Exotic Disease or Local Disease? A Framing Analysis of H1N1 Swine Flu Coverage on Chinese Media
Abstract
News coverage of epidemic diseases can be influenced by political ideology as well as the social identities of both journalists and audience. Furthermore, media representations of epidemic diseases may even vary within a single news outlet’s coverage depending on the context in which the disease is covered. To examine such variation, this study places Chinese news media stories of H1N1 (or “swine flu”) coverage into three categories: local coverage, global coverage and foreign coverage.The goal is to study the differences across news coverage within these three categories.
A quantitative content analysis is applied to identify what frames Chinese news media use to cover H1N1. A textual analysis is also used to study the scripts that make up each frame, where a script, is defined as a sub-theme or recurring ideas within a news frame. The current stage of our research focuses on news coverage of H1N1 by Xinhua News Agency of China. We find three frames that are used in H1N1 coverage: the response frame, the risk frame, and the pathology frame. We also find that coverage of H1N1 tends to be less negative when it appears in local context. This pattern is reflected in the frequent use of response frame as well as the recurring use of the progress script and the effort script within the response frame. The combination of these two scripts depicts timely and effective government response to the disease.
In contrast, coverage of H1N1 in the foreign context tends to use more risk frames that suggest social and economic costs of the disease. Drawing on social identity theory and a social constructionist view of news, we find that the social identities of journalists can lead them to form—and, thus, convey–more positive perception regarding situations at home as compared to situations abroad and/or that journalists intentionally portray the events at home more positively to appeal to local audiences sharing the same social identities. We also suggest that China’s political environment, particularly its tradition of political censorship, lead to intentional manipulation of news production so that disease is constructed differently to serve the needs of government, including the portrayal of a positive self image, the easing of public panic during crisis, and the informing of citizens in a time of emergency.
by Miao Feng (Department of Communication, University of Illinois-Chicago) and Weiai Xu (Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
Questioning the Role of New Media in framing democracy in Africa’s dictatorships: Zimbabwe a case study
Abstract
This paper analyses the significance of New Media in fostering democracy in parts of Africa, especially in repressive regimes such as Zimbabwe my main focal point. In particular, it considers the proliferation of diverse New Media platforms including the Internet and mobile phones and how these can empower the public as it agitates for political reform on the Habermasian public sphere. Digital technologies may offer different opportunities for disseminating the political information necessary for democratic governance. The paper also looks at the possibility that platforms such as the Internet, for instance, can be manipulated by autocratic governments to stifle and undermine democratic discourse. In this regard, a plethora of counteractive measures adopted by anti and pro-dictatorship forces as they respond to the challenges posed by New Media are also considered. Incidentally, the paper assesses the legitimate role the media should play in various systems of government. A close textual analysis is offered on blogs, mobile phones, and the diversity of online news websites, which report on the contested crisis in Zimbabwe. The study considers the extent to which these platforms strive to shape political discourse. The polarised views amongst the news websites as they vie for supremacy of the public sphere is brought to the fore. The central argument advanced in the paper is that tolerance and restraint must be exercised by competing new media outlets if democratic participation is to be enhanced especially in today’s increasingly transnational world.
by Andrew Chatora
Short bio:
“I am a part-time doctoral candidate at IoE, University of London, supervised by Professor David Buckingham. My research is currently entitled:
Digital Media Cultures: Rethinking Agency, Cross-Generational Consumers and Popular Culture.
I hail from Zimbabwe, a picturesque country in Southern Africa, where I taught English and History for seven years before settling in the United Kingdom. I am Head of Media Studies at a large comprehensive school in Oxfordshire County. I completed my MA in Media, Culture and Communication with IoE, University of London in 2009. A keen follower of current affairs, Arts and Literature, my doctoral research is on the interface between popular culture and digitization. My other research interests include: new media and democracy, children and adults’ media cultures, the place and scope for participatory media, i.e. web 2.0, video sharing sites, social media platforms such as Twitter, Face book, YouTube and Spotify, Internet cultures, digital media production and the use of software in furthering culture and creative pursuits.
Blog: http://andrewchatoradigitalmediaculturesrese.blogspot.com”
Transnational Diaspora Linkages, Media and the Internet
Overview
The complexities of transnational diaspora linkages have increasingly become a concern for many immigration hubs. Key governing authorities moreover continue to place emphasis on understanding why such networks of ‘long-distance’ resistance remain active. Indeed, trends associated with globalization have amplified both the opportunities and motivations surrounding diaspora grievances. Media and information technology outlets such as the Internet have become a main vehicle through which many diasporas maintain linkages with their country of origin. Such avenues have come to serve as a platform to discuss ideas and objectives surrounding community grievances. Diasporas increasingly have the capacity to foster violent and sophisticated networks of resistance. Immigration hubs, characterized by their diverse population composition are particularly vulnerable to the above security risks.
This presentation is concerned with transnational relations in the framework of diaspora linkages. It looks to highlight the impact of new media and social networking technologies. Specifically, with respect to the formation and maintenance of group identity, it looks to uncover how diaspora narratives are mobilized into active networks of transnational resistance. Indeed, group identities can be ‘marketed’ in a multitude of ways (human rights appeals versus religiosity for example). With focus on diaspora media outlets, this presentation looks to compare the impact of such narratives. Emphasis is placed on uncovering how new media and social networking outlets foster conceptions of group identity (which in turn come to resonate with community grievances).
It should be noted that the Sikh and Tamil diaspora case studies were selected due to their distinct circumstances. Virtual communities provide the ‘wireless platform’ necessary to transform sentiments of community grievance to ‘long-distance’ resistance. Conceptions of norms and identity amongst diaspora populations are impacted by social surroundings. More critically, the presentation places importance on uncovering the origins of group narratives. This includes investigating the impact of competing public relation tactics within respective communities. Media and information technology outlets have amplified conceptions surrounding ‘borderless grievance’ – a reality which stands to expand in complexity.
by Priya Kumar
Short bio:
Priya Kumar is a first year doctoral student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her research interests focus on diaspora politics, immigration hubs and questions of security.
TURKEY TO GERMANY: KURDISH FILMS IN TRANSNATIONAL SPACE
Abstract
Schlesinger, in reference to Karl W. Deutsch’s approach that places the relationship between the nation and communication at the center, states: “Questions about ‘national cinema’ may usefully be resituated as part of a line of sociological inquiry that centers on the prior matter of how the nation may be conceived as a communicative space”. The notion of communicative space” can be very explicatory to analyze the young Kurdish Cinema that brings about powerful questions on its relationship to the national and transnational. What makes Kurdish cinema interesting in this aspect is the questions raised by the cinema of a community, which does not have its own nation-state but retains the will and consciousness to become a nation, on the relationship of nation and national cinema.
The fact that, as a result of ongoing political conflicts, Kurdish people have become dispersed not only among Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, but all around the world, makes the existence of Kurdish films from very different geographies possible. These Kurdish films draw a “narrative map” through the stories dispersed all around the world map – a map that binds “being Kurdish” on a global scale. One of the main questions for this presentation is how the Kurdish films take advantage of the international space enabled by the dynamics of globalism and thus, how the subsisting Kurdish national-ist elements gets stronger within the international. We can say that we are talking about films that go beyond geographical boundaries that enter into a national-themed dialogue in a trans-national space. In this respect, the dialogue amongst Kurdish films can be seen as a nation-building dialogue within transnational space which bands the dispersed memories together. By narrating the stories of Kurdishness, the practice of story-telling reveals the common experiences, common feelings and common desires of Kurdish people dispersed all over the world. In this regard, Kurdish films will be considered as a special case in which the international nourishes the national.
This discussion will be carried out through the analysis of two Kurdish films: Far Away (Kazım Öz, 2005) and Close-up Kurdistan (Yüksel Yavuz, 2007). In Far Away, Kazım Öz tells the story of a Kurdish village named Kûrmeş which has lost its young population due to economic and political reasons. Starting with the fact that Kûrmeş is the director’s own village, the director becomes visible in the film through many elements; sometimes he is in the frame, and sometimes the camera records fragments of the director’s diary. Throughout the film, the individual past of the filmmaker interlace with the collective history of Kurdishness. The second half of the film moves on to the Kûrmeşis who have immigrated to Germany -where another Kurdish filmmaker, Yüksel Yavuz, seeks his own history through a cinematic journey, like Kazım Öz. Yet, the direction of Yavuz’s journey is to the reverse direction; being an immigrant in Germany, Yavuz takes his camera to the Kurdish village where he was born, in Turkey and very similar to Far Away, Close-up Kurdistan turns the individual story into a collective history: the history of Kurdish issue in Turkey… These two Kurdish films will be discussed within the frame outlined above, to address the confusing relationship of the Kurdish films with the concepts of national, transnational and international.
by Ayça Çiftçi
Short bio:
Ayça Çiftçi graduated from the Department of Film & TV at İstanbul Bilgi University and received her master’s degree from the Cultural Studies Department of the same university. She is a film critic and a member of the editorial board of Altyazı Cinema Magazine since 2005. From 2006 to 2010 she worked as a teaching assistant at Bilgi University. Currently, she is a PhD student in the Department of Media Arts at the Royal Holloway, University of London.
Fatih AKIN’s Road Movie In July: Borders, Trans-nationalism and Identity
The films of Fatih Akin, arguably one of Germany’s most renowned contemporary German filmmakers, mainly focus on immigrant life in Germany. In one of his less celebrated films, In July (Im Juli, 2004), which, compared to similarly themed films made by other migrant filmmakers, Akin presents an interesting twist. While other directors dealing with issues of identity, belonging and Germanness have made films with mainly immigrant protagonists, in In July the two lead German characters are turned into migrants, crossing borders and traversing the roads of various countries in a reversal of the commonly depicted migratory routes depicted in German films: the protagonists Daniel and Juli make their way from Germany through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to Turkey. Thus, the film not only investigates migratory identities but also the impact of trans-nationalism on German national identity for both Germans and those of an immigrant background.
Borders play a central role in the definition of national identities and politics, and Akin’s In July can be read as a film concerned with the shifting representation and meaning of borders in a globalized world characterized by economic, political and social integration. Borders, in Akin’s formulation, are not merely a geographic phenomenon, but are also created through social discourse. Furthermore, the film’s characters migrate and cross borders for various reasons, thereby presenting different types of travelers and migrants. While the film suggests that borders have different uses, it also infers that all borders are social constructs. The concept of the border ties into the central notion of mobility in this road film, and thus this mobility shifts the process of identification from a personal to a national level.
by Dr. Aisha Jamal
Short bio:
Aisha Jamal is a recent graduate in the PhD program at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation focused on German films by directors with an immigrant background. Currently, she’s teaching as Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Her research interests include German cinema, contemporary art and popular culture, and narratives of migration.
Transitory Strategies of Belonging: European Union Film Funding and Transnational Networking of Balkan Filmmakers
Abstract
Porous geopolitical borders after 1989 brought social and economic upheaval in Central and South Eastern Europe and, at the same time, they created new opportunities for artists’ and filmmakers’ mobility and exchange. With the abolishment of the state-owned film studio systems and the subsequent cuts of film funds in the early 1990s, directors in former socialist countries developed new strategies to realise their projects. Going into diaspora or migrating, on the one hand, or mobilising of existing contacts to previous partners in EU countries and co-producing, on the other, provide examples for such endeavours. I call these strategies “transitory” because they resulted in film co-productions made during and thematising transition, and because they are altered by ongoing changes in European film funding policies.
In my presentation, I engage with Eastern European filmmakers’ transnational exchange and co-productions with partners in Germany, Great Britain, and France. As Dina Iordanova has argued, Bulgaria, Romania, and the states of former Yugoslavia share a common history and similar cinematic aesthetics and sensibilties. My study, therefore, considers the work of film directors such as Bulgarian Ivan Nichev, Macedonian Milcho Manchevski, Bosnian Emir Kusturica, and Romanian Radu Mihaileanu. While two of these directors live and work in diaspora (Manchevski and Mihaileanu), the others choose to utilize their contacts to West European filmmakers (Nichev and Kusturica). However, I argue that their work is defined not only by self-elected transnational strategies to make films, but also by belonging to a region that is comparable in cultural terms yet divided in political terms. Looking at the production histories of films that these directors co-produced with German, British, or French partners in the last two decades, I illuminate the effect of geo-political changes in the region (Bulgaria’s and Romania’s negotiations for accession to the EU in the mid-1990s) in terms of film funding. For instance, Eurimages, the Council of Europe fund, in its “endeavours to support works which reflect the multiple facets of a European society” sponsors co-production projects by Nichev (Journey to Jerusalem, 2003) and Mihaileanu (Train of Life, 1998, and The Concert, 2009). In contrast, Manchevski’s and Kusturica’s films (resp. Dust, 2001, Promise Me This, 2007) made post-1999 are funded primarily by private capital. The availability of funding for these co-productions reflects the ideological underpinnings of EU film policies and existing financial barriers that are difficult to transcend. By considering the “transitory” strategies of the four Balkan filmmakers, I re-position their work within European cinema and shed light on the constant interplay between transnational networking and political prerogatives in unified Europe.
by Mariana Ivanova
Short bio:
Mariana Ivanova is a PhD candidate at the Department of Germanic Studies at University of Texas at Austin. She is currently completing her dissertation DEFA and Eastern European Cinemas: Co-Productions, Transnational Exchange, and Artistic Collaborations, supervised by Prof. Dr. Sabine Hake. Her research focuses on collaboration strategies among German and Eastern European filmmakers, transnational cinema, as well as post-1989 film funding and distribution.
Ivanova has published on German/Bulgarian film co-productions, on the memory of the GDR in contemporary German film, as well as on the cinematic representation of the Berlin Wall. To date, she has produced and directed several short documentaries including interviews with Bulgarian screenwriter Angel Wagenstein. These film projects were commissioned and sponsored by the DEFA Foundation in Berlin and the DEFA Film Library in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Ivanova’s current research project examines the contemporary German film industry as a rediscovered venue for Eastern European filmmakers after 1989. The goal of this project is to illuminate Germany’s role in the enactment of the European Union’s audiovisual policies and to explore present transnational strategies in co-producing. In addition, she is presently a consultant for New York-based filmmaker Andrea Simon’s documentary on European identity and the legacy of the Cold War in Angel Wagenstein’s oevre.
THE CRISIS OF WOMEN IN DIASPORA IDENTITIES
Diaspora cinema, especially in Turkey, emerged with the suffering experienced through immigration starting from the 1960s. Patriotism and cultural differences with the immigration-receiving country, which have been underlying causes of this suffering, have been the basic factors challenging immigrants. Especially immigrant people’s pains to be articulated to the “center” of a Western country while they came from a cultural life of “periphery” of their homeland even without integrated to the center of their country have influenced them deeply. In this context, the most affected individuals by the current situation have been women as usual. Thus, women, who were oppressed and subjugated to a second-class status in “periphery” in their own country, have been transformed to a figure that has to be protected and hidden in the spook place where the immigrants newly moved in. Especially woman image considered equal to homeland in nationalist discourses changed, in diaspora identities, into an image which more stress is laid on. Therefore, for a woman who was not able to be a social actor in her native country, existing even as a human abroad has become more difficult. Even strong reflections of sense of honor about which first immigrants considered women equal to homeland have been weakened through the salience of women in public sphere, loyalty to traditions in diaspora identities still continue.
Within the scope of this study, how women figures as a diaspora identity in the movies of 40 Square Meters of Germany (40 Quadrameter Deutschland) and Head-On (Gegen die Wand) have changed in historical process will be discussed. Especially women’s identity’s exposure to too much social control (by diaspora communities) and examining choice adventure of a dual life (German in center, Turk in private e.g.) by these women, who have not broken with tradition, will help women be placed in a more proper way in diaspora. From the point of fact that periphery keeps remembering ‘yesterday’ and center lives ‘today’, particularly diaspora identities seen in these movies are unduly attached to ‘yesterday’. Therefore, oppressive diaspora community resorts to logic to repress on women’s character of being open to change and creates a nationalist/traditional ideological cover for this.
Turkish cinema started out on a new way along with immigrants and generally pains have been reflected in their images. Looking women abused by a mentality trapped between a center and a periphery again through these movies is helpful to understand both the process and these people and cultural representation will enable social representation to look itself again.
by Tuğba Elmacı (PhD candidate at Dokuz Eylül University,TURKEY)
The Actual Boundaries of Transnationalism
Abstract
The discourse of transnationalism has been prominent in both academic writings and the popular press for a while now. This discourse arises from the condition that the cultural anthropologist Arjun Appadurai summed up in the pithy phrase “moving images meet mobile audiences”. In other words the ever increasing traffic across continents of human beings and the increased mobility across borders of cultural forms, ideas and media vehicles lead to the natural conclusion that we live today in a truly transnational world. But are there any limits to transnationalism? In this paper I ask the related questions “Just what is the nature of movement of these images?” and “Who (and how many) are these mobile audiences and what is the nature of their mobility?”. I try to answer these questions through a careful examination of media availability and media consumption data, focusing mainly on media in India as also through an analysis of historical and contemporary United Nations ,Indian and other data on migration, movement, and demographics. I show therefore that the “moving images meet mobile audiences” formulation needs to be tempered with the realization that it has never really applied to the many—and will apply to even fewer as securitisation and anti-immigrant hysteria increases around the world. I argue therefore that transnationalism has not only attracted attention disproportionate to its actual reach and influence but as a discursive phenomenon has always been (in the service of globalization mantras) prescriptive and anticipatory rather than descriptive and grounded in real material conditions of subaltern classes within nation states. But this disproportionate attention ,I argue, has cast many unintended ripples one of which has been an amplification of the actual few into the perceived many. Equally, the hosannas sung to the apparent ubiquity and reach of transnational media have contributed to the perception that there exist transnationally linked (and therefore) monolithic religious or linguistic communities whose loyalties rarely lie with the target nation of immigration. The transnationalism discourse , I argue therefore, is dialectically related to current xenophobic discourse surrounding issues like immigration and citizen rights in the US and Europe. Furthermore, both of these discourses end up eliding subaltern classes within nation states while privileging elites across borders. Given this, I argue, it will be hard to counter the latter discourse without drawing the actual boundaries of the former – a task which this paper makes a contribution to.
by Santanu Chakrabarti
PhD Candidate & Assistant Instructor
School of Communication and Information
Rutgers University
Worldcup, monuments and souvenirs: the symbolic public sphere
Many indicators show that the traditional limits of the modern states of right have been overridden by suprastate structures or trans-state networks or by technological devices that enhance social relations further the national borders. These symptoms have become the starting point of a discussion that leads to transnational approaches, neo-cosmopolite manifestoes or to post-national dreams. But the core question should be whether the state of right is really over: whether the legal constitutional structure that culminated the modernity has left the centre of the reasoning, the undiscussed centre of the political understanding; or if, instead, it is still the model for legitimacy, for legal fairness and truth?
Social sciences have traditionally insisted in trying to overcome the nationalistic thought in order to embrace some cosmopolite and universalistic utopia; but a proper and rigorous analysis cannot start by mistaking wish by reality. The current paper demonstrates how simultaneous to those promising events that seem to put the state at stake, certain devices and forms of a transmedia national discourse still reproduce the centrality of the national state at full intensity. This demonstration will be done by exploring three cases: that of multi-national events such as the worldcup South-Africa 2010; the operations with national time, synchronicity and memory by considering the role of monuments; and the geographic operations by taking into account tourism, souvenirs’ industry, car plaques and stereotypes. The three examples show that whereas the legal frame of the state might be eventually questioned, the symbolic discourse of a national identity compensates any discussion by recentering the position of the state: what has been previously called the symbolic public sphere. The state, still very active as the ruling entity, resists its end by sharpening, implementing and materializing its national and cultural dimension. The conclusion of this article shows how the state remains, ultimately, at the centre of the picture. Therefore, localisms, regionalisms or the globalization are still deeply considered, articulated and legally authorized from a national-state optic. The question about the transnational discussion has thus to be pushed further: from the analysis of the present to a projected possibility in the future.
by Dr. Joan Ramon Rodríguez-Amat
Short bio
Joan Ramon Rodríguez-Amat is doctor with European Mention by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2010) and teaches History of communication and Languages of communication (Semiotics and Discourse analysis) at the Faculty of Business and Communication (University of Vic, Barcelona, Spain) since 2002. His PhD dissertation demonstrated that the Constitutional States founded along the 19thC. Europe were born surrounded by a Symbolic public sphere. The structures of signification reproduced as cultural practices granted social cohesion, legitimacy and the acceptance of the law not by appealing to the rational agreement, as many suggested, but by reinforcing the feeling of national belonging. Joan Ramon Rodríguez-Amat focuses his current research upon the discussions of the processes of legitimacy of the European Union and, extensively, upon the end of the National-State as we know them; but he does this, not by considering the legal structures, but by studying the symbolic dimension of their reproduction. In such processes media of communication and the transmedia narratives play a particularly interesting role.
Joan Ramon Rodríguez-Amat has spent time researching in Germany (Hamburg 2008 and Jena 2007) and teaching in Germany (Jena, 2008), France (Lyon, 2007) and the United Kingdom (London, 2005). He belongs to the GRECTIC, a research group on culture, tourism and communication based at theUniversity of Vic.
Transforming Identity at Russian-Baltic Border in XXI century: Challenge to Transnationalism
Abstract
The current border between Russia and Baltic states emerged during 1990s through hard long negotiations between former republics of the Soviet Union. The length of the border is 294km between Russia and Estonia, 217km – between Russia and Latvia, and 227km – between Russia and Lithuania. The proposed paper examines changing identities at the named border. At the current stage, the researcher assesses mainly identity at Russian border regions, which are Pskov ‘oblast’, Leningrad ‘oblast’, Kaliningrad ‘oblast’; also, Murmask ‘oblast’ and Karelia having sea border should be taken into account in analysis of border identity.
The research is based on media analysis of local border regions’ newspapers, TV and news portals. In addition to media research Internet-forums of border cities were taken into account. The author assumes that media plays crucial role in forming identity as it is a dominant source of information. Moreover, it represents the existing perception of ‘we’ and ‘they’ in local communities. There are two dominating trends in Baltic states media: perception of their citizens as Europeans and forming national identities. Similarly, Russian media, published in Moscow, assesses Baltic inhabitants as ‘they’ in contrast to Russians. However, closer look at local newspapers demonstrates less distinct identities in border regions. Finally, Internet forum demonstrates the result of media policy and represent local people perception of their closer neighbours from the other side of the board.
Identity at Russian-Latvian border. People of Pitalovo district of Pskov region are curios mainly about local problem, mainly but not limited to border delimitation through this region. In the meantime, the far from the border we are the more negative attitude to Latvia as presented in local media.
Identity at Russian-Estonian border. There is dual utilitarian perception Estonia and Estonians among inhabitants of Russian border city Ivangorod. On the one hand, Estonian border servants are perceived as more nice and professional in contrast to Russian ones. On the other hand, Estonian national government always receives negative marks. In the meantime, Ivangorod citezens rarely mention their neighbours from Narva. People of another border district Sebezh (Pskov region) more negatively perceives Estonia, as they are anxious of security in terms Estonian cooperation with NATO.
Identity at Russian-Lithuanian border. The case of Kaliningrad. It worth to note that Kaliningrad habitants raise the question of their identity tremendously more than any other Russian border region. In contrast to other regions, Kalinigrads opposed themselves to the rest of Russia rather than to Lithuania or Poland.
Overall, the dominating topic of local forums is border-crossing, therefore, we could conclude that border feeling and border identity is one of the most important for local inhabitants. At the current stage we are not able to estimate this border identity as transnational one as neighbourhood people and territories are perceived as ‘others’.
by Olga Romanova
PhD in Political Science, Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod
MPhil student, Centre for Gender Studies, University of Cambridge
Glocalised Muppets: Planned Transnationalism in the Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock Production Models
Abstract
The media franchise of the Muppets and all its related television series and films may be thought of as an American property. Seen from that perspective their international presence could be viewed as one more tentacle of Americanisation. However, despite their American origin, the Muppets are in many ways a transnational property. Even their quintessential text, The Muppet Show, was funded and made in the UK. Many of their other texts have been co-productions and filmed outside the US. Two of their television series stand out because of their particular approaches to the international market: Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock.
Over the years, Sesame Street has developed a strong international presence, through highly localised co-productions in numerous countries and regions. The Sesame Street form of co-production has elements of the relatively common format sale, but is distinct from them because of the hands-on involvement of Sesame Workshop in all co-productions and the library of material available to international shows. Sesame Street has historically faced charges of Americanisation, and has had difficulties entering into some markets, notably the UK. However, Sesame Workshop has made extensive efforts to create national and regional versions of the series that follow curriculum guided by local educators and organisations. Some of these international versions have been very successful, while others illustrate the difficulties of some border crossings, particularly those where they have created shows which attempt to bridge the gap between groups in conflict such as Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Sim Sim (1998) made for Israel and Palestine, and Kosovo’s Rruga Sesam/Ulica Sezam (2004).
Fraggle Rock, though less successful, provides an especially interesting model as it was designed from the very beginning to work as a transnational co-production. Before the world of the show was conceived or designed it was planned as an international show that could be easily localised in countries that chose to participate.
This paper explores the format and production systems used by each property as it appeared in different international markets. To contextualise the Muppet case-studies this paper draws on the academic work done on the flow of global media, including: Appadurai, Chalaby, Cunningham, Havens, Hozic, Jacka, Sinclair, Straubhaar and others. Ideas gleaned from their work are used to interrogate the material on Henson’s international outings, which may in turn challenge some of their concepts. When possible, written materials on Muppet projects are supplemented with oral histories from participants in production.
Though Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock are by no means perfect examples of transnational cooperation and locally-based creativity, these two properties do provide vibrant examples of the potential of international cooperation in media production.
by Aaron Calbreath-Frasieur
Short bio:
Aaron Calbreath-Frasieur is a PhD candidate at the University of Nottingham’s Department of Culture, Film and Media. His research examines and categorises media franchises in relation to industrial practices, using the Muppets franchise and the Jim Henson Company as the primary case study. Areas explored within the study of franchises include: the notion of brand, transnational production, and transmedia storytelling. He is currently articles editor for Scope: an Online Journal of Film and Television Studies.
The Reproduction and Negotiation of the Global Neo-liberal Narrative in the Television Format Top Model
This paper is about the reproduction and negotiation of the global neo-liberal narrative in the global television format Top Model. America’s Next Top Model as the original television show from the US is currently broadcasted in over 170 countries and is licensed to more than 17 countries in the world. Among these countries is also Germany in which the country version Germany’s next Topmodel is produced. Looking at globally traded concepts of casting shows in particular, this paper argues that a global neo-liberal narrative seems to be reproduced especially through the means of addressing the so called enterprising self; however there are local adaptations and negotiations of this narrative which can be described as culturally specific.
Global television formats become increasingly more important in the television market because of their ability to be adapted to other cultural contexts. Thus, processes of ‘localizing the global’ play a significant role in global format trade. However, a global format is not only localized to a certain cultural context but at the same time the local product and with it the local media landscape is globalized. In this paper, the concept of transculturality is used as a research perspective to critically explore the tensions and contradictions which occur when a global television format is locally adapted to certain cultural regions or countries.
Through a comparative television analysis of America’s Next Top Model and Germany’s next Topmodel it can be shown that that there are – next to the reproduction of the neo-liberal narrative in the content and plot – ‘local’ negotiations and adaptations of the global neo-liberal narrative which can be described as culturally specific and can be linked to the specific form of neoliberalism in each country. The analysis of the two Top Model versions shows that the mechanisms by which the judges try to discipline the contestants are different, that the contestants react differently to these mechanisms and that the contestants employ different strategies of self-guidance. These findings can be interpreted to that extent that the global neo-liberal narrative is reproduced in the Top Model-format, but is negotiated in a culturally specific way.
By critically examining the processes of ‘localizing’ the global television format Top Model in the US and Germany, this paper suggests that there still is the need to adapt ‘global’ media products to specific cultural territories, so that audiences and users from various cultural backgrounds are able to relate to it. Using the concept of transculturality, tensions of these processes can be explored but also similar or overarching elements ‘across’ different cultural contexts can be examined.
by Miriam Stehling
Short bio:
Miriam Stehling is teaching/research fellow and doctoral student and at the Institute of Communications and Media Culture at Leuphana University Lueneburg, Germany. She received her M.A. in Cultural Studies from the Leuphana University Lueneburg in 2009. She was visiting student at the Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona in 2006/07 and visiting scholar at the University of Glamorgan, Cardiff (Wales) in 2010. Her research interests include transcultural communication, global format trade, reality TV, Cultural Studies and Governmentality Studies.
Representing Self as Other: Transnationalism ‘National Geographic Magazine, and Universal Humanism in Reza Deghati’s Photography
Abstract
Reza Deghati is a Paris based Iranian photographer working with the National Geographic magazine; best known for his photo-reportages from Afghanistan. According to his biography at the National Geographic website, Reza is not a photojournalist but a ‘philanthropist and humanitarian activist’. He also has been involved in United Nation’s humanitarian missions especially in Afghanistan. Reza (as he is known in France) like many other Iranian photojournalists of his generation started his career during the Iran-Iraq war working for the army and state institutions. In February 1981 he was wounded by a shell blast, sent to France for treatment and stayed there ever since saying that his life was in danger in Iran because of his political views. He was among several names behind the 1979 Pulitzer Prize winning picture ‘Firing Squad in Iran’, although the winner remained anonymous for almost 30 years.
Reza is an exemplary photographer from the periphery seeking to become included in the core by representing self as Other. Transnationalism in the form of ‘global citizenship’ is his prime way of distancing from the periphery and the social class attributed to it. His working for the National Geographic magazine and fitting into its social evolutionary view of the world and its idea of universal humanism is not accidental.
I argue that liberalism has always been unable to accept the Other as equal. Liberalism traditionally can accept the diversity of cultures only if the Other (as the subject of the different culture) is represented as a ‘bare life’ (in contrast to the ‘political life’ referring to Giorgio Agamben). Humanitarian approach is another name for conceiving the Other as a ‘bare life’. The Afghan person represented in the National Geographic magazine and in Reza Deghati’s pictures is another member of the ‘Family of Man’, stripped from his/her political life, immature, child-like who only has basic needs. Thus Reza, who once finds the Third World a dangerous place, retunes to Afghanistan with only one difference; this time with his new identity as a philanthropist French citizen, with the pleasure of ‘dark tourism’ or ‘white man’s journey to the heart of darkness’.
By Mohsen Biparva
PhD Student, Royal Holloway
Department of Media Arts
Second Life and the Arts: Towards a New Language
While living in a culture of linear thinking (Mariotti, 1996), new ways of communication are presented in a wide range of options, some of them being extremely complex. Processes in which people are being engaged, connected in new, often physicaly non-existent spaces, are beginning to create meta languages, which are opening the new possibilities for human practices, like art. From internet communication platforms like Facebook, My Space, Tweeter, to online virtual worlds like Second Life, Sims Online and even more complex matrix-like VR platforms, the communication process had to be re-thinked.
Cyberspace, as a complex collective fantasy, becomes a space of new creations. Discourses in the context of virtual reality are created by hackers, computer scientist and artists – visual and performing artists, musicians, and of course SF authors.
Idea of this paper is to raise questions about the possible implications of interdisciplinary links between creativity, performed through different areas of human knowledge and practice, new territories of the psychological relations in cyber space and the arts, in creating new ways of communication through the world of Second Life.
by Aleksandar Brkic
PhD candidate in Management of Arts and Media
University of Arts in Belgrade
Short Bio
Aleksandar Brkić graduated at the Department for Theatre and Radio Production at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, received his masters degree at the MSc Management course at the City University in London and his MFA degree at the Scene Design department at the University of Arts in Belgrade. Currently he is working on his PhD thesis at the Management of Arts and Media program at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts and is engaged as a Lecturer/Research Fellow at the UNESCO Department for Cultural Policy and Management at the University of Arts. Member of the Serbian Compendium Team, Vice President of the Technology Commission of OISTAT. Author of number of academic texts on arts management, cultural policy and cultural anthropology and training expert in the field of project and strategic management, arts management and intercultural dialogue. Actively working as an arts manager mostly through the international colaborative projects.
Who hold power in cyberspace? The 2008 Candle Demonstration in Korean and its aftermath
Abstract
This paper explores the 2008 Candle Demonstration in Korean and its aftermath in Korean cyberspace. My fascination arose, because of the consequences of the demonstration following the public outrage caused by the issue of beef imports, which were vociferously expressed in the Korean cyberspace and physically erupted on the ground as a result. Thus, it can be inferred that the virtual Korean cyberspace is interwoven with the actual Korean society on the ground and the 20008 Candle Demonstration has demonstrated this explicitly, therefore needs to be scrutinized in great detail.
Firstly, this paper aims to (re)evaluate the 2008 Candle Demonstration within the framework of the cyber activism of the public, its influence at ground level and the government intervention both in cyberspace and in reality. For this, it analyses changes in the Korean government’s Internet policies after the 2008 Demonstration in order to evaluate whether the Korean regime is using policies and the implementation of them as a means to control the Korean cyberspace. Through the analysis of documents that were published between 01/07/08 and 31/12/08, the research has found that after the 2008 Candle Demonstration, the regime thought that the cyberspace were not being helpful for their government and needed to be controlled by containing voices of the Korean internet users. To do that, the regimes emphasised the adversary effect of the internet to support the veracity of their announcement concerning their reform bills on the Internet.
The research also found that the Korean web portals followed the orders of the regime and carried out measures for the regime rather than protecting the freedom of expression of the Korean internet users. While the reign of terror worked to muzzle the Korean internet users, problematic issues had risen. The Global corporate such as Google and Youtube refused to collaborate with the regime. They refused to follow the measurement on the Korean internet, but the regime did not have power to surrender the global internet companies as Korean legislation was not applicable to them. It was found out in reality that the reform bills on the web were compulsory to follow ONLY for the Korean web portal enterprises and the Korean internet users who used the Korean web portals.
By the same token, this paper will explore the Korean Cyber Asylum Seekers’ project, who has moved from a Korean-based portal to a US-base/global one since the 2008 Candle Demonstration. The research has found that the Korean internet users accepted the Globalization as the tactical resistance to the hypocrisy of the power holders in Korean society. In the evidence, this section will illustrate how the Korean internet users have responded to the threat and oppression from the current regime as well as to that from the Korean web portals, during and after the 2008 Candle Demonstration.
by Dong Hyun Song
MPhil/PhD student in Media and Communication
Goldsmiths, University of London
Media and Politics Blog 