era and web environment and apply it to our main case study.

This section is based on three different scholars and their theorization of control and power; Foucault, Deleuze, and Galloway. Michel Foucault was a French philosopher and social theorist, whose academic focus was in power and knowledge. In one of his most

representative publications, The History of Sexuality, Foucault organizes and categorizes his discussion on power into three different power forms and social. Foucauldian categorization of power and society distinguishes between (1) sovereign societies (sovereign power), (2) disciplinary societies (disciplinary power) and (3) societies of control1 (biopolitics/biopower).

1

Even though Foucault was the one who initiated such categorization and the power form that constitutes the third historical wave, it was Deleuze who has come up with the concrete

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Firstly, sovereign societies of the classical era can be characterized by centralized power and its mobilization of the legislative, prohibitive and violent fiat of a single master. In

disciplinary societies, on the other hand, violence is replaced 'with more bureaucratic forms of command and control' (Galloway 3), such as institutions, training, and rewarded

improvements. The third historical wave of power was not yet titled by Foucault but later named society of control by Deleuze. Yet Foucault has defined the society by the dominant power dynamics called biopolitics; 'the nurturing power that organizes social life and

populations' (Lilja and Vinthagen 112). There are multiple points that disciplinary society and society of control can be compared to but most representatively, they have different

environments of the enclosure and different processes in which control is enforced.

Disciplinary societies had their internments of the enclosure to be hospitals, prisons, factories, schools and places where institutional 'reforms' were performed, while in a society of control, it becomes capitalistic corporations where modulation, a self-deforming process, is performed to achieve the control (Deleuze). Furthermore, Foucault's emphasis on how biopolitics or biopower 'organizes human subjects as a population' (Lilja and Vinthagen 110) deeply affects the descendants' view on the ambiguous division between 'life' and 'matter' in this particular era.

One thing to be noted is that '[T]hese three forms of power emerged in different historical phases of modernity but did not replace each other' (Larsson, Letell and Thörn 9). Therefore, the chronological connotation of each of the power forms became rather suggestive and the justification and verification process becomes necessary when applying the categorization to a certain chronological or geographical environment.

concept of societies of control.

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In that context, the concept of Foucauldian power formats needs to be further contemplated when we apply it to the digital environment of the world wide web. Deleuze does define control societies as being primarily digital (Galloway 81) but an American media theorist, Alexander Galloway, takes this argument one step further. Inspired by Deleuze, Galloway suggests an analytical apparatus to explain how control exists after the decentralization, or in other words, how seemingly chaotic and utterly free web environment can operate so

flawlessly. As in the very beginning of his book Protocol, Galloway brings in the operationalization of these three words; diagram, technology, and protocol.

"The diagram is the distributed network, a structural form without a center that resembles a web or meshwork. The technology is the digital computer, an abstract machine able to

perform the work of any other machines (provided it can be described logically). The

management style is protocol, the principle of organization native to computers in distributed networks. All three come together to define a new apparatus of control that has achieved importance at the start of the new millennium (Galloway 3)."

What he suggests as an answer for how control exists on the web is hence protocol; 'a set of recommendations and rules that outline specific technical standards (Galloway 6).' To understand this concept, several aspects must be pointed out to prevent common

misunderstandings.

Firstly, the protocol is not a new word. Prior to its usage in computing protocol, it referred to 'any type of correct or proper behavior within a specific system of the convention

(Galloway 7).' Thus, computer protocols, just like their diplomatic predecessors, are not just a set of technical specifications. 'They are entire formal apparatus; the totality of techniques and conventions that affect protocol at a social level (Galloway 55).' They are the ones that establish and enact an agreed-upon standard of action. Lastly, the protocol has no relation to

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an institutional power that includes legislative or corporate power. Galloway highly

emphasizes this by sparing an entire chapter to talk it through. Foucault also has argued, 'The discourse of discipline has nothing in common with that of law, rule, or sovereign will. The disciplines may well be the carriers of a discourse that speaks of a rule, but this rule is not the juridical rule deriving from sovereignty, but a natural rule, a norm. The code they come to define is not that of law but that of normalization (Foucault 44; Lilja and Vinthagen 109).' In other words, the protocol is a technique for achieving voluntary regulation within a

contingent environment (Galloway 7).

To look deeper into the last point, it is important to note that 'it is impossible to explain forces of social control if one assumes that individual actors are endowed with primary rights or powers that they then express as political actors' (Galloway 83). Especially, we should avoid presuming that legislative or industrial authority would have a higher hierarchy of power within the establishment of the protocol. Rather, Galloway sees such commercial or proprietary interests as representing a great threat or even failure of the protocol. While the protocol is simply how things are done, it gains its authority from the technology itself and how people program it. This technocratic ruling class is, like the philosophy of protocol itself, open. Even though the demographical characteristic of these decision makers is relatively homogenous; highly educated, altruistic, liberal-minded science professionals from modernized societies around the globe (Galloway 122), what they aim for is an open, free development of technology. Hence cooperate mind of triumph over weaker entities can be a threat.

So, how does protocol achieve a flawlessly operating freedom? The protocol is based on a contradiction between two opposing machines: One machine radically distributes control into autonomous locales, the other machine focuses control into rigidly defined hierarchies. 'The

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dialectical tension between these two machines creates a hospitable climate for

protocological control (Galloway 8).' But in the end, through this heterogeneous material milieu, protocol makes it possible for technological control to exist after decentralization (Galloway 8). Galloway's emblematic examples of each machine are TCP/IP and DNS system. TCP and IP are the leading protocol for the transmission of data between individual computer over a network, with highly distributed, seemingly anarchic way of operation. Meanwhile, DNS system is an inverted-tree-like database where network names and

addresses are managed. It has a capacity to yank off a whole server of the certain entity and remove it entirely from the Internet.

In summary, the polarity of two different logics, or as Galloway calls it, machines, produce the contradiction and tension where the Internet exists over continuous (re)negotiation. Consequently, all internet media exist under the push and pull game of two realms. In this context, Enzensberger's comparison between repressive media and emancipatory media becomes noteworthy (Table 1).

Repressive media Emancipatory media

Centrally controlled program One transmitter, many receivers Immobilization of isolated individuals Passive consumer behavior

Depoliticization Production by specialists

Control by property owner or bureaucracy

Decentralized program

Each receiver a potential transmitter Mobilization of the masses

Interaction of those involved, feedback A political learning process

Collective production

Social control by self-organization

Table 1 Comparison of Repressive media and Emancipatory media (Galloway 57)

This table shows that there are two political camps categorized by their media

characteristic. Enzenberger explains that repressive media is closely associated with modern (mass) media (network television, film, radio) while the emancipatory media is closely

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associated with postmodern media, the Internet. However, we have to acknowledge two things; firstly the fact that it represents an extreme optimism about the Internet and secondly, Galloway's analysis that protocol exists within the negotiation between a decentralized control and decentralization dynamics itself. Therefore we should be expecting the Internet to lie somewhere in between the parameter of these two different media type, showing political characteristics of both camps. As Foucault says, '[T]he powers of modern society are

exercised through, on the basis of, and by virtue of, this very heterogeneity between a public right of sovereignty and a polymorphous disciplinary mechanism (Foucault 74; Lilja and Vinthagen 110).' Or as Galloway also poetically emphasizes, 'the internet is a delicate dance between control and freedom (75).'

If the protocol is an occurrence of tension and contradiction of two opposing forces, how is it enforced, in what form and through which process? Through the foreword of the book

Protocol, Eugene Thacker explicates that computer code stands at the basis of Galloway’s

protocological thinking: "The code is a set of procedures, actions, and practices, designed in

particular ways to achieve particular ends in particular contexts (Thacker)."

The code is what is programmed by the web agent. It is embedded from the birth of web entity and can only be altered by decoding. Once the minimal controlling protocol is

embedded, the operation of things depends on the individual actor until the de/recoding of the controlling protocol. In other words, the protocol is enacted through a voluntary (it is not caused by an external force) action of autonomous agents.

Now, we have talked about how power and control work. However, since this research paper will be focusing on those who are running away from the power, it is worthy to look at the academic contemplation on resistance. Swedish political theorists Lilja and Vinthagen have come up with theorization and empirical examples of resistances compatible to each

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category of Foucauldian power format. According to them, if resistance is a reaction to power, then the characteristics of the power strategy/relation affect the kinds of resistance that

subsequently prevail (Lilja and Vinthagen 107) Hence, power and resistance exist in a mutually constitutive relationship, interconnected and entangled. In a way, resistance is reversed power. 'Being entangled with power, always has to utilize the same technologies as power but 'harness power otherwise in the production of other effects (Nealon 24)' in order to 'open up spaces in which people can make their own decisions (Prickett 463)' This leads to an important premise of this research; that the fleeing ones have their own protocol that goes against but acts reflectively to the authority's protocol. Resistance exists ambivalently and resistant force is what alters respective protocols and pushes the technology go somewhere (forward or backward).

Hereby, I would like to summarize what has been discussed in this section in a relation to this research. A thematic alignment of all vocabularies and concepts that have been

mentioned in this section is organized below in Table 2.

Society format Sovereign society Disciplinary society Society of control Power form Sovereign power Disciplinary power Biopower, protocol Enforcement of

power and control

Words of the ultimate master, law, and law-like regulation, violence

Surveillance, training through the bureaucratic manner

Embedment of protocol and voluntary action of the autonomous agent Protocological

machine

The disciplinary machine of computer protocol (e.g. DNS)

Decentralizing machine of computer protocol (e.g. TCP/IP)

Media type Repressive media Emancipatory media

Example Corporate and industry

authority on internet

Illegal streaming sites

Table 2 Thematic alignment of discourse on power and control

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anime streaming sites.

The protocol is how things are done. It is crafted in a continuous tension and renegotiation and exists through diagram and technology(computer) which are comparable concepts to the network and actors of the previous section. A computer protocol is a social magma, a thing to be mapped.

Therefore, it can be inferred that protocol is neither singular nor solid. There must be a protocol of how anime streaming sites live, a protocol that is used by corporate and

governmental authorities to investigate and threaten the illegal sites, and a protocol that ties all those individual protocols together to function without hiccups on the web. I expect the authoritative protocol to be based on the disciplinary protocological machine. Their strata of action will largely consist of surveillance of other entities and reformation of the flaws through the bureaucratic processes of confinement of contents or deletion of the entity in the extreme case. Meanwhile, the illegal streaming sites, following the model of decentralizing machines, will not actively try to overpower or threaten the other, disciplinary, machine but rather passively seek refuge. However, since they have an equal hierarchical position, as long as they do not violate the general computer protocol of the entire web set by technocratic decision makers, the tension between two protocols is sustainable; it is very hard to form a situation that one overpowers the other. Therefore, as long as their illegality does not go under the juridical verdict in the real world outside of the web, in other words, as long as they are not captured, it is possible for the illegal sites to survive on.

Additionally, as the authoritative protocol of the anime industry or the copyright law must have an investigative and selective protocol to filter out and punish the illegal sites, the illegal ones will reflectively act on to these logics in their own protocol of survival. On the other hand, the ones that do not necessarily need to avoid the investigation will not actively react.

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Instead, their protocol might resemble the corporate protocol or have favorable features for the authoritative protocols.

This research aims to be a descriptive case study on the specificity of these individual protocols and their power relation. Even though the Foucauldian categorization of power is a popular model in political science, when it comes to the digital or web environment, there is a lack of tangible examples and case studies. Therefore, as an empirical manifestation, this research will articulate and exemplify how control of the web environment exists through tensions between the aforementioned opposing forces centralization and distribution.

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Chapter 2. Topology of Architecture

In Discipline and Punish (1979), Foucault suggested a concept of Architecture as one of the distinct features of a disciplinary society. The Foucauldian concept of Architecture of a society is 'the organization of individuals and space according to function and rank, including such features as enclosures and partitioning (Foucault 146; Lilja and Vinthagen 109).'

Architecture becomes especially important in the disciplinary society since discipline is an art of rank, where the one with a higher rank has a saying over the lower rankers' behaviors and existence. Therefore, in order to look into the power dynamics happening within the society, it becomes crucial to have a roadmap of the architecture of the society.

The concept of architecture aligns well with the academic ideology of ANT and the practical implication of social cartography. What Foucault emphasizes by the concept of architecture is that the organization (horizontal or hierarchical) of the actors within the

society and their value assigned by their influence on other actors is crucial for understanding how the society of discipline operates. Likewise, ANT and social cartography seek to offer a depictive analysis of social phenomena and discourse by identifying the actors, their labor within the issue and their correlation. Consequently, a road-mapping the various elements of the society is a prerequisite to the discussion of dynamics and narrative of power.

Especially in the discussions of the web where Galloway speaks of the web that follows two logics; decentralized and centralized mechanisms, how a community and the actors' influence over each other are distributed, ranked and organized becomes a primary task to map the social of a web sphere. The primary aim of this chapter is to construct the

architecture of the web sphere of anime streaming sites, which was an initial motivation for

this research. What we are seeking for through this chapter hence are 1) actors, 2) their group-making activities (cluster or connectedness itself) and 3) prominence of specific

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entities, temporarily solidifying the social magma of anime streaming sites as a result. In order to achieve such analytical results, this research goes through three empirical steps. Firstly, by using web directories and surfing through fan communities, I collected a list of anime streaming sites with additional information (e.g. legality, availability of community building service or dubbed version etc.). Based on this collection as seed URLs, several crawls were conducted in different settings, using hyperlink crawl/network analysis tool Issuecrawler, developed by Digital Methods Initiative of the University of Amsterdam, to automatically detect additional actors and interconnectedness between the aggregation of the actors within the web sphere. Finally, by using network analysis and visualization software, Gephi, hyperlink network within the anime streaming sites are visualized into a couple of maps showing all three analytical elements of Foucauldian architecture. Using such visualization, this section will apply two different sets of guidelines for social cartography from Venturini, producing a solid starting point to look deeper into the power politics within the architecture. Ultimately, this chapter offers the reader a methodological articulation and justification of the research and a descriptive roadmap of anime streaming sites’ architecture with the analytical constructions of its cosmopolitics.

2.1. The Positioning of the Researcher

Venturini argues that in social cartography, 'the researchers are obliged to reconsider their attitude toward their subjects of study (260).' Therefore, prior to getting deeper into the main points of this section, I would like to acknowledge the fact that this research is also a form of analytic autoethnography. Hence, I want to clear up my position as a researcher in this particular topic. Leon Anderson, an American scholar of qualitative methodology has

aggregated historic examples of self-related ethnographic studies and suggested a distinctive subgenre of analytic autoethnography with five key features, which also contains concerns

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and prevention of those in using such methodology. Firstly, the researcher must be 'a complete member in the social world under study (L. Anderson 379).' Secondly one must have the awareness of the influence of the research upon the researcher himself as the

member of the society, the settings, and the informants. Third, the researcher must be 'visible as such a member in published texts (373)' and fourth, his analysis must reach beyond the self-experience. Lastly, the researcher should be committed to an analytic agenda of developing the theoretical deciphering of broader social phenomena.

I identify myself as Complete Member Researcher(CMR) on the topic of the web sphere of anime fandom, especially that of illegal fandom. I have been a consumer of anime my whole life, an active member of Korean anime fandom on the web for more than 10 years and of Western anime fandom on the web for 5 years. I was actively engaging in the process of anime piracy and distribution between 2007 to 2012, by contributing to making subtitles for pirated footages. I was also an active writer in fan communities, having a noticeable visibility as a member for a few years. I have been an active user of two different anime fan forums and one illegal anime streaming site in past three years and became familiar with the

convention and history of the illegal anime streaming web sphere. As an analytic reflexivity, I am aware of the possible influence my acknowledged research attempt might have in my own behavior in the anime streaming sites and forums but since the research environment being web is an effective place to conceal distracting behavior, I have minimal concern about the influence that this research might have caused in the community of anime streaming sites. Additionally, since December 2017, I have been fully committing to documenting my self-experience while using anime streaming sites.

The position of mine as a researcher in this field allows me to have a well-informed access to the veiled community and better orientation within it, especially compared to those who do

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not have a familiarity to the community. On the other hand, there is a concern as well about acquiring and retaining objectivity of the research. Anderson pointed out his concern about researcher having CMR status and her established behavior. He states; '[G]roup members seldom exhibit a uniform set of beliefs, values, and levels of commitment. As a result, even complete membership confers only a partial vantage point for observation. (role expectation) (L. Anderson 381) I also already have established my standard behavior as anime fan member within the sphere. Therefore, I put my best effort to minimize the bias of my own

establishment, by multiplying and externalizing the source of seed URL collection.

Automating the network clustering by digitized methods will also enhance the objectivity of this methodology.

2.2. Methodology

"The more technical a controversy is the easier will be its observation. Several

reasons account for this apparent paradox: scientific issues are generally more

restricted, better documented and more openly and tidily discussed. Scientific formalism

becomes a help, much more than an obstacle (Venturini, Diving in magma: how to

explore controversies with actor-network theory 265)."

"Through digital mediation, traceability and aggregability become intrinsic

affordances [of the social phenomena] (Venturini, Building on Faults: How to Represent

Controversies with Digital 800)."

As aforementioned, in social cartography, having digital objects as the research objects and using digital methods to trace their association is greatly effective. In case of this particular research especially, both the actors and associations are digital. The actors that this research expects to find are anime streaming sites, fan community page, personal blogs, anime news media, the promotional web page from production firms and more. Yet, they are all digital

Banished Wizards and Moving Castles: Mapping the Web Sphere of Anime Streaming to Explore the Protocol of Control and Resistance