Humanitarian branding and the media

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Vestergaard

The development of corporate communication in recent years has brought about a fading of the division of labor between commercial and non-commercial organizations. While the practices of commercial organizations are becoming increasingly ethicalized, so the practices of non-profit organizations are becoming increasingly commercialized. This paper explores the use of media discourse for the communication of ethical messages by humanitarian organizations, caught, as they are, in a tension between, on the one hand, the commercial strategies of visibility and still greater dependence on the media, and, on the other hand, the public’s skepticism toward mediated morality and what is commonly referred to as compassion fatigue. The issue is investigated through an analysis of a TV spot produced by the Danish section of Amnesty International in 2004. This spot is taken as an example of how the organization’s branding strategies testify to a high degree of reflexivity about the conditions of what Luc Boltanski calls a Crisis of Pity. The analysis illustrates how, in the face of compassion fatigue, the organization manages to carve out a new space for itself in the marketized ethical discourse, and leads to a discussion of the consequences of such rebranding for the construction of morality by the organization.

2021 ◽  
pp. 160-184
Author(s):  
Alexey Khlebnikov

This chapter expresses concern with the one-sided nature of humanitarian actors’ narratives from Syria, which is promoted by international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) through their large presence in the media. It discusses how these humanitarian actors’ narratives contributed heavily to the growing alienation and intransigence between the opposition and the government, making any meaningful dialogue between them nearly impossible. It also mentions the humanitarian actors’ contribution to the spread of disinformation in the Syrian war due to their presence on only one side of the conflict. The chapter refers to humanitarian actors who continued to defy the constraints on providing assistance by finding ways to deliver aid inside areas under siege and by speaking out against the complete disregard for civilian life and infrastructure by the warring parties. It reviews the history of contemporary humanitarian organizations’ formation, as well as their role and the activities in which they have participated.


2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 143-146
Author(s):  
Justus Thies

Abstract This article summarizes the dissertation “Face2Face: Realtime Facial Reenactment” by Justus Thies (Eurographics Graphics Dissertation Online, 2017). It shows advances in the field of 3D reconstruction of human faces using commodity hardware. Besides the reconstruction of the facial geometry and texture, real-time face tracking is demonstrated. The developed algorithms are based on the principle of analysis-by-synthesis. To apply this principle, a mathematical model that represents a face virtually is defined. Utilizing this model to synthesize facial imagery, the model parameters are adjusted, such that the synthesized image fits the input image as good as possible. Thus, in reverse, this process transfers the input image to a virtual representation of the face. The achieved quality allows many new applications that require a good reconstruction of the face. One of these applications is the so-called “Facial Reenactment”. Our developed methods show that such an application does not need any special hardware. The generated results are nearly photo-realistic videos that show the transfer of the expressions of one person to another person. These techniques can for example be used to bring movie dubbing to a new level. Instead of adapting the audio to the video, which might also include changes of the text, the video can be post-processed to match the mouth movements of the dubber. Since the approaches that are shown in the dissertation run in real-time, one can also think of a live dubber in a video teleconferencing system that simultaneously translates the speech of a person to another language. The published videos of the projects in this dissertation led to a broad discussion in the media. On the one hand this is due to the fact that our methods are designed such that they run in real-time and on the other hand that we reduced the hardware requirements to a minimum while improving the resulting quality. In fact, after some preprocessing, we are able to edit ordinary videos from the Internet in real-time. Amongst others, we impose a different mimic to faces of prominent persons like former presidents of the United States of America. This led inevitably to a discussion about trustworthiness of video material, especially from unknown source. Most people did not expect that such manipulations are possible, neglecting existing methods that are already able to edit videos (e. g. special effects in movie productions). Thus, besides the advances in real-time face tracking, our projects raised the awareness of video manipulation.


1970 ◽  
pp. 38-45
Author(s):  
May Abu Jaber

Violence against women (VAW) continues to exist as a pervasive, structural,systematic, and institutionalized violation of women’s basic human rights (UNDivision of Advancement for Women, 2006). It cuts across the boundaries of age, race, class, education, and religion which affect women of all ages and all backgrounds in every corner of the world. Such violence is used to control and subjugate women by instilling a sense of insecurity that keeps them “bound to the home, economically exploited and socially suppressed” (Mathu, 2008, p. 65). It is estimated that one out of every five women worldwide will be abused during her lifetime with rates reaching up to 70 percent in some countries (WHO, 2005). Whether this abuse is perpetrated by the state and its agents, by family members, or even by strangers, VAW is closely related to the regulation of sexuality in a gender specific (patriarchal) manner. This regulation is, on the one hand, maintained through the implementation of strict cultural, communal, and religious norms, and on the other hand, through particular legal measures that sustain these norms. Therefore, religious institutions, the media, the family/tribe, cultural networks, and the legal system continually disciplinewomen’s sexuality and punish those women (and in some instances men) who have transgressed or allegedly contravened the social boundaries of ‘appropriateness’ as delineated by each society. Such women/men may include lesbians/gays, women who appear ‘too masculine’ or men who appear ‘too feminine,’ women who try to exercise their rights freely or men who do not assert their rights as ‘real men’ should, women/men who have been sexually assaulted or raped, and women/men who challenge male/older male authority.


Author(s):  
O. Bondar

<p><em>In this study, I have collected and summarized the functional aspects of a literary prize, contest, and rating, which indicate their affiliation with the marketing complex of the publishing house for the first time. For this purpose, I have analyzed and summarized the common concepts of the functioning of literary prizes and contests as advertising tools for publishing activity. Because the previous studies are only focused on the fact of the impact of the prize on the promotion of editions but do not explain it, these aspects have been considered and introduced by me from the book production’s point of view. I investigated that the prizes and the contests in the literary field are effective marketing tools, which meet many publisher’s needs at the same time and can be considered a non-profit form of capital. I have reviewed the works of other authors, who accept that the economic success of the book is rising if the author is a winner of the literary prize or contest. I have found out that the book prize activates the demand for the book, and the literary contest is a tool to track the reader’s reaction to a future publication. In this way, literary prizes and contests can be considered as a way of conducting a marketing dialogue with the target audience. I have focused on the information support of literary national and international prizes and contests by the media, which attracts attention to the book and forms the reader’s interest. The literary prizes and contests are also considered as a way of exploring trends and their changes, familiarization the popular genres among the target audience and fixation the current choice of modern readers. Literary prizes and contests motivate the authors to improve their literary excellence, are the source of new authors and works, and assist in increasing sales of books. However, further research is recommended.</em></p><strong><em>Key words:</em></strong><em> book prize, book rating, literary contest, literary prize, functions of the literary prizes.</em>


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-291
Author(s):  
Manuel A. Vasquez ◽  
Anna L. Peterson

In this article, we explore the debates surrounding the proposed canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero, an outspoken defender of human rights and the poor during the civil war in El Salvador, who was assassinated in March 1980 by paramilitary death squads while saying Mass. More specifically, we examine the tension between, on the one hand, local and popular understandings of Romero’s life and legacy and, on the other hand, transnational and institutional interpretations. We argue that the reluctance of the Vatican to advance Romero’s canonization process has to do with the need to domesticate and “privatize” his image. This depoliticization of Romero’s work and teachings is a part of a larger agenda of neo-Romanization, an attempt by the Holy See to redeploy a post-colonial and transnational Catholic regime in the face of the crisis of modernity and the advent of postmodern relativism. This redeployment is based on the control of local religious expressions, particularly those that advocate for a more participatory church, which have proliferated with contemporary globalization


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Raquel Fernández González ◽  
Marcos Íñigo Pérez Pérez

The return of institutions to the main research agenda has highlighted the importance of rules in economic analysis. The New Institutional Economics has allowed a better understanding of the case studies that concern different areas of knowledge, also the one concerning the management of natural resources. In this article, the institutional analysis focuses on the maritime domain, where two large civil liability regimes for pollution coexist (OPA 90-IMO), each in a different geographical area (United States - Europe). Therefore, a comparative analysis is made between the two large regimes of civil responsibility assignment applying them to the Prestige catastrophe. In this way, the allocation and distribution of responsibilities in the investigation and subsequent judicial process of the Prestige is compared with an alternative scenario in which the applicable compensation instruments are governed by the provisions of the Oil Polution Act of 1990 (OPA 90), in order to establish a rigorous analysis on the effects that the different norms can have in the same scenario. In the comparative established in the case of the Prestige, where the responsibilities were solved very slowly in a judicial process with high transaction costs, the application of rules governed by the OPA 90 would not count with such a high degree of imperfection. This is so, since by applying the preponderance of the evidence existing in OPA 90 there would be no mitigation for the presumed culprits. On the other hand, the agents involved in the sinking would not be limited only to the owner, but also that operators or shipowners would be responsible as well. In addition, the amount of compensation would increase when counting in the damage count the personal damages, the taxes without perceiving and the ecological damage caused in a broad sense, damages not computable in the IMO.


Trictrac ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petru Adrian Danciu

Starting from the cry of the seraphim in Isaiahʹ s prophecy, this article aims to follow the rhythm of the sacred harmony, transcending the symbols of the angelic world and of the divine names, to get to the face to face meeting between man and God, just as the seraphim, reflecting their existence, stand face to face. The finality of the sacred harmony is that, during the search for God inside the human being, He reveals Himself, which is the reason for the affirmation of “I Am that I Am.” Through its hypnotic cyclicality, the profane temporality has its own musicality. Its purpose is to incubate the unsuspected potencies of the beings “caught” in the material world. Due to the fact that it belongs to the aeonic time, the divine music will exceed in harmony the mechanical musicality of profane time, dilating and temporarily cancelling it. Isaiah is witness to such revelation offering access to the heavenly concert. He is witness to divine harmonies produced by two divine singers, whose musical history is presented in our article. The seraphim accompanied the chosen people after their exodus from Egypt. The cultic use of the trumpet is related to the characteristics and behaviour of the seraphim. The seraphic music does not belong to the Creator, but its lyrics speak about the presence of the Creator in two realities, a spiritual and a material one. Only the transcendence of the divine names that are sung/cried affirms a unique reality: God. The chant-cry is a divine invocation with a double aim. On the one hand, the angels and the people affirm God’s presence and call His name and, on the other, the Creator affirms His presence through the angels or in man, the one who is His image and His likeness. The divine music does not only create, it is also a means of communion, implementing the relation of man to God and, thus, God’s connection with man. It is a relation in which both filiation and paternity disappear inside the harmony of the mutual recognition produced by music, a reality much older than Adam’s language.


Imbizo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Epongse Nkealah ◽  
Olutoba Gboyega Oluwasuji

Ideas of nationalisms as masculine projects dominate literary texts by African male writers. The texts mirror the ways in which gender differentiation sanctions nationalist discourses and in turn how nationalist discourses reinforce gender hierarchies. This article draws on theoretical insights from the work of Anne McClintock and Elleke Boehmer to analyse two plays: Zintgraff and the Battle of Mankon by Bole Butake and Gilbert Doho and Hard Choice by Sunnie Ododo. The article argues that women are represented in these two plays as having an ambiguous relationship to nationalism. On the one hand, women are seen actively changing the face of politics in their societies, but on the other hand, the means by which they do so reduces them to stereotypes of their gender.


Jurnal KATA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 356
Author(s):  
Saiko Rudi Kasenda

<p><em>This article is aimed to investigate face threathening acts and face saving acts demonstrated by Anies Baswedan dan Basuki Tjahaja Purnama as the candidates of DKI Jakarta governor during the debate held in April 2017. Face threatening act and face saving act are analyzed because they are able to show not only their positive image but also the negatve one in front of not only to each candidate but also to the audience watching the debate. Politeness theory from Brown and Levinson (1987.) are employed to analyze both candidates’ face threatening acts and saving acts since this theory provides detailed descriptions of a large range of strategies that can be used to deeply understand both face threatening acts and face saving act performed by the candidates. The context surrounding the debate becomes a crucial point to analyze how politeness strategy is applied to show face thratening act and face saving act. Through qualitative method, this study found that 1) Bald on-record is the strategy used by the candidates to show face threatening and they are intended to show contradictions, to disagree, to insult, to interrupt, to speak out-of-topic, to challenge, and to exaggerate. 2) Both candidates use positive and negative strategies to show face saving act intended to show contradictions, to assert common ground, to show agreement, to joke, to apologize, and to avoid disagreement. 3) The face threatening act and saving acts can be considered as the efforts to defend their argumentations and to preserve their positive faces, 4.) The use of the word “kita” and passive voice can be seen as markers in both candidates’ utterances to minimize the imposed face threatening act and to signal solidarity to each candidate and to audience, 5) While Anies is revealed to be the one who more frequently uses face threatening act, Basuki is the candidate who uses face saving act more often during the debate. The study is expected to enrich the study in the field of pragmatics focusing on the use of politeness strategy. </em></p><p> </p><p>Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menginvestigasi tindak pengancaman muka wajah dan tindak penyelamatan wajah yang ditunjukkan oleh Anies Baswedan dan Basuki Tjahaja Purnama pada Debat Pilkada gubernur provinsi DKI Jakarta 2017.<strong> </strong>Tindak pengancaman wajah dan penyelamatan wajah diteliti pada makalah ini karena dapat merepresentasikan citra positif maupun citra negatif kandidat pilkada Gubernur DKI tidak hanya dihadapan masing-masing kandidat tetapi juga kepada masyarakat umum yang menyaksikan. Teori kesantunan dari Brown dan Levinson digunakan untuk menganalisis tindak pengancaman muka dan tindak penyelamatan muka kedua kandidat karena teori ini memiliki penjelasan yang komprehensif tentang berbagai strategi yang dapat dipergunakan untuk memahami secara mendalam bagaimana tindak pengancaman dan penyelamatan wajah ditunjukkan oleh kedua kandidiat. Konteks topik debat yang diangkat dipahami untuk dapat menganalisis tindak pengancaman dan penyelamatan wajah oleh Anies dan Basuki.  Melalui metode kualitatif, studi ini menemukan bahwa 1) Bald on-record adalah strategi yang sering digunakan untuk menunjukkan tindak pengancaman muka dan ditujukan untuk menyatakan kontradiksi, menyatakan ketidaksetujuan, menyinggung, menginterupsi, berbicara di luar topik pembicaraan, menantang kandidat lain, dan memberikan pernyataan yang berlebihan. 2) Tindak penyelamatan muka dilakukan dengan strategi kesantunan positif dan negatif seperti menyatakan kontradiksi, menegaskan common ground, memberikan persetujuan, membuat lelucon, meminta maaf, dan menghindari ketidaksetujuan. 3) Tindak pengancaman muka dan penyelamatan muka dapat dianggap sebagai cara untuk mempertahankan argumentasi kedua kandidat dan untuk melindungi wajah positif masing-masing.4) Penggunaan kata “kita” dan kalimat pasif dimaksudkan untuk meminmalisiri ancaman sekaligus sebagai sinya solidaritas.5) Anies ditunjukkan sebagai kandidat yang lebih sering menggunakan tindak pengancaman muka, sedangkan Basuki adalah kandidat yang lebih sering menunjukkan penyelamatan muka selama debat berlangsung. Studi ini diharapkan dapat memperkaya pemahaman di bidang pragmatik khususnya tentang penggunaan strategi kesantunan</p>


Author(s):  
Chris Forster

Modernist literature is inextricable from the history of obscenity. The trials of such figures as James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Radclyffe Hall loom large in accounts of twentieth-century literature. Filthy Material: Modernism and the Media of Obscenity reveals the ways that debates about obscenity and literature were shaped by changes in the history of media. The emergence of film, photography, and new printing technologies shaped how “literary value” was understood, altering how obscenity was defined and which texts were considered obscene. Filthy Material rereads the history of modernist obscenity to discover the role played by technological media in debates about obscenity. The shift from the intense censorship of the early twentieth century to the effective “end of obscenity” for literature at the middle of the century was not simply a product of cultural liberalization but also of a changing media ecology. Filthy Material brings together media theory and archival research to offer a fresh account of modernist obscenity with novel readings of works of modernist literature. It sheds new light on figures at the center of modernism’s obscenity trials (such as Joyce and Lawrence), demonstrates the relevance of the discourse of obscenity to understanding figures not typically associated with obscenity debates (such as T. S. Eliot and Wyndham Lewis), and introduces new figures to our account of modernism (such as Norah James and Jack Kahane). It reveals how modernist obscenity reflected a contest over the literary in the face of new media technologies.


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