bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Organizational Approaches to Census Campaigns in Western Siberia (by the Example of Agricultural Census and Urban Census of 1917)
Authors: Skopa Vitalii Aleksandrovich
Published: February 2020

Relying on archival materials and published sources, the article examines organizational approaches to agricultural and urban census campaigns of 1917 in Western Siberia. Functional duties of district supervisors, regional supervisors and district registrars are identified. During the census campaign, special attention was paid to the procedure for filling out personal records. Well-thought-out instructions simplified significantly the process of statistical data collection and helped to obtain comprehensive and reliable information.
UNDANG-UNDANG ORMAS: ANTARA DAKWAH DAN POLITIK
Authors: Rosyid Abdul
Published: February 2020

Undang-undang No.2 Tahun 2017 tentang Organisasi Kemasyarakatan (Ormas) yang telah disahkan oleh DPR RI mendapatkan penentangan dari sebagian masyarakat dan ormas Islam. Undang-undang ini telah membatasi kebebasan berserikat dan berdakwah bagi umat Islam. Undang-undang ini juga memberi peluang pada pemerintah untuk mencabut status badan hukum organisasi kemasyarakatan maupun lembaga lainnya yang tidak sepaham dengan pemerintah tanpa melalui putusan pengadilan. Hal tersebut dianggap akan menjadikan pemerintah sebagai penguasa diktator dan represi negara. Begitu juga undang-undang ini akan tetap menjadi polemik yang tidak berkesudahan baik secara politik maupun hukum dikarenakan undang-undang tersebut lahir atas kepentingan pemerintah yang berkuasa sebagai bentuk kontrol terhadap masyarakat yang kritis, maupun kelompok yang berbeda dengan pemerintah. Undang-undang ini bukan lahir dari ajaran Islam, karena dalam ajaran Islam umat diwajibkan selalu melakukan amal ma’ruf nahi munkar baik itu secara individu maupun kelompok, sebagai bentuk dakwah maupun politik dalam mengkritisi dan mengkoreksi pemerintah (penguasa). Dakwah dan politik dalam Islam merupakan satu kesatuan yang tidak dapat dipisahkan, dakwah dan politik harus sejalan sesuai dengan perintah Allah dan Rasul-Nya.
AL-GHARAMAH AL-MALIYAH: Studi Kasus Penerapan Denda Pada Kasus Penundaan Pembayaran Akad Utang Piutang
Authors: Muhajirin Muhajirin
Published: February 2020

Penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa al-gharâmah al-mâliyah (denda harta) diperbolehkan syaraʼ, baik berupa uang maupun benda lainnya jika hal tersebut bisa menyebabkan terwujudnya kemashlahatan pada negara atau masyarakat. Al-gharâmah al-mâliyah (denda berupa harta) bukanlah termasuk riba dalam jual beli karena al-gharâmah bukanlah akad yang menyertai akad jual beli. Juga diperbolehkan menetapkan denda atau ganti rugi terhadap kreditur yang mampu namun menunda-nunda pembayaran utangnya selama tidak disyaratkan ketika akad sebagai ganti dari hilangnya manfaat dan kerugian yang dialami oleh debitur.
Investigating potential icequakes at Llaima volcano, Chile
Authors: Lamb Oliver , Lees Jonathan , Franco Marin Luis , Lazo Jonathan , Rivera Andrés , Shore Michael , Lee Stephen
Published: February 2020

Glacially- and magmatically-derived seismic events have been noted to heavily overlap in characteristics, thus there exists the potential for false-alarms or missed warnings at ice-covered volcanoes. Here we present the first study to specifically target icequakes at an ice-covered volcano in Southern Chile. Two months of broadband seismic data collected at Llaima volcano in 2015 were analyzed in order to quantify, characterize, and locate glacially-derived seismic events at one of the most active ice-covered volcanoes in the region. We find over 1,000 repeating seismic events across 11 families, the largest of which contains 397 events. Approximate locations and characteristics of the largest families lead us to conclude that these events were derived from persistent stick-slip motion along the ice-rock interface at the base of a glacier near the volcano summit. These results have implications for future seismic monitoring at Llaima volcano and other ice-covered active volcanoes in the region.
Summary of Panel Presentations
Authors: Crofts Dr Charlotte
Published: February 2020

Can audio-visual practice be both a methodology and a form of dissemination for research? What are the particular issues for researchers working in media practice and what is the status of practice as research in terms of speaking for itself, or needing additional written documentation? How useful are the established definitions of practice research? In what ways is practice research pushing at the boundaries of documentary filmmaking? What is the relationship between academic practice research and the industry? These are the issues that arose in this very stimulating film panel, consisting of four presentations and screenings of practice research, each contributing to debates around the relationship between theory and practice.
Journalism and Political Democracy in Brazil
Authors: Matos Dr Carolina
Published: February 2020

Many South American countries in the last two decades experienced significant political and social changes, embracing representative liberal democracy and the global market after having lived through relatively long dictatorship periods. After escaping from the tentacles of the military generals (1964-1985), which kept the country tied to an old economic model of state intervention and to a weak form of political institutionalisation with fragile freedom of expression, Brazil reduced the role of the state, diving into the waters of the market. At a first glance, the contemporary scenario seems to invite only optimism: the market permitted stronger governmental accountability and a means of safeguarding citizens from corruption. Political democracy was also consolidated, with full competitive and free elections held regularly. Certain groups of civil society players were included in the mainstream arena and a relative degree of press independence and freedom was achieved due to political democratisation and market expansion. The contemporary years nonetheless have been highly contradictory, with the market and the state and the various societal spheres being overwhelmed in tensions.
Do Journalists know how to listen and should they be taught how to? Some thoughts on contemporary interviewing practices.
Authors: Rees Gavin
Published: February 2020

Journalists interview people; it is fundamental to their trade. And yet interviewing is given very little attention. Both practitioners and theoreticians of the media frame the interview situation in contractual and representational terms. The concentration is on the before and after. The emotional dynamics of what happens inside the interview itself are barely discussed. This paper will suggest that journalists who specialise in working with trauma develop a particular approach to listening that stands in contrast to a general professional orientation towards information extraction that tends to view emotion as the same as other forms of data.
Interpersonal Communication Competence in SME Internationalization
Authors: Purhonen Pipsa
Published: February 2020

Facing economic globalization, internationalization has become the lifeblood for many small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The aim of this paper is to illustrate internationalization of an SME as a challenge to interpersonal communication competence. In international business, the competition for products, prices and technologies has expanded to successful development and management of business collaboration and international networks. Networks are created, developed and maintained through social interaction. Therefore it is a necessity to analyze what is interpersonal communication competence in the formation, development and maintenance of such interpersonal relations that are successful for SMEs in their efforts of internationalization.

Building upon existing literature on interpersonal and intercultural communication, communication networks and SME internationalization, this theoretical paper aims to examine demands of internationalization from the perspective of interpersonal communication competence of SMEs’ owner-managers and employees.
The Playwright as Filmmaker: History, Theory and Practice
Authors: Smith Othniel
Published: February 2020

This paper summarises my doctoral research into the work of dramatists who became filmmakers – specifically Preston Sturges, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, David Mamet, and Neil Labute. I began with the hypothesis that there is something distinctive about the work of filmmakers who have a background in writing for text-based theatre, an arena where the authorship is, on the whole, not a vexatious issue, as is the case in commercial cinema. Through case studies involving textual and contextual analyses of their films, i found common threads linking their work, in respect both of their working methods and their approach to text and performance. From this, i evolved a theoretical position involving the development of a tentative ‘dogme’ designed to smooth the path between writing plays and making films, and produced short no-budget videos illustrating it.
Reducing the difference between citizens and consumers: a critical discourse analysis of the Communications White Paper 2000
Authors: Dawes Simon
Published: February 2020

By conducting a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the Communications White Paper 2000, this article demonstrates the processes by which the government has socially and discursively reconstructed the public service ethos of broadcasting and the relations between citizenship and consumerism. Focussing on the occurrences of the citizen- and consumer-signifiers, the analysis confirms the claims of critical social theorists that there has been a shift in the government’s conception of the public from citizens to consumers. However, by adopting a cross-disciplinary methodology to the analysis of the texts, the complex processes and tensions involved in this shift can be made manifest, and the ways in which the differences between public and private oppositions are rhetorically reduced – so that the consumer becomes an active agent, able to act collectively, while the citizen becomes a passive individual – can be demonstrated.
Digital vs Material: the Everyday Construction of Mediated Political Action
Authors: Barassi Veronica
Published: February 2020

The relationship between internet technologies and political action has often been analysed with an emphasis on the empowering qualities brought about by the digital age. Frequently, this is to the detriment of further consideration of the continuing role of ‘old’/traditional media, yet, campaigning organisations and political groups in Britain are still investing their few economic resources in the production of printed activist magazines, as well as developing web-based platforms. Based on ethnographic research amongst solidarity campaign organisations and the Trade Union movement in Britain, this paper will show that the relationship between internet technologies and social movements is embedded in a double tension of empowerment and anxiety. It is by considering this ambivalent tension – the paper will argue – that we can shed some light on the continuing role of printed media in the everyday mediation of political action, and we can better appreciate how new media have not replaced old media but may have powerfully transformed their meaning.
The Iconography of Mark Antony
Authors: Kelly Rachael
Published: February 2020

The story of the lives and deaths of Cleopatra VII of Egypt and her lover, the Roman triumvir Marcus Antonius, have been the subject of considerable mythologisation in the two millennia since their suicides at Alexandria. In recent years, some scholars have noted that the image of Cleopatra has been used, in various texts, to perform cultural anxieties about the meaning of acceptable womanhood. However, whilst there is some evidence (albeit problematic) that the screen Cleopatras of the past forty years have been subject to a recuperation of sorts, there has been no similar recuperation or critical analysis of the image of Antonius (or Antony). This paper seeks to outline the key recurring features of the diverse screen representations of Antony, and to analyse their function in exploring cultural anxieties about acceptable masculinity.
Tough Guy in Drag? How the external, critical discourses surrounding Kathryn Bigelow demonstrate the wider problems of the gender question
Authors: Murray Rona
Published: February 2020

This article argues that the various approaches adopted towards Kathryn Bigelow’s work, and their tendency to focus on a gendered discourse, obscures the wider political discourses these texts contain. In particular, by analysing the representation of masculinity across the films, it is possible to see how the work of this director and her collaborators is equally representative of its cultural context and how it uses the trope of the male body as a site for a dialectical study of the uses and status of male strength within an imperialistically-minded western society.
'Tell me all about your new man': (Re)Constructing Masculinity in Contemporary Chick Texts
Authors: Burns Amy
Published: February 2020

This article examines the representation of masculinity in contemporary ‘chick’ texts, with particular reference to "The Holiday" (2007). Chick texts encourage both female characters in the texts and the female audience to ‘look at’ and evaluate the male subject and they establish a specific formula of ‘acceptable masculinity’ for the hero, constructed of up to six facets: ‘attractiveness’, ‘success’,mystery, broken-heartedness, domesticity and being hopelessly devoted to the heroine. These facets suggest a utilising of Beynon’s ‘new man-ism’ (2002) and imply that the archetypal ‘new man’ is what contemporary women ‘want’.
‘Strange Visitor From Another Planet’: Genre, Corporate Identity and the Arrival of American Telefantasy on British Television
Authors: Johnston Derek
Published: February 2020

While the BBC had been broadcasting television Science Fiction productions from as early as 1938, and Horror since the start of television in 1936, American Telefantasy had no place on British television until ITV’s broadcast of Adventures of Superman (1952-1958) in 1956. It would be easy to assign this absence to the avoidance of popular American programming, but this would ignore the presence of Western and adventure serials imported from the US and Canada for monopoly British television. Similarly, it would be inaccurate to suggest that these imports were purely purchased as thrilling fare to appease a child audience, as it was the commercial ITV that was first to broadcast the more adult-orientated Science Fiction Theatre (1955-7) and Inner Sanctum (1954). This article builds on the work of Paul Rixon and Rob Leggott to argue that these imports were used primarily to supply relatively cheap broadcast material for the new channel, but that they also served to appeal to the notion of spectacular entertainment attached to the new channel through its own productions, such as The Invisible Man (1958-1959) and swashbucklers such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-60). However, the appeal was not just to the exciting, but also to the transatlantic, with ITV embracing this conception of America as a modern place of adventure through its imports and its creation of productions for export, incorporating an American lead into The Invisible Man and drawing upon an (inexpensive) American talent pool of blacklisted screenwriters to provide a transatlantic style and relevance to its own adventure series. Where the BBC used its imported serials as filler directed at children, ITV embraced this transatlantic entertainment as part of its identity and differentiation from the BBC.
Stripping the Body in Contemporary Popular Media: The Value of (un)dressing in American Telefantasy
Authors: Khajanchi Manjree
Published: February 2020

Research perspectives on identity and the relationship between dress and body have been frequently studied in recent years (Eicher and Roach-Higgins, 1992; Roach-Higgins and Eicher, 1992; Entwistle, 2003; Svendsen, 2006). This paper will make use of specific and detailed examples from the television programmes Once Upon a Time (2011- ), Falling Skies (2011- ), Fringe (2008- ) and Game of Thrones (2011- ) to discover the importance of dressing and accessorizing characters to create humanistic identities in Science Fiction and Fantastical universes. These shows are prime case studies of how the literal dressing and undressing of the body, as well as the aesthetic creation of television worlds (using dress as metaphor), influence perceptions of personhood within popular media programming. These four shows will be used to examine three themes in this paper: (1) dress and identity, (2) body and world transformations, and (3) (non-)humanness. The methodological framework of this article draws upon existing academic literature on dress and society, combined with textual analysis of the aforementioned Telefantasy shows, focussing primarily on the three themes previously mentioned. This article reveals the role transformations of the body and/or the world play in American Telefantasy, and also investigates how human and near-human characters and settings are fashioned. This will invariably raise questions about what it means to be human, what constitutes belonging to society, and the connection that dress has to both of these concepts.
American Telefantasy: An Introduction
Authors: Halliday Sophie , Thomas Rhys Owain
Published: February 2020

Television schedules are rife with Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. The re-launched Doctor Who and its prime-time Saturday night stablemate, Merlin spearhead the rise of contemporary British Telefantasy (Being Human, Misfits et al.).  Meanwhile, their American equivalents attract audiences of millions, extensive media attention and, since Peter Dinklage’s Emmy and Golden Globe-winning performance in Game of Thrones, widespread critical acclaim through mainstream industry awards.  Histories of “quality” television are awash with examples of American Telefantasy that have left an indelible impression on popular cultural (and even socio-political) imaginaries; Star Trek, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica all being enduringly popular examples. As American television networks prepare to launch their all-important “Fall” schedules, ushering in a new year of programming, it is evident that Telefantasy will continue to garner its fair share of TV viewers’ attention – whether due to hotly-anticipated debuts (666 Park Avenue, Arrow, The Neighbors, Revolution), finales (Fringe), provocative content (American Horror Story, True Blood, The Walking Dead, or a general capacity to entertain, bewitch or amuse (Community), Falling Skies, Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural).
Caravaggio’s cinematic painting: Fictionalising art and biography in the artist biopic
Authors: Saunders Keeley
Published: February 2020

Explorations of the artist in the biopic genre are often formulaic in approach. The biographical narrative, modelled on the literary monograph, celebrates a public figure who overcomes challenges to rise to the top of their field. These films traditionally present the artist’s life and work as intrinsically involved with each other so that the artwork can only be explained through contextualising biographical knowledge. Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio (1986), in the vein of his highly personal, experimental filmmaking, is not a biopic in this traditional sense. Taking advantage of what little is known about Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the Italian painter widely recognised as the first great artist of the Baroque period and a master of chiaroscuro, Jarman constructs a heavily fictional ‘biographical’ narrative. This narrative is built upon historical speculation, personal identification, and most significantly, his subjective interpretation and visualisation of the paintings themselves. A series of tableaux vivants, delicately postured, almost still, recreations of the paintings, provide the narrative impetus in Caravaggio. Many of these are situated as poses in preparation for Caravaggio's painting. These recreations are removed from their historical context, disregarding the artworks’ chronology and misplacing characters and events to construct a part-Jarman/part-Caravaggio profile – fictionalising both art and biography. This paper explores Jarman’s intricate appropriation of the art and biography of the artist in Caravaggio, and how this is implemented, and complicated, to serve his own narrative agenda. Developing André Bazin’s discussion about the adoption of one medium into another in ‘Painting and Cinema,’ I analyse the tableaux representing The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (1599-1600), The Entombment of Christ (1602-03), and Death of the Virgin (1606). This analysis takes place on three levels: firstly, art-history ‘fidelity;’ secondly, the perversion of the self-portrait; and finally, with direct reference to Bazin’s essay, the editing of the art-image.
Today’s “the most sexy thing”: virtual space or real life?
Authors: Dziuba Alexandra
Published: February 2020

The issues ofReality and Simulation of Reality are highlighted in this article. The nature of Desire isalso discussed as a fundamental in contemporary culture and media environments.Special attention has been paid to advertising, as a form of creating desire andsimulations of reality which stimulate growing frustrations in society. Onlinespace is also been viewed as a new trend in the simulation of life and a fakedadvertising reality. In the article I attempt to compare both of these   "worlds" – simulated by culture and virtualisedby media.
Active Citizenship or Activist Citizenship? A Framework for Studying Citizenship in New Social Movements and the Role of ICTs
Authors: Papa Venetia , Milioni Dimitra L.
Published: February 2020

The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed an upsurge in mobilization and collective action by a wide range of activists and groups engaging in social and political protest, all over the world, which continues to this day. New media are not only greatly facilitating the ways in which activists communicate and protest, but are also altering the relation of the movements to territorial boundaries and localities. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines have tended to focus on questions about the internet’s role in protest, without attempting to answer the changing meaning of what it means to be a citizen within such movements and through their practices. This article responds to this need by developing an analytical framework for studying the connection between citizenship and ICT-mediated social movements, drawing on existing scholarship on social movements, citizenship and ICTs. Specifically, using citizenship studies as a starting point, it brings together elements that are necessary for a two-level analysis: a) the tangible aspects that are seen as the concrete practices of movements and their participants and b) the ideational aspects that are seen as the abstract practices of movements and their participants. This provides a theoretical structure that facilitates connections between different disciplines that might otherwise be difficult to discern, so that the construction of citizenship can be studied on an interdisciplinary basis.
Documenting Protest and Police: Occupy Wall Street and the (R)evolution of Digital Mobile Video
Authors: Lenzner Ben
Published: February 2020

The importance of mobile phone video technology was highlighted in September 2011, when the Occupy Wall Street movement transformed Zuccotti Park in New York into a public space for protest. For those not present, the occupation was witnessed and interpreted through the reporting of traditional media – local and global news organizations, the Internet, radio and printed media. Yet most vitally, Occupy Wall Street was characterized by a new form of representation captured through the camera phone lenses of localized practitioners experimenting and rapidly realizing, often in real time, the value of mobile phone cameras within the new media ecology of social activism. Perhaps nowhere are the implications of recent digital video technologies more influential than in the synthesis of activist movements, citizen journalism, documentary practices and emerging forms of new media, such as the live streaming application – Ustream. Analyzing the practices that matured during the Occupy movement through the lens of Manuel DeLanda’s interpretation of assemblage theory this article offers a critical reflection of the technological, cultural and networked diagram that was present at the time, including but not limited to access to available technologies (the proliferation of cameras, web technologies and protocols and other telecommunications standards and the networks they form). I examine the video practice of Tim Pool, a practitioner whose evolution from citizen to citizen journalist to journalist reflects the complexity, spontaneity and often contiguity of assemblage. Furthermore, using assemblage as a key-mapping device, this article explores the emerging practices and networks birthed, reinforced and reworked during the Occupy Wall Street movement and throughout New York City in the months after the Zuccotti Park encampment dispersed.
‘Pungent Sex’ and ‘Room at the Bottom’: Reframing British Exploitation Films of the 1960s
Authors: Ahmed Michael
Published: February 2020

Eric Schaefer, in his exploration of the American exploitation industry, has argued that exploitation cinema developed in opposition to mainstream Hollywood products. Furthermore, the topics and subject matter presented in early American exploitation films dealt with subjects Hollywood were unwilling to produce. As a result, the production, distribution and exhibition strategies developed by exploitation filmmakers differed markedly from the American mainstream film industry. However, in Britain (amongst critics and scholars) the exploitation film has no similar defining characteristics and is a term that has been applied to a wide variety of British films without regard to their industrial mode of production, distribution or exhibition. As a result, the cultural currency of the British exploitation film, as it is now understood, has no connection to the films they now describe, and often fails to take into account how these films were originally produced, marketed, distributed and exhibited. In the British film industry during the 1960s, the term ‘exploitation’ was used by the industry to refer to a wide variety of films which are now viewed differently by contemporary critics and academics. In other words, the currency of the term exploitation has changed from its original meaning. Therefore, this article is an attempt to reframe the debate around the meaning of the British exploitation film from the 1960s onwards, and to re-evaluate our understanding of the development of British cinema during this period.
Players and Puppetmasters: Alternate Reality Games and Negotiated Consumer/Producer Relationships
Authors: Janes Stephanie
Published: February 2020

This article uses data gathered from interviews with game designers and a survey of a core group of 30 players to suggest that Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) allow media producers to develop a close relationship with consumers, prompting us to rethink previous notions of power in contemporary producer/consumer relationships. Discourse has moved from a resistant/incorporated dichotomy (Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998; Hills 2002) to the suggestion that fandom has become a normative mode of mainstream media consumption (Jenkins 2007). Theories of digital convergence and collective intelligence are often mobilised to argue for fans as empowered consumer collectives, increasing their ability to control decisions around their favoured media products (Jenkins 2006). Promotional ARGs are unique sites for studying this complex relationship. ARGs have been used since around 2001 to promote a number of films including A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001) and The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008). They create a narrative mystery set in the world of the film which is broken down and scattered across the internet. Players work collaboratively in online fan communities to reconstruct that narrative using everyday media channels such as email, websites, phone calls, voicemails, and larger scale live events, like scavenger hunts. Such games are sites of real-time interaction creating a give/take relationship between producers and consumers, which results in a more complex system of co- creation and negotiated ownership, as opposed to resistance, incorporation, or indeed cultural empowerment.
Early Cinema and Juvenile Crime in Scotland: Edinburgh’s Chief Constable at the 1917 Cinema Commission
Authors: Bohlmann Julia
Published: February 2020

The enthusiastic relationship between children, adolescents and early cinema was observed with some unease in 1910s Britain. The Cinema Commission, set up by the National Council of Public Morals in 1917, was the first enquiry into the impact of cinema on children and young people in Great Britain and marks a significant moment in the modern discourse on children’s media consumption and juvenile behaviour that is still on-going and transcends national boundaries. One of the Commission’s key concerns was to investigate the link between the popularity of cinema-going among children and rising juvenile delinquency. This article discusses in detail the contribution of Chief Constable Roderick Ross from Edinburgh to the Commission, who challenged the notion of such a link. The paper employs a historiographical research methodology, complementing the reading of Ross’s statement with an analysis of the Scottish press and local municipal archival material. In that way it contextualises Ross’s account in view of the distinct connotations of local censorship discourse in Scotland and reveals the ambiguities and complexity that it entailed.
This is not Marketing. This is HBO: Branding HBO with Transmedia Storytelling
Authors: Bourdaa Melanie
Published: February 2020

This article deals with the way HBO promotes its shows today using strategies of ‘transmedia storytelling’ (Jenkins 2006). The US pay-per view cable channel has a history of creating a specific promotional system around its programs. Its famous slogan ‘It’s Not TV. It’s HBO.’ accompanied the introduction of narrative complexity in shows like The Sopranos (HBO/Brillstein Entertainment Partner, 1999-2007) or The Wire (HBO/Blown Deadline Productions, 2002-8) for example. Transmedia Storytelling, as theorized by Henry Jenkins, is a way to extend stories across multiple media platforms in order to create a coherent storyworld, giving information on characters or insights on the plots and the narrative universe. This article analyses how HBO is developing strategies of transmedia storytelling. I will focus on two specific television shows, True Blood (HBO/Your Face Goes Here Entertainment, 2008- ) and Game of Thrones (HBO/Television 360/Grok! Television/Generator Entertainment/Bighead Littlehead, 2011- ), in order to understand how HBO managed to promote these shows and expand its brand in the American and international television landscape. I use a dual methodology, first presenting an analysis of the transmedia strategies related to the universes of the shows. Then I will draw on interviews with the creators of these strategies in order to understand how they are included in the promotion of HBO.
Déjà vu and the Timequake: Beyond Postmodernism
Authors: Giordano Federico
Published: February 2020

The aim of this article is to verify how Tony Scott proved to be, throughout his career, a director particularly sensitive to social shifts and to artistic and cultural modifications. He adjusted the content and formal structure of his films according to what seemed to be the most “modern” or suitable way of depicting contemporaneity. When observed in these terms and a posteriori, in his last films Tony Scott can be seen as a director who tried to go beyond postmodernism, addressing himself towards the new movements of post-postmodernism, as with metamodernism, pseudomodernism or digimodernism. Among Scott’s films, the one which seems to be particularly relevant in this sense is Déjà Vu (2006), where the latest artistic point of view of the director is quite well summarized. It is a film that puts into metaphor some of the political problems of our epoch and, above all, through a reflection on time embraces some of the features of postmodernism. In doing so, it surpasses postmodernism, opening towards the new aesthetic movement of post-postmodernism. In such a kind of filmic construction, which entails a theoretical reflection on modernity through images, Scott adopts and confirms the post-postmodernist inclination of the final phase of his body of work.
‘Who is Sir Curtis Seretse?’: A Re evaluation of Black Representation in Sixties British Television
Authors: Ahmed Michael
Published: February 2020

This paper re-evaluates the significance of Sir Curtis Seretse, a black character from the 1960s television series Department S (ITV 1969-70) which has largely been ignored. While earlier critical and academic discourse of Department S has primarily centred on the flamboyant Jason King, the importance of Seretse’s character has been overlooked. Seretse, as the head of Department S, is in a position of authority and power over the other (white) characters of the show. Furthermore, he represents a highly educated character that converses on equal terms with Prime Ministers and Presidents, a unique representation of a black character on British television at that time. Seretse’s appearance on prime time television, at a period when black performers in the media were invariably confined to little more than token characters, is therefore worthy of further attention. This paper examines how Seretse represents a different type of black character not previously seen on British television, when compared to the representations of racial problems on other television crime dramas.
The tricks of the trade (un)exposed
Authors: Chinita Fatima
Published: February 2020

One of the genres which has been neglected by the Academy Award is the metacinema, which for practical purposes I will consider to be a cross between the complexities of self-reflexive cinema (highly connoted with modernism) and the Hollywood Film (the classical films about the urge to “make it” in Hollywood). Indeed, these films have always existed and some, as Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950, USA) and Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001, FRA/USA), have even made it to the ceremony, but were, predictably, defeated by other more serious or less reflexive products in the main categories. The United States has always insisted on not revealing the tricks of the trade at the same time that made films about it to cater to the curiosity of the cinema-inclined spectator. For this reason these films are usually about the universe of cinema but not its medium, at least not in a way that discloses the operations of the technical apparatus. Why are these films not viewed as serious enough and artistic enough to be awarded   Oscars by the Academy in the categories of Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography? Are they being discarded for the same reasons that comedy and musicals usually are? Or are they being punished for being too unveiling? Or is the industry going for commercial products that can easily pushed on a global scale and make a profit?
An Educational and Inspirational Broadcast: The Oscars Red Carpet Pre-Show
Authors: Swiatek Lukasz
Published: February 2020

The annual Academy Awards pre-show, currently titled The Oscars: Red Carpet Live, has become an integral part of Hollywood’s ‘night of nights’. Produced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the show captures a media event or media spectacle that has strong commercial imperatives. The pre-show is often perceived to be nothing more than an insipid commentary about stars, their personal lives and, of course, the clothes that they wear on Oscar night. However, this article argues that the pre-show is much more informative and richer than simplistic criticisms suggest. Specifically, the broadcast educates viewers about filmmaking and the field of cinema, as well as social norms and customs, presenting behaviours and attitudes that are considered to be acceptable and unacceptable. A detailed analysis of the 2013 show confirms this argument; it also finds that parts of the broadcast are inspirational – intentionally and unintentionally so – providing viewers with motivational stories and stimulating ideas.
“Upstairs Now with Billy and Don”: Spontaneous Memorials in the Footballing Community
Authors: Simpson Judith
Published: February 2020

This paper examines communication and interaction around football shrines, arguing that these build into a ritual process which installs the deceased as an ancestor and provides consolation for the survivors. The historical roots of shrine-building are discussed, and the role of the media in disseminating the practice considered.
Music for the Migrant’s Soul: Blending the Traditional with the Topical…
Authors: Shrivastava Madhusri
Published: February 2020

This paper explores how the Bhojpuri music industry is catering to the needs of north Indian migrants in Mumbai, India. Bhojpuri is the dialect spoken by large numbers in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The influx of Bhojpuri speaking migrants to different parts of India has led to a demand for music that helps them remain anchored to their region. This study examines the content of music videos, CDs and cassettes, to show how tropes from the collective memory of migrants are embossed in the lyrics, while their aspirations are interwoven with an idyllic image of the home states. Ribaldry, folk music and topical issues are melded to create a familiar world. The result is a distillate of the region’s socio-cultural values. Meanwhile, the industry is creating a global identity for the migrants, connecting them to Bhojpuri diaspora across the world.
Behind the Scenes of the 2014 MeCCSA PGN Conference
Authors: Nothias Toussaint , De Beukelaer Christiaan
Published: February 2020

This article provides insights about the organization of the 2014 MeCCSA PGN conference that forms the basis for the publication of this special issue of Networking Knowledge. In this piece, the two organizers reflect on the organization and theme of the conference to contextualize the special issue through a report that blends a personal narrative with a visual essay.
Palestinian Refugees and Mediated Connections to Palestine
Authors: Farah May
Published: February 2020

This article presents a description and analysis of young Palestinian refugees media use in the context of a newly globalized media age. Refugees, like diasporic populations everywhere, live in a world marked by de-territorialization and re-territorialization, where such populations often come to think of themselves as part of a national community via mediated representations. The new media – satellite television and the internet – has helped shape their understanding and connection to Palestine and other Palestinians. For the young refugees living in refugee camps in Beirut, maintaining a strong connection to Palestine and a Palestinian community motivates their media access and use, which is tied to their desire to return to Palestine, even one made up of a geographically different area in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). Indeed, it is via media that the refugees have come to learn of the OPTs, where they hope to ‘return’ to live in a recognized Palestinian state.
Rancière and Occupy (in) London: An Interview with A.N.Onymous
Authors: Burgum Samuel
Published: February 2020

Based upon an interview with the activist A.N.Onymous that was published on the Theory, Culture & Society website, this article seeks to indicate some of the ways in which the theory of Jacques Rancière might be useful for a critical and reflective understanding of Occupy (in) London. A.N.ON’s insights into the movement and the theory are elaborated throughout using Rancière’s concepts in order to suggest some of the ways that they might inform each other, covering such themes as: expertise; authority; horizontality and democracy; the politics of aesthetics; as well as the importance of space in resistance.
‘Sexy, Smart and Powerful’: Examining Gender and Reality in the WWE Divas’ Division
Authors: Dunn Carrie
Published: February 2020

This article uses contrasting examples of the most recent Divas' Champions to explore some of the paradoxes and contradictions within the portrayal of women in World Wrestling Entertainment programming. Although WWE is self-confessedly 'sports entertainment', with a 'creative' scriptwriting team, on-screen it maintains the position that what is being seen is 'real', often blurring the edges between reality and fiction by using real-life events in storylines. This paper looks at the three strands of the WWE's slogan for the Divas (the term they use to refer to the women on their roster) – ‘sexy, smart and powerful’ – and examines how these qualities are described and portrayed in their programming through the characters of recent champions. I suggest that WWE remains slightly uncomfortable with ‘women fighting’, demonstrated historically by the Divas' positioning as ‘popcorn matches’ – the filler or break before the ‘real business’ of the men's titles. I argue that they now thus prefer their Divas to embody the apparently ultimately desirable qualities of ‘sexy, smart and powerful’ within the reality TV setting of the E! programme Total Divas, removing them from the ring as well as the expectation of the ‘unfeminine’ behaviours of fighting and competition, and securing, further, broader mainstream media attention for the company.
Becoming Scotland: Screen Cultures in a Small Nation, 28-29 August 2014
Authors: Munro Robert
Published: February 2020

This is a report on the 'Becoming Scotland: Screen Cultures in a Small Nation' conference, 28-29 August 2014
A Brief Report on the First Communication Book Series Experience in Turkey
Authors: Faruk Cecen Ahmet
Published: February 2020

This is a Brief Report on the First Communication Book Series Experience in Turkey
Digital Comics: An Introduction
Authors: Merlin Goodbrey Daniel , Clifford Nichols Jayms
Published: February 2020

This is the introduction to Networking Knowledge's Special Issue on Digital Comics
Bad Machinery and the Economics of Free Comics: A Webcomic Case Study
Authors: Johnston Paddy
Published: February 2020

John Allison is one of a small number of alternative cartoonists in the UK today earning a living from their cartooning. However, since he began his first webcomic, Bobbins, in 1998, he has given all of his comics content away for free online. This article presents John Allison’s comics, most notably his series Bad Machinery, as a case study of how to make free webcomics an economically viable labour, achieved by Allison’s use of webcomics as a springboard for other commercial activities such as illustration work and printed comics. Taking an interdisciplinary approach consistent with the wider field of Comics Studies, this article draws upon concepts from sociology, literary criticism and economics to provide a theoretical framework through which to understand webcomics as labour, and thus to understand through this reading the economics of free webcomics, with John Allison as the exemplary web cartoonist.
In Excess, Elsewhere and Otherwise: Feminine Subjectivity in Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s multi-screen installation If 6 Was 9 (1995)
Authors: Mitchell Elspeth
Published: February 2020

This paper engages with the concept of ‘elsewhere’ in the feminist philosophy of Luce Irigaray as a way to theorise the experience of viewing the audio-visual installations of Finnish artist, Eija-Liisa Ahtila. Ahtila’s work traces specific narratives concerning feminine desire and subjectivity across multi-screen apparatus in gallery environment. The space of exhibition and film form initiate a mode of encounter that motivates a different relation of projector, screen and viewer. Ahtila’s multi-screen installations insist that we look to the places of exclusion in discourse and to the silences in representation for meaning elsewhere, in excess and otherwise. The exclusion in discourse is for Luce Irigaray of course the feminine. Irigaray articulates a view that textually and performatively demands we recognise the impossibility of a feminine position. I take up this problematic with specific attention to how Ahtila’s audiovisual installation If 6 Was 9 (Jos 6 olis 9, 1995) produces and disrupts traditional cinematic representation to examine how the space of installation, multi-screen form and the filmic space lend itself to a different encounter with the cinematic. By tracing the concept of ‘elsewhere’ in philosophical and audio-visual texts, the article develops and refines a position from which one might view contemporary cinematic experience.   KEYWORDS Luce Irigaray, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, feminism, feminist film, moving image installation, expanded cinema, gallery film
About the Anti-Figurativeness of #selfie. (Location of #selfie)
Authors: Di Foggia Giacomo
Published: February 2020

In this paper, I propose that what I will call “#selfie” is far from being a figurative object as it is generally assumed, since figurativeness is not an accidental consequence.  As 'figurative', we mean the quality of the image with iconic reference to objects and subjects belonging to the natural world (beings, phenomena, things). According to Greimas (1984), in order to analyse a work of art you must first determine whether it is of a figurative or abstract kind and, therefore, whether it represents icons that are related to the natural world (beings, phenomena, objects) or those which have no figurative references.  Based on a number of examples of #selfies, I shall instead demonstrate that the context in which these self-portraying pictures are taken, as well as the online and social environment in which they are shared, are more important than the self-portrayed subjects themselves. The hashtag “#”, in fact, indicates the centrality of the tag, the gesture of tagging, which is considerably more important than the fact of being self-portrayed through the #selfie. This implies that research on the practice of taking and sharing #selfies should (re)consider the current discussion focus on all those contemporary phenomena that are fostering and developing self-expression through new media. Taking into account the reflections made by Esposito on the impersonal (2007) and the research by Villa on contemporary self-portraits (2012, 2013), I will try to relate the production of #selfies to the practices of conceptual art (eg. Location of the I by Martin John Callanan), rather than privileging the idea of artistic (self)representation.
Just Because You Write about Posthumanism Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t a Liberal Humanist: An Interview with Gary Hall
Authors: Broekhuizen Francien , Dawes Simon , Mikelli Danai , Wilde Poppy , Hall Gary
Published: February 2020

In this follow-up interview to his keynote lecture at the MeCCSA-PGN 2015 Conference in Coventry, Gary Hall discusses the processes of neoliberal subjectivation and the metricisation of the academy. Arguing that most media, communication and cultural studies critique tends to focus on the new, self-governing and self-exploitative subjects academics and students are transforming into rather than the scholarly subjectivities they are changing from, Hall maintains that both the new neoliberal model (associated with corporate social and mobile media) and the liberal humanist model (associated with conventional print-on-paper publishing) are involved in the subordination of scholarly agency and consciousness to the pre-programmed, controllable patterns of the capitalist culture industries. Taking in some of the open access initiatives with which he’s involved, the interview addresses both Hall’s account of the processes of neoliberalisation and his experiments with radically different ways of working and thinking as a media theorist and philosopher.