Media Studies, the Spatial Turn, and the Middle East

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-48
Author(s):  
Hatim El-Hibri
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Place And Space ◽  
Arab Media ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media

What questions do the ‘spatial turn’ in the humanities and the social sciences pose for the study of the media and culture of the Middle East? And how might attending to the spaces and spatiality of media in the Middle East help us to better understand the historical present? This article puts Middle East and Arab media and cultural studies into dialogue with an interdisciplinary literature that considers media as spatial and geographic phenomena. I examine how the question of space has arisen or might contribute to the study of media and culture in the Middle East by examining three areas of research in which that question has emerged: the place of media in domestic and public spaces and mobilities, the representation of place and space, and the geography of media industries and media infrastructure.

scholarly journals Disciplining Media Studies: An Expanding Field and its (Self-) Definition

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Schröter
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Anglophone World

This chapter is a modified translation of the foreword to the Handbuch Medienwissenschaft(Handbook of Media Studies, Schröter ed.) published in Germany in 2014. The purpose ofthis handbook is to provide an overview of the vibrant and heterogeneous field ofkulturwissenschaftliche Medienwissenschaft – media studies as oriented toward humanitiesand cultural studies interests and approaches rather than those of communication studiesand the social sciences, subsequently referred to simply as “media studies.” Some of thecategories used to structure the handbook have been generated from the historicaldiscussions in the field; and inevitably, these same historical discussions have shown thedifficulties of defining the external boundaries of the field of media studies, its internaldifferentiations and the way they re-connect to traditional disciplines. It gives an overview ofthe history of the disciplinary constitution of ‘media studies’ with a special focus on differentapproaches to disciplinary self-reflection that have accompanied the field from the verybeginning.2 In this way, it introduces the reader to a variety of sources not very well known inthe Anglophone world. Therefore, the penultimate section of this chapter, originally titled “The structure of this handbook” might on the one hand appear to some to be too specific for the current volume. On the other hand, however, it serves as a concrete example of how the field may be configured.

scholarly journals Introduction to Topologies of Digital Work

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Mascha Will-Zocholl ◽  
Caroline Roth-Ebner
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
The Social ◽  
Digital Work ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

AbstractAt the turn of the millennium, a “spatial turn” appeared, first in cultural studies and then increasingly in the social sciences. From today's perspective, it can be said that the reinvention of space as a category of analysis has led to a renewed focus on spatial issues. On this basis, we pursue spatial constellations, references and structures using the concept of “topologies”. This volume aims at broadening the basis of topological research, taking into account the current developments of the digital transformation, theoretical considerations and empirical evidence.

Situating Tribes in History: Lessons from the Archives and the Social Sciences

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-476
Author(s):  
Nadav Samin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Know How ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Official Records

The tribe presents a problem for the historian of the modern Middle East, particularly one interested in personalities, subtleties of culture and society, and other such “useless” things. By and large, tribes did not leave their own written records. The tribal author is a phenomenon of the present or the recent past. There are few twentieth century tribal figures comparable to the urban personalities to whose writings and influence we owe our understanding of the social, intellectual, and political history of the modern Middle East. There is next a larger problem of record keeping to contend with: the almost complete inaccessibility of official records on the postcolonial Middle East. It is no wonder that political scientists and anthropologists are among the best regarded custodians of the region's twentieth century history; they know how to make creative and often eloquent use of drastically limited tools. For many decades, suspicious governments have inhibited historians from carrying out the duties of their vocation. This is one reason why the many rich and original new monographs on Saddam Hussein's Iraq are so important. If tribes are on the margins of the records, and the records themselves are off limits, then one might imagine why modern Middle Eastern tribes are so poorly conceived in the scholarly imagination.

Zairo-Congolese Musicians and the Sound of Assimilation in East Africa

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-220
Author(s):  
Aaron Louis Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Political Understanding

This chapter investigates the phenomenon of emigrant Zairo-Congolese musicians in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania and their attempts to integrate into these societies through a variety of strategies that overtly and covertly employ political elements. Remmy Ongala, Samba Mapangala, and the members of Orchestra Maquis all spent time in one of these countries and shaped their sound and messages in these settings, politics being a significant part of their work. While political communication studies focus on structures, institutions, and the media, it is the case that in numerous African contexts music is an integral part of political understanding and participation. Drawing upon the works of scholars such as Michael Urban, Mark Mattern, and Uche Onyebadi, this chapter combines varied fields such as ethnomusicology, political communication, and cultural studies to provide a close understanding of these musical emigrants as well as an exploration of the social trajectories in their work over the course of the last half century.

The social spaces of hearing apps: problems, partners and intermediaries

2019 ◽  
Vol 171 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Nicole Matthews ◽  
Isabelle Boisvert ◽  
Catherine McMahon ◽  
Catharine Lumby
Keyword(s):  
Media Studies ◽  
The Self ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Individual Health ◽  
Health Consumer ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Start Ups ◽  
The Way

This article offers an analysis of the development of three hearing and communication apps, drawing on interviews with people involved in their production. While a central figure in the media studies literature on apps is the self-managing individual health consumer, this article argues that physical and social environments and relationships within them are central to the way the hearing apps are produced, circulated and used. Often emerging from commercial start-ups, hearing apps become aligned with – or indeed stand in for – various kinds of governmental initiatives, not only in health but also in education and economic development. Partnerships between government, research and commercial organisations and the need to work through app intermediaries to find their end users shaped the way apps create recognisable ‘problems’ to address. This problematising function of apps and its impact on the uptake and use of apps are the key areas for future research.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 315-316
Author(s):  
Rabab El-Mahdi ◽  
Ellen Lust
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Procedural Outcomes

The nation-state is in crisis. The increasing mobility of capital and information, unprecedented waves of people moving across borders, and rise of actors, such as ISIS, unwilling to abide by the rules of the Westphalian system, challenge the very notion of territoriality, citizenship, sovereignty, and the state's monopoly over the legitimate use of force. Studies on the Middle East and North Africa since the Arab uprisings took the region by storm, upending “conventional wisdom” held by many political scientists and scholars, have focused largely on the causes, genealogy, and procedural outcomes of the events. These are important, but as we shall see, the uprisings also highlighted the need to think carefully about how the modern state has changed, is being adapted, or has been superseded. How is the “state,” a foundational conceptual construct in the social sciences, to be located in light of these events? And to what extent do the concepts we employ and the language we use accurately reflect and allow us to interrogate realities, or do they obscure them? This roundtable aims to spark this much-needed discussion.

scholarly journals Technology and Narratives of Continuity in Transgender Experiences

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Billingsley
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Trans People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media

This essay examines narratives of fundamental change, which portray a break in the continuity between a pre-transition and post-transition transgender subject, in accounts of transgender transitions. Narratives of fundamental change highlight the various changes that occur during transition and its disruptive effects upon a trans subject’s continuous identity. First, this essay considers the historical appearance of fundamental change narratives in the social sciences, the media, and their use by families of trans people, partners of trans people, and trans people themselves. After this is a consideration of Mark Johnson’s account of narrative as a meaning-making activity that occurs in the context of social norms. Johnson’s account is then applied to narratives of fundamental change to explain why these narratives occur, especially in relation to social norms and lived experience. The essay concludes by considering the trajectory of fundamental change narratives, looking at emerging transgender narratives, which stress a more integrated, complex account of transgender lives.

scholarly journals The Turn to Affect and Emotion in Media Studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margreth Lünenborg ◽  
Tanja Maier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Affect Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Central Interest ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
Media And Communication

This editorial delivers an introduction to the thematic <em>Media and Communication </em>issue on “The Turn to Affect and Emotion in Media Studies”. The social and cultural formation of affect and emotion has been of central interest to social science-based emotion research as well as to affect studies, which are mainly grounded in cultural studies. Media and communication scholars, in turn, have especially focused on how emotion and affect are produced by media, the way they are communicated through media, and the forms of emotion audiences develop during the use of media. Distinguishing theoretical lines of emotion theory in social sciences and diverse traditions of affect theory, we reflect on the need to engage more deeply with affect and emotion as driving forces in contemporary media and society. This thematic issue aims to add to ongoing affect studies research and to existing emotion research within media studies. A special emphasis will be placed on exploring structures of difference and power produced in and by media in relation to affect and emotion.

scholarly journals Analysis of the Thematic Overlap Between Library and Information Science and Other Subdisciplines of the Social Communication and Media Sciences in Poland

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (2a) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Osiński
Keyword(s):  
Media Studies ◽  
Social Communication ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Library And Information Science ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
Review Articles ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bibliographic Data ◽  
The Media

Purpose/Thesis: The recent decision to join three previously separate disciplines – library and information science, media studies, and cognition and social communication science, into a single discipline of social communication and media sciences prompted the author to investigate if joining of these disciplines according to the compulsory categorization published by the OECD, is supported by an overlap in their fields of research, or by a similarity in their methods of conducting it.Approach/Methods: An analysis of the review articles devoted to the research fields of all three disciplines, and of the information regarding the research interests of the journals affiliated with them, as published on the journals’ websites, allowed the author to establish their thematic scope. The results of this analysis were compared with bibliographic data and sets of keywords found in the affiliated journals. The comparison relied on an analysis of citations, and of coexistence of specialized terms.Results and conclusions: The analysis of the review articles suggested that the basic research fields of library and information science and of the media studies and cognition and social communication science are aligned and complement each other. This conclusion was further supported by the analysis of the guidelines for the potential contributors provided on the websites of the investigated journals. However, the analysis of the bibliographic data and of the keyword sets gave an entirely different idea of the relation between the studied disciplines, indicating that there is no significant thematic overlap between them. Nevertheless, this might be due to the quality of this particular data sample, and to the methods’ susceptibility to data disruption.Originality/Value: The article proves that there is an overlap between library and information science, and the social communication and media sciences. Furthermore, it shows the limits of the citation method and of the specialized terms coexistence method, resulting from the practices of the authors and the editorial teams of some of the journals discussed. The article shows that all quantitative studies of the state of scholarship in a given discipline in Poland must be conducted with great care, and their results should not be the only basis for conclusions.

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