Technological resistance practices hold significant insights regarding the media’s role as much as its adoption and usage practices. However, studies examining media non-use have generally overlooked mobile phone resisters—individuals voluntarily deciding not to own mobile phones. Based on 25 in-depth interviews with mobile phone refusers, this study presents two refuser types differing in refusal dynamics. The first are ideologists, whose rejection stems from a formulated, critical worldview towards the mobile phone, in particular, and communication technologies, in general. The second are realizers, whose “post-factum resistance” resulted from a forced but positive experience of a temporary break in use (e.g., when their device was broken or stolen), motivating them to disconnect in an attempt to preserve the new, liberated space they experienced. Additional findings reveal the non-ownership practices adopted by the mobile phone refusers; the novel psychological and sociological motives underlying mobile phone refusal concerning the home space and digital well-being; refuser resistance discourse, which focuses solely on the medium’s nature and not its content; and how refusers negotiate the social status and stigma that accompanies their mobile phone refusal. Our study illustrates how mobile phone refusal stands apart from other media resistance, providing a deeper perspective on the price of connectivity, and thus underscoring the importance of studying these refusers. The uniqueness of mobile phone refusal is further expressed in its complexity, extremity, perceived authenticity, and visibility.

“Hilltop youth” is the name for young religious Jewish people in Israel who, separated from their families, are living in illegal outposts on hilltops throughout Judea and Samaria. The group’s unique religious, sociological, and ideological characteristics differentiate them from other religious communities previously studied in relation to digital culture. In this study, we offer a new angle that provides insight into the hilltop youth’s religious–ideological perception while focusing on their attitude toward new media, smartphones, and social networks, in particular, an attitude that is part of their self-definition as a separatist community. The findings present and discuss the different layers represented within the hilltop youth’s media resistance and how this media-negating ideological position shapes the group’s perception as a religious community that is a counterculture to religious and social sectors in Israel.

With early-childhood mobile media device use on the rise, online video content plays an ever-increasing role in children’s lives. Of the wide variety of content available to children, user-produced videos on YouTube seem to be most popular. However, due to the platform’s size and the overwhelming number of child-targeted videos found on YouTube, scholars have been struggling with how to approach and study this topic. This study aims to address the gap in research by analyzing prevalent user-produced children’s videos on YouTube, with research questions focusing on video genres, their features, and content themes. Drawing on YouTube’s popularity-measurements and video recommendation algorithm, a corpus of 100 user-produced videos targeted to children was assembled. A content analysis of these videos led to the identification and conceptualization of 13 distinct genres of user-produced children’s videos: unboxing, surprise eggs, finger family, play-doh, nursery rhymes, kids songs, learning, pretend play (enactment), pretend play (toys), storytelling, arts & crafts, entertainer in character, and process repetition. Furthermore, the findings indicate that there are often unique interplays between genre type and the content, the production format, and the overall quality and educational rating. In addition to shedding light on the importance of studying child-targeted content on YouTube, this study’s main contribution is a typological map of the user-produced children’s video ecosystem that future studies from various fields can draw on.

Pashkevilim, printed wall notices posted around Jewish ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, serve as one of the religious community’s popular communication channels. The Pashkevilim mostly deal with controversial intra-community issues and feature a unique style, extremist rhetoric, and vocabulary derived from the religious literature. Humorous imitations of the genre arose over the years, which circulated in the community and outside of it, posing a challenge to the rabbinic hegemony. Although humorous Pashkevilim have likely been present for as long as Pashkevilim themselves, there is currently a lack of research investigating them. By adopting a critical discourse analysis approach, the current study aims to address this gap by identifying the predominant types of humorous Pashkevilim and analyzing the discursive practices they employ. The findings indicate three main discursive practices that characterize humorous Pashkevilim: parody, satire, and irony. While parody exaggerates the formal characteristics of the genre and mocks them, satire and irony criticize the content and topics discussed in traditional Pashkevilim, especially on the subject of Jewish law and religious stringency. These practices express an oppositional reading of the genre, which challenges its function as well as its socio-cultural, political, and religious significance.