To Have and To Hold … Or Not? Deaccessioning Policies, Practices, and the Question of the Public’s Interest

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-159
Author(s):  
Deandra Rose Mann

Abstract:Shockwaves echoed through the media and the arts community when the Delaware Art Museum chose to deaccession pieces from its collection and when the public learned that the Detroit Institute of Arts might be forced to do the same. Further concern arose when financial troubles compelled the Corcoran Gallery of Art to merge with the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University. An examination of the climate and legal battles surrounding these events shows how these institutions chose to cope with the financial adversity that put their collections at risk and illustrates the precarious position of works in a museum’s collection when that museum experiences financial distress. This article explores the ethical, judicial, and legislative frameworks currently governing deaccessioning and ultimately advocates for new legislative solutions to guide the deaccession process in order to provide the opportunity to maintain these works in the public sphere.

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank van Vree

An Unstable Discipline. Journalism Studies & the Revolution in the Media An Unstable Discipline. Journalism Studies & the Revolution in the Media During the last decade media and journalism have got into turmoil; landslides have changed the traditional media landscape, overturning familiar marking points, institutions and patterns. To understand these radical changes journalism studies should not only develop a new research agenda, but also review its approach and perspective.This article looks back on recent development in the field and argues for a more cohesive perspective, taking journalism as a professional practice as its starting point. Furthermore a plea is made for a thorough research into the structural changes of the public sphere and the role and position of journalism.


Author(s):  
Lene Rimestad

Columns generally take up a lot of space in the media. But what can an employed journalist write in his column? How is this particular freedom managed and shaped? In this article the columns written by journalists working for Berlingske Tidende are analyzed. The analysis covers two months before and after substantial changes in the paper in 2003. Two parameters are used in the analysis: Political: Is the column pro-government, anti-government, apolitical or mixed. And what sphere does the column cover: Does the column take place in the private sphere or the public sphere? Finally the changes in the period are discussed. But initially the column as a genre is defined.


Author(s):  
Ute Planert

Like the arts and politics, sexuality, bodies, and the gender order in the Weimar Republic were sites of experimentation in and with modernity. The First World War and the revolution had accelerated the breakthrough of women into arenas such as politics, the public sphere, and professional gainful employment. Big cities provided space for sexual libertinage, in which the transgression of heterosexual norms was possible. A rationalization of sexuality took place, which combined increased freedoms and liberties with attempts at regulation. Sports became an important transmission belt for ideas of discipline, efficiency, and self-optimization. The Weimar welfare state combined the entitlement to live a healthy life with the duty to actively retain the health of one’s body. The latter included considering future generations via eugenicist ideas. A far-reaching consensus on the value of eugenics emerged, yet only under the pressure of the world economic crisis did it materialize in concrete proposals to recalibrate social policy. The final years of the Weimar Republic were marked by a remasculinization of the public sphere and a partial return to more traditional views on gender roles. Overall, gender and gendered bodies, sexuality and human reproduction, were inherent elements of the political conflicts that shaped modern society. At the end of the Weimar Republic, they were more contested than ever.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Ayish

Communication has proven to be an integral component of the terrorism phenomenon. To unravel the opportunities and challenges embedded in employing the media during terrorism, this chapter draws on research findings and practical experiences around the world to identify prime actors associated with this issue and to describe their objectives, tactics, and channels of communication. It is argued here that media constitute a vital resource in the war on terror with both terrorist organizations and states harnessing communication to advance their causes in the public sphere. In this context, four categories of media users have been identified: media institutions, terrorist organizations, governments, and citizen groups. The chapter discusses enduring issues associated with each actor's use of media and calls for evolving new conceptual frameworks for understanding media use during terrorism. It concludes by arguing that while we seem to have a huge pool of research findings and practical experiences related to using the media during terrorism, we seem to have a critical shortage in how we conceptually account for the different variables that define the use of media in terrorism situations.


2002 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan McKee

This paper argues that much writing about media and citizenship tends to rely on a set of realist or structuralist assumptions about what constitutes a state, a citizen and politics. Because of these assumptions, other forms of social organisation that could reasonably be described as nations, and other forms of social engagement that could be called citizenship are excluded from consideration. One effect of this blindness is that certain identities, and the cultural formations associated with them, continue to be overvalued as more real and important than others. Areas of culture that are traditionally while, masculine, middle-class and heterosexual remain central in debates, while the political processes of citizens of, for example, a Queer nation, continue to be either ignored or devalued as being somehow trivial, unimportant or less real. The paper demonstrates that this need not be the case — that the language of nation and citizenship can reasonably be expanded to include these other forms of social organisation, and that when such a conceptual move is made, we can find ways of describing contemporary culture that attempt to understand the public-sphere functions of the media without falling back into traditional prejudices against feminised, Queer, working class or non-white forms of culture.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shimazono Susumu

Abstract Until the 1990s, a commonly held view in Japan was that Buddhism had withdrawn from public space, or that Buddhism had become a private concern. Although Buddhist organizations conducted relief and support activities for the people affected at the time of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, they were often seen to be out of place, and little attention was given to them by the media. However recently there are areas in which Buddhism can be seen as playing new roles in the public sphere. Religious organizations seem to be expected to perform functions in fields that lie outside the narrow definition of religion. These expectations are becoming stronger among Buddhist organizations as well. In this paper, I describe some areas in the public sphere in which Buddhist groups are starting to play important roles including disaster relief, support of the poor and people without relatives, provision of palliative care and spiritual care, and involvement in environmental and nuclear plant issues.


2001 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 141-164
Author(s):  
George Gavrilis

On 17 August 2000, the somber first anniversary of the Marmara earthquake, the mainstream Turkish media found a sole reason for celebration. Alongside lengthy reports of vigils in remembrance of the dead and protests of the state's anemic relief efforts, the media celebrated its partnership with civil society and all but declared an end to a state that was at once heavy-handed and ineffectual. Amplifying this theme, an article that compiled a list of the earthquake's “winners” and “losers” placed the media and civil society in the former category and a host of state agencies charged with disaster response in the latter one. Hürriyet, a high-circulation mainstream newspaper, described this praise as well deserved, stating that journalists had effectively “exposed all the naked truths” of the state's inability to provide for its population.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julián Durazo Herrmann

Freedom of expression and access to diverse sources of information are seen as critical elements of democracy, although their concretization on the ground is subject to strong interference. Recent regime change in Maranhão, one of Brazil’s poorest states, has led to the emergence of new media and some expansion of the public sphere. The traditional oligarchy continues to dominate the media, however, and the opposition media replicate its exclusion of nonelite actors. The Maranhão experience confirms that normative approaches to the media either as automatic contributors to democracy or as instruments of elite manipulation have little value for understanding media dynamics. Liberdade de expressão, bem como o acesso a diversas fontes de informação, são considerados elementos críticos da democracia, ainda que a concretização desses fatores esteja sujeita a forte interferência. A recente troca de regime no Maranhão, um dos estados mais pobres do Brasil, tem levado ao surgimento de uma nova mídia e a uma certa expansão da esfera pública. Contudo, a oligarquia continua dominando a mídia tradicional e a mídia alternativa imita a prática de exclusão de atores não pertencentes à elite. A experiência do Maranhão confirma que tratamentos normativos que veem a mídia como contribuinte automática do processo democrático, ou como instrumento de manipulação da elite, teem pouco valor para se entender a dinâmica da mídia.


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