Search results for "Media studies"
showing 10 items of 1154 documents
Challenges in Digital Ethnography
2020
Abstract The article explores ethical challenges in digital media ethnography in the field of militant political Islam, pointing to the dilemma that arises in doing research on Islam as part of the securitised research funding system. Expanding on discussions in anthropology about the principles of “do no harm” and “be open and honest about your work”, the authors reflectively contextualise the interrelated notions of “Jihadism” and “Salafism” and examine how these categories serve as “floating signifiers”. Examining one particular incident from the digital fieldwork leads to discussions of transparency, anonymity and shifting forms of “publicness” in the digital sphere.
1968 And Rural Japan as A Site of Struggle. Approaches to rural landscapes in the history of Japanese documentary film
2021
In the twentieth century, Japan produced an extraordinary documentary film heritage around the rural world which has not received sufficient attention. This article identifies three different approaches to the rural in Japanese film history: first, the wartime interest in place as providing an 'authentic essence' of a national identity. Second, the post-war representation of the rural in public relations films (PR eiga), mainly interested in geography. And third, the release of Ogawa's Summer in Sanrizuka in 1968 which brought a new dimension to a countryside transformed into both a battlefield and an icon of the political protest of the era.
Tribal Politics, Suits and Rock Music: Electioneering in Meghalaya
2016
ABSTRACTPublic discourse in India's northeastern state Meghalaya is dominated by issues of tribal identity and the threat of being overwhelmed by outsiders. In the context of national elections, local campaigners have to respond to and navigate between the different requirements of national and regional politics. Election campaigns, understood as a negotiation process during which campaigners act as brokers, provide insights into the narratives and characteristics of politics in Meghalaya. Manifestos, leaflets and large-scale events communicate a statement about organisational strength and a candidate's popularity, and subsequently about the capacity to ultimately deliver to the voter. Aest…
The Abbo glossary in London, British Library, Cotton Domitian i
1990
The process through which glossaries came into being can sometimes still be seen and studied in surviving manuscripts, and in such cases it provides a valuable index to the way in which Latin texts were studied in medieval schools. This is the case with an unprinted glossary in London, British Library, Cotton Domitian i. The glossary is mainly made up of words taken from bk III of the Bella Parisiacae urbis by Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a work which was widely studied in English schools in the tenth and eleventh centuries, above all because of its unusual vocabulary. We know that Abbo drew the unusual vocabulary in his poem from pre-existing glossaries such as the Liber glossarum and t…
(De)constructing “America”: the Case of Emir Kusturica’s Arizona Dream (1993)
2010
By means of an analysis of Kusturica’s only film about America, Arizona Dream, this article argues that while the United States offers a vision of a united society founded on diversity, it also represses, altering in the process both society and the landscape. National unity is consequently a dream – a dream the film suggests that has often been dreamed up by un-Americans. Filtered through Kusturica’s own perceptions of America – and his position on the Balkan War (1991-2001) – the film seems to suggest sadness at the loss of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural perspective. Through its representations of geography and ethnic diversity, and its dense network of filmic citations, what Arizona Drea…
Politics of affect in the EU heritage policy discourse : an analysis of promotional videos of sites awarded with the European Heritage Label
2017
European cultural heritage is discussed with affective rhetoric in current European Union (EU) policy discourse. How does affect contribute to the meaning-making of a European cultural heritage and how are the workings of affect used by the EU to promote certain meanings of heritage and effect thereupon? The analysis focuses on recent promotional videos of sites awarded with the European Heritage Label by the EU. In the videos, affective textual, visual, audible, and narrative tropes intertwine with the tropes of EU policy rhetoric, increasing its capacity to impact and ‘move’ the receivers. The ethos of a European cultural heritage in the videos is based on a paradox: the history of the se…
‘Our words are stronger’ : re-enforcing boundaries through ritual work in a terrorist news event
2020
This article investigates the ritual work in terrorist news events, using the Berlin truck attack as a case in point. The article connects with the larger cluster of anthropologically inspired communication research on media events as public rituals in news media and applies digital media ethnography as its method. Fieldwork is conducted in 15 online news sites. The article identifies three key phases through which the ritual work was carried out: the rupture in the news event (ritualised as the strike), the liminal phase (ritualised as the manhunt) and the reconstitution of order following the attack (ritualised as the mourning). The article concludes with an interpretation of the broader …
(Re)negotiating Freedom of Expression in the Spanish Transition: The Case of El Papus (1973-1987)
2020
Juxtaposing documents from judicial and administrative archives with material published in the satirical magazine El Papus (1973-1987), this essay examines the confrontation between national-Catholic discourse and new modes of visual and textual expression in late Francoism and the early years of the democratic transition in Spain. The present study represents a survey of some 44 state-produced documents and 124 journalistic pieces, applying a two-pronged methodology rooted in discourse analysis with a special focus on the content and themes deemed unfit for publication in the pages of El Papus. The results will show that a loosening of erotic and sexual mores, particularly those related to…
Between improvisation and inevitability: former Latvian officials’ memoirs of the Soviet era
2016
ABSTRACTThis article deals with the autobiographies of former Soviet officials that have been published in Latvia since the 1990s. In particular, it focuses on three interrelated layers of biographical narrative: construction of social identity, strategies for avoiding the stigmatization of collaboration, and comparisons between the Soviet and post-Soviet experience. The article contends that former officials in their memoirs use a pragmatic representation of the Soviet past as the major locus of their positive identity. Through this genuine representation of the past, autobiographers emphasize virtues that might be accepted by a post-Soviet neoliberal society.
Validating the Gratifications Associated with the Use of the Smartphone and the Internet by University Students in Chile, Ecuador and Spain
2021
The pervasiveness of the smartphone and the Internet among young university students can cause both benefits and problematic behaviour mediated by the motivations of the users. This study, using th...