The cultural imaginary of ethical meat: A study of producer perceptions

2022 ◽  
Vol 89 ◽  
pp. 186-198
Author(s):  
Josée Johnston ◽  
Anelyse Weiler ◽  
Shyon Baumann
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Imaginary

scholarly journals Back in time for utopia: Neo-Victorian utopianism and the return to William Morris

2020 ◽  
pp. 136754942098000
Author(s):  
Joe PL Davidson
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
William Morris ◽  
Victorian Studies ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
The Future ◽  
The 19Th Century

When we think of the Victorian era, images of shrouded piano legs, dismal factories and smoggy streets often come to mind. However, the 19th century has been rediscovered in recent years as the home of something quite different: bold utopian visions of the future. William Morris’ great literary utopia News from Nowhere, first published in 1890, is an interesting case study in this context. Morris’ text is the point of departure for a number of recent returns to Victorian utopianism, including Sarah Woods’ updated radio adaptation of News from Nowhere (2016) and the BBC’s historical reality television series The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts (2019). In this article, I analyse these Morris-inspired texts with the aim of exploring the place of old visions of the future in the contemporary cultural imaginary. Building on previous work in neo-Victorian studies and utopian studies, the claim is made that the return to 19th-century dreams is a plural phenomenon that has a number of divergent effects. More specifically, neo-Victorian utopianism can function to demonstrate the obsolescence of old visions of utopia, prompt a longing for the clarity and radicality of the utopias of the Victorian moment, or encourage a process of rejuvenating the utopian impulse in the present via a detour through the past.

Old Media, New Gigs: The Discursive Construction of the Gig Economy in Australian News Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 095001702110346
Author(s):  
Luci Pangrazio ◽  
Cameron Bishop ◽  
Fiona Lee
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Discourse Theory ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
Short Term Contract ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Work And Life

This article analyses the representation of the gig economy in three Australian newspapers from 2014 to 2019. ‘Gig work’ is defined as short term, contract or freelance employment and is seen by many social institutions as the future of work. Drawing on a corpus of 426 articles, Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory is used to examine the construction of the ‘gig economy’ in the cultural imaginary. Five key elements emerge, including: demographics of workers; working conditions; workers’ rights; resistance and regulation; and change and disruption. Despite multiple competing discourses evident across the newspapers, each constructs the gig economy as an inexorable phase in the evolution of the relationship between capital and the worker. The article critically analyses the construction of the discourse, including the difficulties of regulating gig economy platforms and the narrative of inevitability used to describe changes to work and life brought about by technology.

Senses of Vibration

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelly Trower
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Senses ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Brain

The study of the senses has become a rich topic in recent years. Senses of Vibration explores a wide range of sensory experience and makes a decisive new contribution to this growing field by focussing not simply on the senses as such, but on the material experience - vibration - that underpins them. This is the first book to take the theme of vibration as central, offering an interdisciplinary history of the phenomenon and its reverberations in the cultural imaginary. It tracks vibration through the work of a wide range of writers, including physiologists (who thought vibrations in the nerves delivered sensations to the brain), physicists (who claimed that light, heat, electricity and other forms of energy were vibratory), spiritualists (who figured that spiritual energies also existed in vibratory form), and poets and novelists from Coleridge to Dickens and Wells. Senses of Vibration is a work of scholarship that cuts through a range of disciplines and will reverberate for many years to come.

Studying dementia: the relevance of the fourth age

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 241-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Gilleard ◽  
Paul Higgs
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Fellow Citizen ◽  
Social Nature ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Person With Dementia

Purpose – To better understand the social nature of dementia, it is important to understand its cultural significance and the role that it plays in re-articulating later life. In this new terrain of ageing it may be worth exploring how the idea of the fourth age can help us better understand the nature of dementia and the way in which its cultural role affects both social and health policies. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Gilleard and Higgs (2010) argue that the fourth age now serves as a “cultural imaginary” of the deepest and darkest aspects of old age and that dementia figures prominently in fashioning it. Findings – The scope for exploring dementia as a component of the cultural imaginary of the fourth age has already been demonstrated through the small but growing number of studies that have explored the fear of dementia. Originality/value – An avenue for further exploration is the distinction between a fear of losing one's mind (as in the pre-modern meaning of dementia) and the fear of losing one's place (as in the loss of status associated with dependency). Arguably the former exercises a greater influence than the latter, and raises the question of distinguishing between narratives and practices that sustain the mind of the person with dementia and those that sustain the position of the person with dementia as fellow citizen or fellow countryman or woman.

Swipe To Unlock

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Werning
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Haptic Feedback ◽  
User Interaction ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Experience Design ◽  
User Experience Design ◽  
Software Applications ◽  
Software Studies ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
Digital Material

Abstract Since the release of iconic devices like the Nintendo DS (2004) and particularly the first iPhone (2007), touchscreen interfaces have become almost omnipresent and arguably shaped a “touchscreen generation”. But how do touchscreen experiences operate as complex assemblages of material contingencies, electronics, algorithms and user interaction? And how do they function in actual software applications? In order to address these questions, the paper outlines a comparative software studies perspective, which comprises four consecutive steps. The introduction draws on cultural studies research on touchscreen interfaces to establish a theoretical framework for understanding the shifting epistemic status of the screen and the complex relationship between technical affordances and cognitive processes. Second, the paper explores aesthetic implications of the materiality of touchscreens, including the shift from vertical to horizontal navigational logic and the focus on physical contiguity in user experience design. Third, a series of short, interconnected case studies serves to illustrate the more specific implications on practices of media use and cultural production in a variety of applications. For example, apps like Vine evoke the ‘tangibility’ of digital material by allowing users to start and stop recording video by touching and releasing the screen respectively. Other, even more iconic examples include the swipe mechanic employed in Tinder and particularly the ‘swipe to unlock’ gesture used in the Android operating system. Finally, the previous findings are contextualised by briefly investigating the cultural imaginary of the touchscreen, which manifests itself in the form of haptic feedback as well as curved and even wearable touch-sensitive surfaces.

Occupation, Diplomacy, and the Moving Image

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sueyoung Park-Primiano
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Military Government ◽  
American Military ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Educational Films ◽  
Straightforward Interpretation ◽  
The U.S

This chapter, by S. Park-Primiano, examines the use of noncommercial films by the U.S. military to facilitate its diverse roles during its occupation of South Korea in the aftermath of World War II. Used by the American Military Government in Korea, educational films aided the U.S. military's efforts to Americanize the Korean population and combat Communism. Films were also used to inform and rally support for its policy in Korea from American military and civilian personnel at home as well as abroad. For this purpose, the U.S. military sought cooperation from and enlisted the assistance of Korean filmmakers in the production of films about Korean culture and history that challenge any straightforward interpretation of Americanization or a unidirectional influence. Moreover, such conflicting efforts had a long-lasting effect in South Korea. It was a practice that was continued by the succeeding information apparatus of the U.S. State Department and the United Nations during the Korean War and beyond to further expose the need for a closer examination of U.S. control of the Korean cultural imaginary.

A Nation of Warriors

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christy Pichichero
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Military

This increasing care for and recognition of the common soldier set the stage for the new patriotic and heroic ideologies explored in chapter four. In this, neither social status nor simply winning battles were sufficient and the heroism of the monarch and aristocratic warriors came under scrutiny. New faces came to populate a democratizing heroic imaginary – those ofcommon soldiers and non-commissioned officers – and their acts were increasingly told through various secular and popular artistic media. Novels, plays, and military writings championed the patriotic military fervor and potential for heroism of different social groups: common men of the Third Estate, French women, foreigners serving in the French armed forces, and religious and ethnic “Others” allied with the French. These new heroes and heroines were recognized in the cultural imaginary and, to some extent, in practice as members of the military moved to protect, acknowledge, and reward them for their service.

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