Decolonial Discourse in Postcolonial Contexts: How YouTubers Negotiate Audience Tensions, Platform Governance, and State Influence

This research analyzes how YouTubers engaging in decolonial discourse in postcolonial contexts navigate complex socio-technical constraints, including audience tensions, platform governance, and state influence. It reveals that creators undertake significant relational labor to manage fragmented audience identities, which can lead to legitimacy policing and harassment. Additionally, platform mechanisms like monetization, moderation, and copyright regimes, along with state-level censorship and surveillance, collectively limit the scope and sustainability of decolonial expression, impacting what can be effectively communicated and sustained online.

Why it matters

This analysis highlights the systemic challenges to free expression and knowledge dissemination on digital platforms, particularly for marginalized voices in geopolitically sensitive regions. Understanding these constraints is critical for developing strategies that promote robust, equitable, and sustainable online discourse while mitigating risks associated with platform governance and state control.

Key insights

• Decolonial discourse on online platforms, exemplified by YouTubers in Bengali contexts, faces multiple layers of socio-technical constraints.
• Fragmented postcolonial identities within audiences result in legitimacy policing, harassment, and coordinated backlash against creators.
• Creators engage in ongoing 'relational labor' to manage and sustain their discourse amidst audience tensions.
• Platform governance mechanisms, including differential monetization, opaque content moderation, and copyright regimes, reorganize and constrain which publics are economically viable or visible.
• State influence, characterized by censorship and surveillance, further restricts the 'sayable' and 'viable' aspects of decolonial discourse.

Source

arXiv — Computers and Society — https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.26351