Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract/Objectives

This project reconceptualizes VTubers as ecomedia rather than merely digital entertainers. It examines how VTuber performances operate within distributed media ecologies composed of data centers, energy infrastructures, algorithmic governance, and affective audience labor. Rather than treating virtual embodiment as immaterial, the study foregrounds infrastructural dependencies and environmental entanglements. Drawing on media ecology, STS, and performance studies, the project argues that VTubing renders digital infrastructures perceptible and dramatizes the ecological conditions of contemporary media systems. VTubers thus function as a critical site for understanding posthuman media environments.

Results/Contributions

The project expands ecomedia scholarship by situating VTubers within infrastructural and ecological analysis. It challenges the assumption that virtual performance is immaterial and demonstrates how digital embodiment depends on energy-intensive and platform-governed systems. The study develops a cross-disciplinary analytical model combining animation theory, STS, and media ecology to examine digital performance infrastructures. It further addresses the political economy of platform capitalism while considering the potential of scholar-VTubers and cultural mediation practices to reimagine ecological responsibility. The work contributes a case study from East Asian digital culture to global ecomedia debates.

Keywords

VTuber Ecomedia Media Infrastructure Digital Ecology Posthumanism Platform Politics Digital Performance

Contact Information

王威智
weichihwang@gapp.nthu.edu.tw