Reframing Authority provides new perspectives by focusing on the role of materiality and media for questions of authority, as well as on the changing roles of authority historically and cross-culturally.

The aim of this article is to adapt Peirce’s semiotics to the study of media and arts. While some Peircean notions are criticized and rejected, constructive ways of understanding Peirce’s ideas are suggested, and a number of new notions, which are intended to highlight crucial aspects of semiosis, are then introduced. All these ideas and notions are systematically related to one another within the frames of a consistent terminology. The article starts with an investigation of Peirce’s three sign constituents (...) and their interrelations: the representamen, the object, and the interpretant. A new approach to the interrelations of these three sign constituents is then suggested and manifested in a distinction between representation and neopresentation. This is followed by a critical discussion of Peirce’s three types of representation—iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity—and their interrelations, which sets the stage for a presentation of what is referred to as the material and mental representation model. This model aims to illuminate the problematic relation between material and mental facets of signification triggered by media and art products, and other material things and phenomena. (shrink)

What is the place of materiality—the expression or condition of physical substance—in our visual age of rapidly changing materials and media? How is it fashioned in the arts or manifested in virtual forms? In Surface, cultural critic and theorist Giuliana Bruno deftly explores these questions, seeking to understand materiality in the contemporary world. Arguing that materiality is not a question of the materials themselves but rather the substance of material relations, Bruno investigates the space of those (...) relations, examining how they appear on the surface of different media—on film and video screens, in gallery installations, or on the skins of buildings and people. The object of visual studies, she contends, goes well beyond the image and engages the surface as a place of contact between people and art objects. As Bruno threads through these surface encounters, she unveils the fabrics of the visual—the textural qualities of works of art, whether manifested on canvas, wall, or screen. Illuminating the modern surface condition, she notes how façades are becoming virtual screens and the art of projection is reinvented on gallery walls. She traverses the light spaces of artists Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Tacita Dean, and Anthony McCall; touches on the textured surfaces of Isaac Julien’s and Wong Kar-wai’s filmic screens; and travels across the surface materiality in the architectural practices of Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Herzog & de Meuron to the art of Doris Salcedo and Rachel Whiteread, where the surface tension of media becomes concrete. In performing these critical operations on the surface, she articulates it as a site in which different forms of mediation, memory, and transformation can take place. Surveying object relations across art, architecture, fashion, design, film, and new media, Surface is a magisterial account of contemporary visual culture. (shrink)

‘Six Degrees of Separation’ is analogous to what we have come to know as the origins of the ‘social network’ (social network service, social network software or SNS). In our time, the application of the ‘social network’ has become a common mode of living shared ubiquitously by different societies, cultures and communities. With the popularity of open source technology, the creation of social networks is no longer the exclusive domain of professional computer programmers. In China, social networking has also become (...) the new focus of new media artists, who are extremely sensitive to materials and creative media. The current article bases its analysis on the collaboration between American artist Max Kazemzadeh and the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation Beijing in the exhibition of Max’s interactive work ‘Wishing Well’ in China, trying to showcase the intriguing interaction between the social network service, human beings and Chinese society, and inviting the reader to re-examine the role and duties of an artist in our time. (shrink)

In this study we empirically map the field of media and communication studies by focusing on relationships between cognitive dimensions on the one hand and material dimensions on the other. Our analysis, which focuses on the field of MCS in Switzerland, identifies two clusters of research institutions representing distinct strands of research in the field. Results show how these two strands differ in terms of their resource base, institutional positioning and recognition, teaching and transfer activities, as well as activities (...) of scientific production. Similarities and differences in these dimensions serve to explain the general evolution of the field. (shrink)

Online creative idea generation is often considered an extension of traditional creative idea activities on the Internet platform, in which digital technology plays an important role. Consistent with the studies on traditional creative idea activities, the studies on online creative idea generation take the creativity of mass psychology as the core, and believe that digital technology can stimulate people’s creative output. This study challenges the past research paradigm from the perspective of media materiality, redefines the processes and activities (...) of online creative idea generation, and further suggests that it may affect people’s psychology by reducing their creativity without real awareness. The study is innovative in both theory and practice. We also discuss the limitations and future directions of the study. (shrink)

Media criticism is an area of modern journalism that provides critical cognition and assessment of socially significant, relevant aspects of information production in the media. Media criticism studies and evaluates the mobile complex of the diverse relationships of the print and electronic press with the media audience and society as a whole, contributes to the introduction of social and professional adjustments to the activities of the print and electronic press. Modern media criticism covers not only (...) aspects of the functioning of the print and electronic press related to journalism, the activities of journalistic groups and editorial policies, but also invades a wide range of problems, the formulation of which involves the study and evaluation of media content, the relationship of the media and their audience, the media and society as a whole. Today in the space of the Internet the most effective mass criticism of the media. Authors of media criticism blogs set as their main task the recording and analysis of materials that do not meet accepted journalistic standards and have poor quality and ethically dubious content. Media criticism blogs in new media are becoming a platform for discussion, where the problems of the influence of the media on society and the role of the media in this society are discussed. (shrink)

The so-called new economy based on the global network of digitalized communication was welcomed as a platform of innovations and as a vehicle of advancement of democracy. The concept of virtuality captures the essence of the new economy: efficiency and free access. In practice, the new economy has developed into an heterogenic entity dominated by practices such as propagation of trust and commitment to standards and standard-like technological solutions; entrenchment of locally strategic subsystems; surveillance of unwanted behavior. Five empirical cases (...) within the present field of opposing forces serve as fuel for reflection: football hooliganism, sand-boxing, digital vulnerability of nuclear technology, sensitivity of studio projects, and streamlining academic computing. The main argument of the article is that a historic re-materialization is taking place within the new economy. This means cognitive as well as material divisions. Incommensurability in science is comparable with product incompatibility from the point of view of their implications to the users of knowledge and computers. Hype and banal attached to the new media are related to two ways of assessing social capital: as a means of peaceful functionality or a condition for cultural conflicts. The paper ends in proposing that there is a re-materialization of the virtual now taking place especially on the meta-level of the system. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward the Materiality of Aesthetic ExperiencePeter de Bolla (bio)Over the last twenty years or so it has become a commonplace in discussions of "aesthetics" or of "art" in the most general sense to note that the term "aesthetics" was only very recently invented by Alexander Baumgarten in 1735, where it appears in his Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus [see Menke 40; Dickie; Eagleton]. But the force (...) of this observation in regard to the relative youth of the concept is rarely, if ever, commented upon. As many philosophers and critics have pointed out, Baumgarten's use of the term was not primarily angled at what today might be unproblematically called "artworks"—say, paintings in the European grand master tradition—since his new kind of investigation was to be a "science of sensual recognition," that is, a general inquiry into how we come to know the world from the evidence of our senses. But, as is also frequently remarked, early on in the tradition of speculation now associated with "aesthetics as the study of art" the mutual attraction (to put it in the most anodyne terms) of "art" and "aesthetics" seems to have been extremely strong. As Jonathan Ree remarks, "the real begetter of the philosophical doctrine connecting the arts with the empirical senses—what we might call the aesthetic theory of the arts—was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing" [58]. From this point on (for heuristic purposes it may be identified with the date of publication of Lessing's Laokoon in 1766), artworks, which heretofore had not required a specific branch of inquiry in order for them to make sense or be conceptually grounded as art, are almost universally assumed to require "aesthetic" contemplation or appreciation.1 It is curious, then, that before 1766 such a mode of experiencing artworks had not been felt to be lacking.One might understand this observation both historically and philosophically, and both approaches, it seems to me, are needed. In the case of the first, a number of material effects conspired across mid-eighteenth-century Europe to produce what was in essence the modern art market. These include the legal establishment of copyright, first in England in 1709 but only by the end of the century in France and Germany; the foundation of various institutions whose primary purpose was the promotion and establishment of the fine arts: academies of painting, sculpture, or letters either with or without royal patronage; the public exhibition of paintings (from 1737 in France and 1761 in England); the opening of royal collections to public view (during the second half of the century in London, Paris, Munich, Vienna and Rome); the development of public concerts of secular music (in small scale from the 1670s in England but only becoming fully integrated in fashionable social life by mid-century); the construction of purpose-built concert venues (the Gewandthaus in Leipzig, a former cloth merchant's hall, was remodeled in 1781 in order to accommodate a resident orchestra, in effect becoming the first dedicated concert hall in Europe); the foundation of literary periodicals and review media; the emergence of social spaces and rituals encompassing polite discussion of [End Page 19] literature (coffeehouses, the construction of dedicated library rooms in domestic settings); and the promotion of architecture to a fine art through various societies, competitions, and the public display of architectural drawings in exhibition contexts (the Royal Academy yearly show included both drawings and models). These and other material conditions helped define the fine arts and construct a market in and for them.2 By the 1770s the category of the "fine arts" was well established in Britain, Germany, and France: Charles Batteux's Les beaux arts reduit a un meme principe, first published in France in 1746, was quickly translated into English as The Polite Arts; or, a Dissertation on Poetry,Painting, Musick, Architecture, and Eloquence in 1749 and into German in 1751. By 1771 a four-volume General Theory of the Fine Arts had been published for the German public by J. G. Sulzer.All of this points to the fact that the concept of the "artwork" is subject to both historical and material pressures. Prior to the mid-eighteenth... (shrink)

This article discusses issues related to the origins of media culture by concentrating on the invention of the kaleidoscope, and the early debates it incited. The kaleidoscope was invented by the Scottish scientist David Brewster and first publicly announced in 1817. This article is the first published element of a broader research project that discusses the changing meanings attached to the kaleidoscope during the past two hundred years. The author approaches the topic from a media archaeological perspective. Beside (...) the material kaleidoscopes, attention is paid to what the author calls “discursive kaleidoscopes” – the traces the kaleidoscopes left in cultural and textual traditions. (shrink)

The concept of media events continues to generate widespread debate among scholars around the globe. Studies that have challenged the concept’s functionalist foundations have undoubtedly sharpened our thinking. Conversely, approaches that have sought to expand the concept tend to confuse rather than clarify. In this paper, we argue that events that are planned, anticipated, and involve external organizations in their design demand a specific set of analytical tools. Furthermore, we draw a further distinction between one-off events and those that (...) are cyclical in nature, with the latter being theorized using insights from studies of the television format industry. This approach not only focuses much needed attention on the production side of media events but also on the struggles between different interest groups. We illustrate our arguments by drawing upon ethnographic material from the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Materialities of CommunicationEric DeanThe Materialities of Communication, edited by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer; xvi & 447pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, $52.50 cloth, $17.95 paper.In closing this collection, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht outlines the common purpose which makes it more than a random assortment. There has been, as he characterizes it, a theoretical shift in the humanities “from interpretation as identification of given meaning-structures to (...) the reconstruction of those processes through which structures of articulated meaning can at all emerge” (p. 398). He motivates this shift by suggesting that theorists should no longer pursue final and therefore unchanging explanations, but rather should create provocations for changes in perspective. Focusing on the processes through which meaning can emerge—the materialities of communication rather than the insubstantialities of interpretation—stimulates the constant change, the perpetual “renegotiation of self-reference,” which Gumbrecht recommends as the rightful role of theory.The breadth of these ambitions is reflected in the scope of the collection. There are twenty-five essays from twenty-six writers, predominately German, including two from each editor—a context piece and a separate contribution. The range of subjects is enormous. There is one essay on ancient Egyptian signs and another on how the immune system creates the self it both recognizes and preserves. One touches on Nietzsche’s abortive attempt to save his eyesight by using an early version of the typewriter, another interprets the fall of the Roman Empire as the corruption of the postal system (Egyptian in origin) used to deliver the command, imperium, which constituted the Empire in the first place. The scholarly contexts range widely as well—from sociological communication theory to media history to biology to art criticism.There are some delightful curiosities the writers bring to light. For example, at one point in “The Early History of German Television,” the authors, M. Elsner, T. Muller, and P. Spangenberg are describing how fantasies about the new technology outran practicalities. They cite an illustration from a 1928 German magazine in which a man is shown lying in bed, “with a fragmented dashboard in front of him—he seems to steer some technical apparatus and, at the same time, to look at a mountain panorama, which is seen from a bird’s eye view on a kind of projection screen. The caption deciphers the illustration for us: ‘Marvels that we might still experience: viewing the world from bed through [End Page 395] television. The apparatus above the bed serves to operate, by remote control, an airplane that carries the filming apparatus...’” (p. 117).In other places too the writing evades the risk of self-absorption implicit, for all its purportedly exterior focus, in Gumbrecht’s theoretical project. Vivian Sobchack, for instance, closes an interesting meditation on film and electronic technologies this way: “Within the context of this material and technological crisis of the flesh, one can only hope that the hysteria and hyperbole surrounding it is strategic—and that through it the lived-body has, in fact, managed to reclaim its existence and against our attention, to forcefully argue for simulation. For there are other subjects of electronic culture out there who prefer the simulated body and a virtual world...” (pp. 105–6).By the end, though, I found myself wondering whether it was really possible to put this diversity together as a whole, whether the purportedly redeeming concreteness of a program focused on The Materialities of Communication wasn’t at odds with the idea that there is much in common among all these different materials. Coeditor K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, may have inadvertently provided the epigraph for the book. “Iago incites Othello to the greatest nonsense,” he writes, “because Othello no longer differentiates between manipulated sensual certainty and credibility” (p. 59). I wonder about a theoretical perspective that calls Othello’s torment his “nonsense,” and I wonder whether the advocates of such a perspective might not be manipulating sensual certainty to perhaps equally bleak, though in this case unintended, ends.Eric DeanChicago, IllinoisCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Media news can be regarded as an important teaching material to be used in lessons in terms of being interesting, containing up-to-date information, reinforcing what has been learned in the course, and combining it with many methods and techniques. In addition, the fact that media news provides a more concrete learning, helps the subject in the lesson to be connected with real life and helps students to develop their empathy skills. Therefore, the use of media news in (...) religious education can increase curiosity and interest in the lesson and enable students to actively participate in learning processes. This article, which focuses on how to benefit from media news in religious education, has been prepared to raise awareness about the use of media news for teachers who attend religious education classes, and thus to guide them in using media news in their lessons. In the study, the use of media news in religious education was first addressed in a conceptual framework, and then the extent to which media news was used in the textbooks of the religious education courses was investigated. Within the scope of the research, 42 books on Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge (RCMK) and Imam Hatip High School Vocational Lessons were examined and four examples were found as a result of this examination. It was observed that the media news used in the textbooks led the students to research, share and discuss. However, the fact that only four examples could be found in 42 textbooks reveals that media news are not used sufficiently in religious education, and teachers are not provided with sufficient material on the use of media news in teaching processes. In the third part of the study, the issues to be considered in the use of media news in religious education are examined in three groups as before, during and after the lesson. According to this media news can be evaluated as lecture, interpretation, concept definition, question-answer and application of discussion techniques during the lesson. Discussion, scientific research and case study methods are methods that can be used effectively in media news activities. In the last part of the study, six activity examples are given for the use of media news in religious education classes. These activities are the activities of the lessons of RCMK (4-7th grade), The Life of the Prophet (7th grade), Basic Religious Knowledge (9th grade), Fiqh (10th grade) and Islamic Culture and Civilization (12th grade). These exemplary activities, prepared at five different lessons and five different class levels, reveal that media news can be used quite effectively in religious education, and all media news from sports to economy, from health to daily life can be associated with the course subjects. In the context of the results of this research, it is suggested that the course books should be updated and media news should be included more. Through a platform to be established by the General Directorate of Religious Education, news in the media can be archived and a guide can be prepared on what subjects and how these news can be used. Additional research can be conducted with focus on a single lecture or a single media tool. In addition, quantitative and qualitative studies can be conducted to asses the contribution of the use of media news in religious education classes to students’ learning. (shrink)

Introduction. The development of legal culture and a culture of human rights in the modern world through media technologies, is acquiring special significance in connection with the processes of globalization and the spread of media in recent decades. The purpose of the article is to study the prospects for the use of media education in the formation of the legal social culture and a culture of human rights. Materials and methods. Based on a study of domestic and (...) foreign sources, issues of media education, media literacy, spiritual and moral education, the legal culture of society, the phenomenon of post-truth and ways of forming critical, creative thinking are considered. The use of general scientific, philosophical, and socio-pedagogical methods has made it possible to study media education as a dialogue of learning, stimulating the development of rational, critical thinking, focused on the search for the value foundations of intellectual and social activity. Results. The development of the field of information and communication technologies determines the principles for the formation of the content and orientation of modern education. Media education is interlinked with the development of democracy and human rights. It influences the formation of a culture of citizen participation, their active social position, civic and political culture. Media education plays a significant role in shaping the legal culture of society since critical media research and information research focuses on the analysis of power structures and structures of dominance in the media. A study of the interpretations of the concepts of "media education" and "media literacy" made it possible to show that media education focuses a person on a critical approach to media content. One of the main issues of media education is teaching a person the skills to critically study media and media technologies, which involves addressing the technological, cultural and historical specifics of specific media used at a specific time and place. Information and communication technologies have changed the way of life, work, communication, and ways of selfpresentation, the formation of values, participation in socially significant events. Therefore, a critical approach to mass media should be based on knowledge of socio-philosophical theories, ethics and research in the field of mass media. Discussion. Mass media are constructing a history of human rights, which updates the topic of the media policy of human rights, combining socio-legal, cultural and media theories. Education in the field of acquiring information perception skills, the ability to correctly understand the importance of audiovisual images, to competently handle and navigate information flows are necessary for the life of a modern person in society. (shrink)

While participation in social media has become everyday practice among young people, there have been few studies examining how youth as social media users are represented in the media discourse. Focusing on the promotional materials of an award-winning and widely-viewed documentary film, The Social Dilemma, this paper examines the media depictions of youth that attract the public’s attention. Through a social semiotic analysis, we analyzed the representational, interactive, and compositional meanings in the poster and trailer to (...) identify how young people have been represented in the media discourse. Our findings show that they are constructed as vulnerable social media users who are manipulated by social media companies. We argue that such depictions of youth not only negate their sense of agency but also ignore their active engagement in the participatory culture afforded by social media. The implications of such depictions propagate a protectionist perspective of youth. This can undermine efforts towards the development of an empowerment approach in digital literacy education. (shrink)

Titles of modern interviews are studied on the material of German mass media texts. Leading syntactic structures, communicative signs and pragmatical aspects of titles are analyzed. The most attention is paid to titles in form of questions or exclamation, which have the strongest communicative pragmatical effect. Exclamation and questions in the position of titles lose value of incentive and interrogative, incentive or interrogative remain only formally, which makes them quasi-incentive and quasi-interrogative. Exclamation and question functions go by the wayside, (...) in the first place extends forecasting capabilities for the content of subsequent title text. Besides, in article the titles in the form of question containing the address are analyzed. Illocutionary goal of these titles is an invitation to a discussion of the potential reader, and a joint search for common perspectives in this or that activity, for selected search of the most appropriate of all the possible solutions to a problem. They seem to reproduce the process of reflection of the author and cause to think about the issues raised by recipients. (shrink)

What do the technical practices, procedures, and systems that have shaped institutions of higher learning in the United States, from the Ivy League and women's colleges to historically black colleges and land-grant universities, teach us about the production and distribution of knowledge? Addressing media theory, architectural history, and the history of academia, Knowledge Worlds reconceives the university as a media complex comprising a network of infrastructures and operations through which knowledge is made, conveyed, and withheld. Reinhold Martin argues (...) that the material infrastructures of the modern university-the architecture of academic buildings, the configuration of seminar tables, the organization of campus plans-reveal the ways in which knowledge is created and reproduced in different kinds of institutions. He reconstructs changes in aesthetic strategies, pedagogical techniques, and political economy to show how the boundaries that govern higher education have shifted over the past two centuries. From colleges chartered as rights-bearing corporations to research universities conceived as knowledge factories, educating some has always depended upon excluding others. Knowledge Worlds shows how the division of intellectual labor was redrawn as new students entered, expertise circulated, science repurposed old myths, and humanists cultivated new forms of social and intellectual capital. Combining histories of architecture, technology, knowledge, and institutions into a critical media history, Martin traces the uneven movement in the academy from liberal to neoliberal reason. (shrink)

In the article, the semantics of image text in media discourse is reviewed. The authors describe the growing influence of media on society as well as its means in formation of the certain opinion on events or stereotyping in one single social group. They draw attention to the process of globalization typical for modern society and emphasize that the potential of media is turned to unification of society, presentation of common standards, values and all humankind’s fashion. The (...) authors of the article are concerned with the problem of ethnical identity and the need to develop and promote the image of different ethnic groups. One of the tools for creating an image is an image text. In image text, the information is presented in a way that the audience perceives all events and persons mentioned in it positively. The significant quality of the image text is an estimated lexicon. There are several types of such material, for example: note, interview, report, biography etc. In addition, the authors of the article explore the image texts based on the materials published in mass media of the Republic of Buryatia. These materials make the positive image of Buryats, representing the smallest ethnic group of Baikal Region. In conclusion, the authors note that the media discourse of the image texts have considerable influence on the objective reality and human behavior. Taking into consideration the experience of using the image texts in politics, business, and other spheres of human activities, they can become one of effective means of development the image of ethnic group. (shrink)

During the past decades, the culture industries have multiplied media spectacles in novel spaces and sites, and spectacle itself is becoming one of the organizing principles of the economy, polity, society, and everyday life. An Internet-based economy has been developing hi-tech spectacle as a means of promotion, reproduction, and the circulation and selling of commodities, using multimedia and increasingly sophisticated technology to dazzle consumers. M edia culture proliferates ever more technologically sophisticated spectacles to seize audiences and augment their power (...) and profit. The forms of entertainment permeate news and information, and a tablodized infotainment culture is more and more popular. New multimedia that synthesize forms of radio, film, TV news and entertainment, and the mushrooming domain of cyberspace, become spectacles of technoculture, generating expanding sites of information and entertainment, while intensifying the spectacle-form of media culture. Political and social life is also shaped more and more by media spectacle. Social and political conflicts are increasingly played out on the screens of media culture, which display spectacles like sensational murder cases, terrorist bombings, celebrity and political sex scandals, and the explosive violence of everyday life. M edia culture not only takes up expanding moments of contemporary experience, but also provides ever more material for fantasy, dreaming, modeling thought and behavior, and constructing identities. Of course, there have been spectacles since premodern times. Classical Greece had its Olympics, thespian and poetry festivals, its public rhetorical battles, and bloody and violent wars. Ancient Rome had its public offerings of bread and circuses, its orgies, its titanic political battles, and the spectacle of Empire with parades and monuments for triumphant Caesars and their armies, extravaganzas put on display in the 2000 film Gladiator.. (shrink)

The article examines the use of semiotics in media theory, advancing a critique of Saussurian approaches to media and harnessing Peirce's sign theory as a way to analyze media, with reference to the sign “terrorist.” The tiered model of media representation based on Saussure's sign relation is found to under-theorize the materiality of the sign, the indeterminacy of meaning, the significance of the speaking subject, and the ideological and institutional forces that work on the sign. (...) The interpretant in Peirce's model allows an alternate approach to media analysis in which media can be considered a kind of material culture, produced by people in regulated settings and encountered by interpreting minds in various contexts. Metasemiotic frameworks are found to operate on the sign “terrorist,” but the ongoing process of semiosis also allows for the possibility of change. (shrink)

Defunct satellites and other technological waste are increasingly occupying Earth’s orbital space, a region designated as one of the global commons. These dilapidated technologies that were commissioned to sustain the production and exchange of data, information, and images are an extraterrestrial equivalent of the media devices which are discarded on Earth. While indicating the extension of technological momentum in the shared commons of space, orbital debris conveys the dark side of media materialities beyond the globe. Its presence and (...) movements interfere with a gamut of governmental, commercial, and scientific operations, contesting the strategies of its management and control and introducing orbital uncertainty and disorder in the global affairs of law, politics, economics, and techno-science. I suggest that this debris formation itself functions as media apparatus —it not only embodies but also exerts its own effects upon the material and social relations that structure our ways of life, perplexing dichotomies between the common and owned, governed and ungovernable, wealth and waste. I explore these effects of debris, framing its situation in the orbital commons as a vital matter of concern for studies of the human relationship with media technologies and their waste. (shrink)

Trust is often an assumed outcome of participation in Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) as they directly connect producers with consumers. It is based on this potential for trust “between producers and consumers” that AFNs have emerged as a significant field of food studies analysis as it also suggests a capacity for AFNs to foster associated embedded qualities, like ‘morality’, ‘social justice’, ‘ecology’ and ‘equity’. These positive benefits of AFNs, however, cannot be taken for granted as trust is not necessarily an (...) outcome of AFN participation. Using Chinese case studies of AFNs, which are characterised by a distinct form of trust pressure—consumers who are particularly cynical about small scale farmers, food safety and the organic credentials of producers—this paper highlights how the dynamics of trust are in constant flux between producers and consumers. I suggest that it is the careful construction of the aesthetic and multi-sensory qualities of food, which is often celebrated via social media, that human centred relations in Chinese AFNs are mediated. This leads to two key conclusions: first, that the key variable for establishing trust is satisfying the consumer's desire for safe (i.e. "fresh") food; and second, the materiality of the food and the perception of foods materiality (especially through social media), must both be actively constructed by the farmer to fit the consumer's ideal of freshness. (shrink)

During the Communist regime, after Poland was officially proclaimed the People’s Republic of Poland, the aim of the Polish Communist government was to control all aspects of society. Communist ideals were enforced in books and other publications; censorship was introduced on all published materials. This paper aims to present the situation of media in People’s Poland, as well as to provide a background and description of Polish censorship. Additionally, this paper will exposit and examine the socio-political role of Tygodnik (...) Powszechny in Polish society. As TP is a Catholic weekly, an outline of the unique socio-political role of the Polish Roman Catholic Church in communist Poland will accompany the above analysis. This paper is based on the research conducted by the author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree written and defended at the Central European University in Budapest in 2012. (shrink)

Walter Seitters Physik der Medien setzt Gedanken seiner Aufsatzsammlung Physik des Daseins. Bausteine zu einer Philosophie der Erscheinungen fort und begründet theoretisch und systematisch eine sog. „philosophische Physik“. Ein weiterer Ausgangspunkt ist die folgende mehrfache Polemik: Seitter setzt nämlich der wissenschaftlichen Physik „seine“ Physik entgegen, die – in klassischer philosophischer Tradition – darauf abzielt, „ein eigenes Staunen aufrechtzuerhalten“, und „mit Augenschein und Umgangssprache“ arbeitet. Ein solcher Physikbegriff – die Beschreibung von sinnlichen Phänomenen aufgrund eigener Wahrnehmung – knüpft ausdrücklich an Aristoteles (...) an, aber nähert sich auch der Phänomenologie. (shrink)

This article examines three cases of mid-20th-century oil media—oil-related imagery, iconographies, and media—in visual culture: a series of popular science books entitled The Story of Oil published in the US, an oil-themed set of Kuwaiti postage stamps (1959), and an art exhibition in Zurich (1956) titled Welt des Erdöls: Junge Maler sehen eine Industrie (World of Petroleum: Young Artists See an Industry). While depicting crude oil in its natural habitat was a common photographic theme in the early 20th-century (...) United States, the material discussed shows that, by the mid-20th century, crude oil no longer had the same visual presence. The iconography of oil in the three case studies came to rely increasingly on images of oil infrastructure and on context-specific depictions of living within petro-modernity or petro-culture, meaning lifestyles fueled by cheap fossil energy. However, it is not just the changes in visual representations of petroleum that matter; any debate about the visibility and invisibility of petroleum has to take into account the very media through which petroleum has become visually communicated—that is, the precise forms of oil's mediatization. The aesthetic negotiation of petroleum through media-based visual representations has been crucial for the dematerialization of fossil matter in its conversion to fossil energy, as well as the decoupling of sites of extraction from sites of production and consumption in the public imagination. As petro-culture has morphed into national or even global culture (rather than representing just one possible energy source among many), oil media has paved the way for our intimate relationship with fossil energy-dependent lifestyles, which is one of the biggest drivers of climate change. (shrink)

The article takes the world’s first exhibition on the geological and philosophical concept of the Anthropocene, »Welcome to the Anthropocene «, Deutsches Museum (2014-2016), as a starting point for initial theoretical reflections on the potential and limitations of exhibitions as media and designers of the Mediocene. On the basis of a discussion of image deployment, use of space and the materiality of objects, exhibitions are analyzed as ›slow media‹.

The article takes the world’s first exhibition on the geological and philosophical concept of the Anthropocene, »Welcome to the Anthropocene «, Deutsches Museum (2014-2016), as a starting point for initial theoretical reflections on the potential and limitations of exhibitions as media and designers of the Mediocene. On the basis of a discussion of image deployment, use of space and the materiality of objects, exhibitions are analyzed as ›slow media‹.

In this paper a case is made concerning how important levels of media technology and new interactive tex-tures affect urban landscapes. The case is based on experiences and empirical examples from a Scandinavian city in which levels of interactive infrastructures, mediated spaces, and places, are high, and in which accessibility and social inclusion traditionally have been strong components in societal and systems design. Our designerly approach discloses some of ways that the city is enacted by a new digital (...) class='Hi'>materiality. This materiality can only bee disclosed if the relationship between the city and ICT is understood as a meaningful whole – a totality – in this text illustrated by the notions of landmarks and imprints. Based on our case we suggest that it is possible to employ an ethical dwelling reflecting the endless, active and ongo-ing responsibility for the city and its interactive textures in everyday life. (shrink)

Analysis of the material properties of the Internet reveals its true weight: the mass of component routers, switches, cables, satellites, cellnet masts, and of course computers, and the vast network of resource extraction, manufacturing, energy generation, and waste in which its functioning is embedded. Equally important is understanding the massless but highly regulated system of software and legislation affecting the ostensibly free and open evolution of network media. The chapter traces some exemplary standards bodies responsible for the design of (...) key features such as protocols and codecs, and discusses the vexed dialectic of intellectual property rights and the notion of an information commons, arguing that the Internet bears the hallmarks of three major types of institutional construction, those proper to the nation-state, to commerce, and to network systems themselves. It concludes with a critical challenge to future archaeology: the ephemerality of digital files. (shrink)

Much writing on, first, analogue and, later, digital archives has focused on related power-dynamics and the structuring effects of archives and their technologies on discursive freedom and cultural dynamics. In recent years, however, work within the media archaeology domain, especially by Wolfgang Ernst, has addressed how the specific materialities of digital archives, and the nature of their algorithms and particular functions, could be seen to facilitate dynamics in cultures. This article sets this work in dialogue with the cultural semiotics (...) of Juri Lotman, whose late work focused on how communicative processes between and within different subsystems of culture facilitate their dynamic change and the production of new forms and cultural systems. The article suggests further interdisciplinary dialogue between media archaeology and cultural semiotics in order to understand the role of archives in facilitating communicative processes and interlinking in culture and the emergence of novelties – that is, for understanding the ‘creativity’ of archives. (shrink)

This monograph presents a synthesis and reconstruction of Rudolf Arnheim’s theory of media. Combining both Arnheim’s well-known writings on film and radio with his later work on the psychology of art, the author presents a coherent approach to the problem of the nature of a medium, space and time, and the differentia between different media. The latent ontological commitments of Arnheim’s theories is drawn out by affirming Arnheim’s membership in the Brentano school of Austrian philosophy, which allows his (...) theories to be clarified and strengthened, particularly with the metaphysical writings of Roman Ingarden. The resulting theory is relational, portraying essential medial differences with neutral criteria and allowing for a rigorous definition of a medium. The way in which a medium is based on the inherent dispositions of medial materials creates a highly appealing theory that is determinate without being deterministic. The theory is thus highly timely as people in media studies seek to address the determinate nature of media after the post-medium condition. The book will appeal to researchers and graduate students in cultural and media studies as well as architecture and design. (shrink)

This intimate account of how ideas get turned into artwork—including dance performance, film, sound installation, sculpture, and painting—looks at how the material thinking that art embodies produces new understandings about individuals, their histories, and the cultures they inhabit. Discussing the philosophy of signs (images, text, and their interaction), the psychology of visual perception, and the overarching notion of mythopoeic place-making, this intellectually wide-ranging and anecdotally narrated primer provides a fresh perspective to the concept of inventing. All active practitioners in the (...) fields of performance, media, film, museum, painting, sculpture, and cultural studies will benefit from this look at how artists participate in the conceptual invention of their world. (shrink)

This paper examines two parallel discussions of scientific modeling which have invoked experimentation in addressing the role of models in scientific inquiry. One side discusses the experimental character of models, whereas the other focuses on their exploratory uses. Although both relate modeling to experimentation, they do so differently. The former has considered the similarities and differences between models and experiments, addressing, in particular, the epistemic value of materiality. By contrast, the focus on exploratory modeling has highlighted the various kinds (...) of exploratory functions of models in the early stages of inquiry. These two perspectives on modeling are discussed through a case study in the field of synthetic biology. The research practice in question explores biological control by making use of an ensemble of different epistemic means: mathematical models and simulations, synthetic genetic circuits and intracellular measuring devices, and finally electronic circuits. We argue that the study of exploratory modeling should trace the ways different epistemic means, in different materialities, are being combined over time. Finally, the epistemic status of such novel investigative objects as synthetic genetic circuits is evaluated, with the conclusion that they can function as both experiments and models. (shrink)

In “Regulating social media as a public good: Limiting epistemic segregation” (2022), Toby Handfield tackles a well-known problematic aspect of widespread social media use: the formation of ideologically monotone and insulated social networks. Handfield argues that we can take some cues from economics to reduce the extent to which echo chambers grow up around individual users. Specifically, he argues that tax incentives to encourage network heterophily may be levied at any of three different groups: individual social media (...) users, social media sites/companies, or advertisers who use social media to promote their products and material. In this response, I examine the plausibility of using such incentives on each of the these groups. I argue, first, that using tax incentives on either (1) social media companies or (2) advertisers would be ineffective as these incentives could not feasibly be made strong enough to override the enormous financial gain of the standard social media algorithms. Next, I argue that levying the incentives/penalties on individual users would be a hazard, due to the risk of what is called the epistemic “backfire effect”. Finally, I argue that the problem lies in relying on incentives and disincentives—rather than direct regulation—to increase network heterophily. (shrink)

Commentators frequently point to the involvement of biomedicine and bio-science in the objectification and commodification of human body parts, and the consequent potential for violation of personal, social and community meanings. Through a study of UK media coverage of controversies associated with the removal of body parts and human materials from children, we argue that an exclusive emphasis on the role of medicine and the bio-sciences in the commodification of human materials ignores the important role played by commercially motivated (...) mass media organizations. Analysis of the language of news reports covering the period of the organ retention controversies in the UK reveals the ways in which the mass media contribute to the commodification of body parts by recruiting them for use in the manufacture of a media scandal. This is achieved through use of horror language, the fetishization of certain body parts, emphasis on the fragmentation of the body, and the use of a variety of rhetorical devices to convey enormity and massive scale. Media participation in the commodification of children's body parts has profound implications for practices and policies in relation to use of body parts, and has significantly influenced the governmental regulation of science and medicine. The role of mass media deserves fuller recognition by theorists of body commodification. (shrink)

Students often multitask with technologies such as computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones during class. Unfortunately, numerous empirical studies firmly establish a significant drop in academic performance caused by this media multitasking. In this paper it is argued that cognitive studies may have clarified the negative consequences of this activity, yet they struggle to address the processes involved in it. A cognitive characterization of attention as a mental phenomenon neglects the interaction between bodies and technologies, and it is suggested that (...) a postphenomenological understanding is necessary to account for the materiality of practice. Notions of embodied habits and technical mediation are introduced, and an example of a postphenomenological account of media multitasking is introduced. It is argued that this approach enables researchers to investigate media multitasking as it occurs in everyday educational practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 58-64 [Access article in PDF] Media Literacy Education in Art:Motion Expression and the New Vision of Art EducationThe Bauhaus, which established the foundation of modern design, has greatly influenced Japanese design and art education. It is a historical fact that the movement views "synthetic art" as an integration of the various fields and the integration of the art and machine technology (...) experimentally. However, the Bauhaus is not just of historical importance but continues to have an influence even in the integration of the art and electronic technology in today's "multimedia." In addition, it can be said that it is very much alive as "the digital Bauhaus" or "the electronic Bauhaus." 1 As we know, today's multimedia and the Internet give us a new life-environment, and expandthe possibility of expression in art. Therefore, current art education must examine how these new medias will be incorporated into the curriculum.In the cases of the photograph, video, or computer, an expression by the image media is added to the art course for the junior high school course of study. 2 Also in school art classes, image media was introduced, expanding the possibilities of self-expression through art. This result can be matched to the needs of the industrial world in Japan as well. As an educational practice, the content of this course of study is promising, even though someproblems must be solved, acquiring new equipment, re-educating the artteacher, and securing additional art school hours. The new content in art education can be summarized as follows:1. The motion picture (animation) which includes time and movement. Motion picture is asequence of continuous images, obviously different from the still images of painting. There are, of course, artworks that express motion or induce the viewer'seye movement. There are also kinetic artworks that do move, such as mobiles. Works of motion picture have, however, a fixed time shaft, and they are formed by the afterimage phenomenon. Thinking about the progress of time shaft is an indispensable element for the production. [End Page 58]2. The synchronism of image and sound. Because time is a factor in the visual expression, the works are compatible with music — the art of time. There is a synchronized relation between the motion picture and music. Image expression with multimedia became synthetic art, just as the Bauhaus looked for "architecture." Currently, this kind of expression transitions from art to entertainment, and permeates daily life.3. The method with interactive art work. Not only artworks of installation, but also TV games and web design have interactive construction as an indispensable interface. The aesthetic value of these visual works will be appreciated when the user starts the action by hitting a touchpad, pushing buttons, or clicking a mouse. To make this kind of artwork, one needs to consider the latent relationships between humans and work, and establish the input-output order for the method of construction.4. The problem of virtual reality. The term "virtual reality" is used by some art teachers as criticism against digital works such as computer graphics. These teachers insist that there is no reality there. One can, however, get an aesthetic feeling through sensory information, imagination, and sensitivity, even though what one sees is an illusion. The feeling of reality a picture of an apple gives, for example, may be equal to a computer graphic apple.Human imagination also creates "virtual reality" beyond reality in the myth, the novel, and so on. It can be said that this is the basis for human creativity.Furthermore, expression by image media raises the problem of a "reality" in which material experience is important to encounterthe world directly. Such an argument discusses multimedia as a tool of expression and a teaching material while reconsidering human reality.More recently, "media literacy" (ability to read and understand media) became an important point of discussion for Japanese educators. Usually, in this discussion, the critical ability to talk back to the television program is emphasized. However, through art... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 58-64 [Access article in PDF] Media Literacy Education in Art:Motion Expression and the New Vision of Art EducationThe Bauhaus, which established the foundation of modern design, has greatly influenced Japanese design and art education. It is a historical fact that the movement views "synthetic art" as an integration of the various fields and the integration of the art and machine technology (...) experimentally. However, the Bauhaus is not just of historical importance but continues to have an influence even in the integration of the art and electronic technology in today's "multimedia." In addition, it can be said that it is very much alive as "the digital Bauhaus" or "the electronic Bauhaus." 1 As we know, today's multimedia and the Internet give us a new life-environment, and expandthe possibility of expression in art. Therefore, current art education must examine how these new medias will be incorporated into the curriculum.In the cases of the photograph, video, or computer, an expression by the image media is added to the art course for the junior high school course of study. 2 Also in school art classes, image media was introduced, expanding the possibilities of self-expression through art. This result can be matched to the needs of the industrial world in Japan as well. As an educational practice, the content of this course of study is promising, even though someproblems must be solved, acquiring new equipment, re-educating the artteacher, and securing additional art school hours. The new content in art education can be summarized as follows:1. The motion picture (animation) which includes time and movement. Motion picture is asequence of continuous images, obviously different from the still images of painting. There are, of course, artworks that express motion or induce the viewer'seye movement. There are also kinetic artworks that do move, such as mobiles. Works of motion picture have, however, a fixed time shaft, and they are formed by the afterimage phenomenon. Thinking about the progress of time shaft is an indispensable element for the production. [End Page 58]2. The synchronism of image and sound. Because time is a factor in the visual expression, the works are compatible with music — the art of time. There is a synchronized relation between the motion picture and music. Image expression with multimedia became synthetic art, just as the Bauhaus looked for "architecture." Currently, this kind of expression transitions from art to entertainment, and permeates daily life.3. The method with interactive art work. Not only artworks of installation, but also TV games and web design have interactive construction as an indispensable interface. The aesthetic value of these visual works will be appreciated when the user starts the action by hitting a touchpad, pushing buttons, or clicking a mouse. To make this kind of artwork, one needs to consider the latent relationships between humans and work, and establish the input-output order for the method of construction.4. The problem of virtual reality. The term "virtual reality" is used by some art teachers as criticism against digital works such as computer graphics. These teachers insist that there is no reality there. One can, however, get an aesthetic feeling through sensory information, imagination, and sensitivity, even though what one sees is an illusion. The feeling of reality a picture of an apple gives, for example, may be equal to a computer graphic apple.Human imagination also creates "virtual reality" beyond reality in the myth, the novel, and so on. It can be said that this is the basis for human creativity.Furthermore, expression by image media raises the problem of a "reality" in which material experience is important to encounterthe world directly. Such an argument discusses multimedia as a tool of expression and a teaching material while reconsidering human reality.More recently, "media literacy" (ability to read and understand media) became an important point of discussion for Japanese educators. Usually, in this discussion, the critical ability to talk back to the television program is emphasized. However, through art... (shrink)

continent. 1.1 (2011): 22-25. The Author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento do Ensino Superior), Brazil. From the multifarious subdivisions of semiotics, be they naturalistic or culturalistic, the realm of semiotics of value is a ?eld that is getting more and more attention these days. Our entire political and economic systems are based upon structures of symbolic representation that many times seem not only to embody monetary value but also to determine it. The connection between monetary (...) and linguistic exchanges is self-evident: the former requires the latter and develops in direct relation to it. Creative experimentation and design of digital systems of value exchange are blossoming on the web. Dr. Gilson Schwartz, an economist turned media theorist and professor at the University of São Paulo, adopted the concept of Iconomics, originally created by Michael Kaplan, an author concerned with the linguistics of economic value. Empowering local communities and unlocking new levels of value creation and representation via digital technologies are the main goals of Dr. Schwartz’s projects, aiming at the re-designing of our relationship to the economic value of imagination and the social control of property. Schwartz is Assistant Professor at the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo, a former Chief Economist at BankBoston, Brazil and Advisor to the President of the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES). FURTHER READING: Kaplan, Michael. “Iconomics: The Rhetoric of Speculation.” Public Culture . 15.3 (2003): 477-493. Renata Lemos-Morais: You have recently produced and directed a short documentary about Creative Currencies in Latin America. Could you tell us a bit about its process and its findings? Gilson Schwartz: The “Creative Currencies” project is a work-in-progress platform which unfolds as an action research agenda connected both to the production of audiovisual content and the development of social currency software. The initiative dates back to 2003 when I led an experimental project supported by the Presidency of Brazil. At that time, we issued paper currency in a small, touristic village in the Northeast Region which stimulated local cultural projects. But it was only in 2009 that the Central Bank of Brazil acknowledged “social currencies” as a legitimate economic agenda, calling for more debate at the I Financial Inclusion Forum. This year, the monetary authorities organized a second forum that also opened the room to discussions on mobile payment systems and new perspectives on poverty alleviation via State subsidies. The Ministry of Culture funded the “Creative Currencies” project in 2009-2010 and our next stage in this discovery process is to be supported by the National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES). In short, there is genuine interest among public officials in different areas and public funding for social currencies is on the rise in Brazil. However, after all these years we are still at a very early stage of research and practice. Some of the most successful initiatives (such as Banco Palmas) actually evolved out of local monetary creation to become correspondent banking operations for commercial banks and other financial groups. After eight years of price stability and social inclusion, Brazil stands out as a major opportunity for social experimentation, even the Grameen Bank is now entering the Brazilian market and many NGOs are geared towards different forms of entrepreneurialism in the base of the pyramid, riding solidarity economic models, microfinance and microcredit for local development. It is yet to be seen, however, whether these developments are just one more stage of “bankarization”, that is to say, an extension of regular banking services or actually a new form of social and symbolic self-determination at the local level. So far, the Central Bank of Brazil is open to new forms of credit and local finance as long as they are strictly territorial and very close to barter among the poor. In other words, whether the process of monetary creation could be made to fit an open source paradigm is yet to be seen. Community banking and social currencies might as well end up as just another channel for access to and use of banking services. The “Creative Currencies” project aims at promoting the discussion of more fundamental issues, such as the limits of central banking, the prospects for local financial development and the possibility of creating and managing financial icons as cultural assets. The purpose of this project is to produce short documentaries that will bear testimony to this evolving regulatory framework while inducing more discussion about the fundamental iconomic issues concealed in the process of money and wealth creation. RLM: What new potential is there in applying digital technologies to currency creation? GS: Globalization is a result of the virtualization of money, that is, the overcoming of illusions such as the “gold standard”. Money is an icon created by institutions, not on supposedly natural or material foundations but out of political and financial interests. The “dollar standard” is an outstanding evidence of this phenomenon and Kaplan´s paper, the first to use the expression “iconomics”, insists on the rhetoric and semiotic effects associated to a supposedly scientific model of money creation and management. This is a fundamental change that was perceived and discussed much before the digitalization of the world by unorthodox economists such as John Maynard Keynes since the early 20th century. The digitalization of global financial flows accelerated this immateriality and the creation of the Euro was yet another evidence of the political foundations of currencies. The banking establishment, however, is keen on the idea that scientific formulae hold the key to sound money creation. Keynesianism has been repeatedly associated to “inflationism” while the supposedly sound monetary policies of the Orthodoxy serve well the political and financial interests of a technocratic elite. Corporate media also serve this fictitious depiction of the monetary process despite the cyclical bust of monetary rules and financial regulations. The internet, however, has created numerous opportunities for the disintermediation in industries such as film, music and commodities. There is no reason to doubt that the financial industry can also be transformed by Peer-to-Peer (P2P) infrastructures. Money is media as well. Credit is but confidence. Once people realize that the distributed computing power of networks can also be the platform to weave new monetary and credit operations, there is room for grassroots emancipation out of the established owners of monetary institutions. So far, however, there has been a privatization of monetary management and there is not a clear path or model for the emergent (P2P) property democratization that is inherent to the internet. Digital assets, however, clearly have an inherent potential to escape central control and proprietary regulatory frameworks. RLM: How are social networks transforming the ways in which we exchange value? Do you believe that online influence and reputation might be translated into a new kind of currency? GS: The foundation for social currencies as envisaged by solidarity economics is the territory. Authorities are willing to concede local monetary creation as long as it is restricted to poor neighborhoods, as a proxy to barter. In this relevant but limited context, reputation, personal knowledge and informal ties form the matrix of local or “proximity” finance which are expected to keep credit and leverage to a sustainable level. Anything beyond that should and would lead to an integration of local finance into the established banking system. However, inasmuch as the internet promotes virtual territories and reputation is now subject to all sorts of digital manipulation and stardom becomes an everyday cultural process among teenagers and elders alike, the territorial “foundation” is substituted for more complex patterns of solidarity, cooperation and exchange that reach beyond the physical territory and even the “human.” Digital assets embody knowledge, technology, cultural and educational values that are exchanged at a global scale beyond the control of democratic States (Chinese-like intervention is the exception, not the rule). Hacktivism is unstoppable and so is monetary hacktivism. Especially in the Third World, mobile communications fast became conveyors of money transfers and other appropriation strategies. Banking and telecom sectors already battle for the control of these emerging markets and, as a matter of fact, have so far contributed to the containment of these processes. Governments serve these moguls and have usually adopted a wait-and-see attitude. If open source hardware and grassroots social movements combine to challenge these proprietary battles, then social networks may evolve into new forms of social capital and thus form the ground on which to design and implement social currencies. The global financial crisis, as well as the dollar demise, are an event of such a proportion that social networks may open the path for emancipator subjects to seize the opportunity. RLM: What are some of the social experiments that you think are revolutionizing the way in which value is exchanged? GS: There is a broad evolution of economic systems towards the valuation of intangible assets such as knowledge, reputation and sustainability. There are many examples of local as well as global events that call the traditional systems of exchange into question, from carbon credits to educational bonuses, digital barter frameworks and locally based solidarity and fair trade networks. These emerging examples, no matter how different in nature or scale, represent a challenge to the traditional value creation schemes and theories which are based on use and exchange value, supply and demand. This is not to say that utility and labour or scarcity are to be totally dismissed, but there is now an emerging perception that value is also a function of behavioral codes, symbolic patterns and the energy of institutional frameworks. The plasticity of digital platforms is relevant insofar as intellectual property becomes the central source of value creation. But when you discuss the property rights of public goods such as the environment or basic social rights (of minorities or localities), then a new paradigm seems to emerge. RLM: Are gaming and online storytelling digital practices that might have an impact on the way new currencies are created and developed? GS: “Play money” has been one of the early and most intriguing phenomena associated to the diffusion of virtual worlds. These virtual currencies have also been prone to “boom and bust” dynamics, speculation and pure theft (Second Life scams were common and led to “intervention” by the owners of the game). Storytelling is a major source of value, that is, the value of attention and the markets for audience. There are plenty of private monies created and managed by corporate entertainment groups, telecom operators (via mobile virtual network operators) and marketing frameworks. The casino economy, as already depicted by Keynes and other unorthodox economists, is always storytelling about future states of the world, confidence building and leverage of animal spirits. The novelty of current events is not the fictitious nature of any form of capital, but the potential for digital democratization of controls over the imaginary nature of value creation. But this is just a potential, a possibility, a figment that more often than not is appropriated by centralized and opaque private powers. The game industry is a testbed for new connections between storytelling and money creation. RLM: Monetary value was originally connected to the scarcity of precious metals, such as gold. Our entire monetary system seems therefore to function according to a logic of scarcity. Do you believe it is possible to reverse this logic into a logic of abundance? GS: The gold standard was a fiction itself, the “scarcity” is always produced by institutions that regulate confidence and access to credit. The key issue is not to fabricate abundance, but to question the institutions which produce scarcity out of any standard, gold or whatever. Central banks are at the service of private banks in the creation and management of scarcity. RLM: The promise that nanotechnology holds for our future is one of radical abundance (or so say transhumanists). The possibility of creating any kind of material substance through nanoengineering seems each day more feasible. What would this possibility entail in terms of systems of value exchange? GS: Nanotechnology, environmental concerns and grassroots appropriation of distributed knowledge are the frontiers of a new horizon of energy creation and management. Social groups in charge of managing scarcity for the sake of wealth and power concentration must be held accountable for the destruction of our future. Once this key political conundrum is accounted for, new systems of value exchange and even a non-mercantile society will come into existence. Revolutionary theorists such as Marx envisaged transformation via the extreme clash of contradictions between capital and labour. This approach has never led to a change in the systemic logic of scarcity for the sake of social control. We are once again facing the threshold of large scale societal change, but the outcome of the current crisis should come from our imagination, not from yet another paradox of abundance and scarcity. As long as we remain attached to the materiality of value, the illusion of freedom will but reinforce the massive manipulation of necessity. RLM: What do you think is the role of crowdfunding in this context? GS: Crowdsourcing as well as crowdfunding are examples of the peer to peer opportunities that come along with distributed computer power. However, the power structure behind wealth and scarcity creation may or may not be changed by crowd management. But it should not be taken at face value, so to speak. The stock market of course is an early form of crowdfunding without calling into question the proprietary framework of the companies offering their investment projects to the market. Any market is a form of crowdsourcing, that is to say, of distributed forms of supply and demand matchmaking. The wealth of networks, however, depends on the contractual ecosystem, the institutional framework, the channeling of social imagination, not on the purely quantitative distribution of bids and offers. I see economics as supply, demand and code. Once you have access to the code, once openness becomes part of the game, then there is a chance of crowd behavior becoming collective intelligence and sustainable imagination. RLM: Is the development of digital currencies headed towards a pluralistic ecology in which many micro currency systems co-exist, or is it penetrating the mainstream monetary system? If it is affecting the mainstream financial system, what would be its effect in the long-term? GS: The same issue is at stake both at local and global levels. The global system is, as a matter of fact, an unstable ecosystem of “micro currencies” whereas the dollar has so far exerted an overwhelming influence. Local currencies and private monies coexist with national currencies only to the extent that the Central Bank admits, for instance, that grassroots monetary emissions remain territorial and strictly connected to poverty. However, the question of how new developments in digital technologies and nanotechnologies might alter not only our current monetary systems but also our understanding of value in itself, is still an open question. (shrink)

Media archaeological methods for extending the lifetime of new media into ‘old media’ have experienced a revival during the past years. In recent media theory, a new context for a debate surrounding media archaeology is emerging. So far media archaeology has been articulated together with such a heterogeneous bunch of theorists as Erkki Huhtamo, Siegfried Zielinski, Thomas Elsaesser and to a certain extent Friedrich Kittler. However, debates surrounding media archaeology as a method seem (...) to be taking it forward not only as a subdiscipline of (media) history, but increasingly into what will be introduced as materialist media diagrammatics. This article maps some recent media archaeological waves in German media theory. The text addresses Wolfgang Ernst’s mode of media archaeology and his provocative accounts on how to rethink media archaeology as a fresh way of looking into the use and remediation of media history as a material monument instead of a historical narrative and as a recent media theoretical wave from Germany that seems to not only replicate Kittler’s huge impact in the field of materialist media studies but develop that in novel directions. However, as will be argued towards the end, Ernst’s provocative take that hopes to distinguish itself as a Berlin brand of media theory in its hardware materiality and time-critical focus resonates strongly with some of the recent new directions coming from US media studies, namely in software and platform studies. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to identify indicators that characterize and allow assessing the potential of media material posted in juvenile media for fostering patriotism in adolescents and youth. The article examines the essential characteristics of the concept of "patriotism" in the historical and contemporary contexts; clarified the definition of the term "juvenile media" and characterized their potential for solving educational problems; revealed the content and style of media material posted in juvenile media, which (...) has the potential to foster patriotism in adolescents and youth. The scientific novelty lies in identifying criteria and indicators for assessing the contribution of juvenile media to the upbringing of patriotism in adolescents and youth. As a result, the theoretical foundations for the development of a map of expert assessment of juvenile media material from the point of view of its effectiveness in the aspect of patriotic education were identified. (shrink)

This paper analyses the international media coverage of the dispute surrounding the pardons the Polish President granted in 2015 to two politicians, arrested almost a decade later. However political this case has become, it is underlain by a specific interpretive problem concerning the presidential pardon power under the Constitution, particularly whether it can be exercised before a final conviction (the so-called ‘individual abolition’). This question has long been controversial in scholarship and, in recent years, has been addressed by top (...) Polish courts, passing conflicting rulings. Attempting to probe into the intersection of journalism, politics, law and linguistics, this paper evaluates the issue’s portrayal in 37 articles published on major news websites around the time of the arrest. It is argued that when reporting local legal news, international media engage in a dual translation, rendering legal communications in one language into media communications in another. While ‘lossless’ transfer cannot be expected, this research shows that certain limits should not be crossed to maintain journalistic standards. In particular, most articles entirely omit the scholarship and rulings confirming the validity of the pardons. Consequently, readers are not given an opportunity to become aware of all relevant facts and perhaps seek further information. On the positive side, it has been found that simple and accessible language does not necessarily mean material distortions in the coverage of legal issues. The research thus suggests that reporting domestic legal news for international audiences requires understanding the source context, conscious language use and a reliable selection of information. (shrink)

It is important for teachers who work with children and teenagers to be aware of the role of media and popular culture in young people’s lives. It is a challenge to have an open and flexible approach to film, TV and other media products. Students’ real experiences have to be considered as equal in importance to the experiences and ideas of the teacher. The teacher has to help students to place their experiences in a larger perspective. In this (...) study, the didactic potentials and the use of film and media are studied in relation to the learning and teaching of English as a foreign language. Our personal experience shows that film is sometimes regarded as valuable teaching material and at other times only used for amusement or as a time-filler. The starting point for this study was, therefore, the curiosity to find out if our personal view is correct. The main questions at issue for this study are: What didactic potentials are there of film and media in English teaching? How do teachers use film and contemporary media in the classroom? How do teachers regard film and media as teaching resources? The possibilities of using media in teaching are great. It is, for example, possible to watch a movie with subtitles in English or find an interesting video-clip within seconds. However, there is no guarantee that contemporary media is being used to its fullest potential. (shrink)

Modern information technologies, beginning with the fax and audiocassettes but now exemplified in satellite television and the Internet, have opened the public discourse of Islam to new voices and, more subtlely, to new practices. While media-savvy militants draw the attention of outside observers, a quieter drama is unfolding. Pious middle classes are extending conventional patterns of seeking out religious guidance into new channels, particularly the Internet; the continuous search for role models and reference groups is meeting increasingly modern ways (...) of providing those - namely, media and increasingly media that target specific needs of growing middle classes. These range from religious instructional material for children to be used by parents to religious advice columnists, both conventional and contemporary to sermons to selections of news. Once 'private' discourses are on public display, and this public world of Islam is decidedly intimate. Where scholars of print note an officialization of discourse that moves into that medium, and programmatic 'islamizers' of knowledge, politics, etc. generally pursue entextualization strategies, electronic communication is moving Islam into the marketplace and aligning its practices, both metaphorically in the sense that the range of public choice and alternatives expands and literally in the rise of businesses to service these demands. (shrink)

Two events in particular occasion this volume on the philosophy of photography: the blurring of boundaries that many took to demarcate photographic technology and practices from other representational and artistic technologies and the invention of digital photography. The purpose of this volume is not to revive older questions by asking what, if anything, still distinguishes photography in the light of these developments, but to consider sundry questions about the materials and tools—or media—of photography from a variety of perspectives. critically (...) examines classic and influential arguments in philosophy of photography addresses recent trends in photographic art, such as conceptualism and appropriation highlights philosophically neglected elements of photographic art, such as performativity and self-portraiture reexamines the role of photographic media in photographic art practices offers new perspectives of the impact of digital technologies on photography explores the relationship between photographic art and photography in other arts and in science brings a range of philosophical methodologies and traditions into dialogue incorporates extended discussions of the work of important photographers and artists who use photography illustrates philosophical points with reproductions, many of them not widely known closely connects philosophical theory to the details of photographic practice offers original and novel theories of the aesthetic, artistic, and epistemic values of photographs. (shrink)

This volume proposes an in-depth exploration of the materiality of art and writing in modernism and the avant-garde. The essays explore how the avant-gardes and modernism attempted to establish the material specificity and hybridityof media and art forms. The collection sheds light on the full range and import of the aesthetics of matter in avant-garde and modernist practice across all art forms from the 19th century to the present day.

In the Fall 1988 issue of Informal Logic, John McMurtry suggests that the current mass communication system "obstructs and deforms our thinking and our reasoning by a general system of deception" (p. 133). This essay suggests that McMurtry's view of the mass media is inaccurate. The mass media needs to make choices about what material it includes; McMurtry's description of the media could be explained by a rational theory of media agenda setting. Finally. it is argued (...) that critical thinkers need to go beyond the mass media to make decisions; the mass media should not be expected to provide all arguments and viewpoints. (shrink)