scholarly journals Le Journaliste et le Griot. Les Traces de L’oralite dans la Presse Ecrite Africaine

Afrika Focus ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 13-47
Author(s):  
Marie-Soleil Frère
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Public Speech ◽  
Narrative Style ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Renewal ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
New Type ◽  
New Form ◽  
Big Men

The Journalist and the Griot. Tracing the Oral Tradition in the African Press This paper will show the similarities between the journalist's role and narrative style and those of the griot1, a key player the traditional exercise of power. The new private press appeared in French-speaking Africa as a part of the democratic process at the beginning of the 1990’s, in the context of politic liberalization (multipartism, institutional renewal) and in the flow of a new type of political speech that allows contradictions, critiques and debates. The journalist, that had mostly been the mouthpiece of the governments until then, has acquired a new role as a confer-power in a democratizing regime. Nevertheless, the journalist may in some ways be compared to the traditional griot. First, his new form of speech is very close to the oral style of the griot. The stylistic characteristics, the use of metaphors and images, the way the story is built are common to both “story-tellers”. Secondly, they both criticize the “Big Men”, express the people’s frustrations and use irony to desacralised those in power. Thirdly, they occupy an “in between” position in society because, at the same time, they belong to the social group they are speaking or writing for, while being looked at as a different “cast” practising the power of public speech. The papers concludes that the griot and the journalist can play a role that enforces the democratization process in the sense that they make people share common values but they can also weaken the process by oversimplifying or hiding social problems and by supporting stereotypes and illusions.

scholarly journals The journalist and the griot. Tracing the oral tradition in the African Press.

Afrika Focus ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Soleil Frère
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Public Speech ◽  
Narrative Style ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Renewal ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
New Type ◽  
New Form ◽  
Big Men

This paper will show the similarities between the journalist's role and narrative style and those of the griot, a key player the traditional exercise of power. The new private press appeared in French-speaking Africa as a part of the democratic process at the beginning of the 1990's, in the context of politic liberalization (multipartism, institutional renewal) and in the flow of a new type of political speech that allows contradictions, critiques and debates. The journalist, that had mostly been the mouthpiece of the governments until then, has acquired a new role as a conter-power in a democratizing regime.Nevertheless, the journalist may in some ways be compared to the traditional griot. First, his new form of speech is very close to the oral style of the griot. The stylistic characteristics, the use of metaphors and images, the way the story is built are common to both "story-tellers". Secondly, they both criticize the "Big Men", express the people's frustrations and use irony to desacralised those in power. Thirdly, they occupy an "in between " position in society because, at the same time, they belong to the social group they are speaking or writing for, while being looked at as a different "cast" practising the power of public speech. The papers concludes that the griot and the journalist can play a role that enforces the democratization process in the sense that they make people share common values but they can also weaken the process by oversimplifying or hiding social problems and by supporting stereotypes and illusions. KEY WORDS :African press, griot, oral tradition, politics 

scholarly journals Kapitał uwagi jako skutek powstania mediów społecznościowych

Adeptus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jędrzej Maliński
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Social ◽  
Production Distribution ◽  
Social Entity ◽  
New Type ◽  
New Form ◽  
The One

Attention capital as a result of the emergence of the social mediaIn this paper a theoretical model based on Pierre Bourdieu’s forms of capital is presented. It is applied to an analysis of cultural content production, distribution and consumption mechanisms. It assumes that on the cultural market there is always a social entity mediating between a sender and a receiver – on the one hand as a medium, on the other as institution granting salary to the author. After sketching a historical background, a new type of capital – attention capital – is presented. It has been emerging as a result of the technical development of the mass media and its functioning is profoundly transformed by the social media. Though attention capital (measured, e.g., by the number of likes or comments) is often translatable to other forms of capital, it remains rather autonomous. However, the development of the Internet allows us to broader our choice of content, consistent with our preferences, but the gratification, in form of views, is gained not so much by the author of content, but rather by a person who has shared it. This process is even more noticable in the case of memes, whose authorship often cannot even be established. As a result of the changes on the Internet, the emergence of new form of a sociocultural economy can be noticed. Kapitał uwagi jako skutek powstania mediów społecznościowychW niniejszym artykule przedstawiony zostaje model teoretyczny oparty na formach kapitału Pierre’a Bourdieu. Zostaje on zaaplikowany do analizy mechanizmów produkcji, dystrybucji i konsumpcji treści kulturowych. Obserwując rynek kultury, należy bowiem zauważyć, że pomiędzy nadawcą a odbiorcą każdorazowo istnieje byt społeczny zapośredniczający odbiór treści kulturowych – z jednej strony jako medium, z drugiej strony jako instytucja wynagradzająca autora. Po krótkim rysie historycznym następuje prezentacja, w jaki sposób poprzez powstanie technicznych mediów masowych wyłania się nowy typ kapitału – kapitał uwagi. Jego funkcjonowanie zostaje w jeszcze większym stopniu przekształcone przez powstanie mediów społecznościowych. Choć kapitał uwagi (mierzony w wymiernej liczbie wyświetleń, odwiedzin strony, lajków itd.) jest często przekładalny na inne formy kapitału, to sam w sobie jest autonomiczny. Wprawdzie rozwój internetu pozwala nam na szerszy wybór treści, zgodny z naszymi preferencjami, ale nagrody w postaci wyświetleń (czy komentarzy lub ocen) trafiają nie tyle do autora materiału, co do osoby, która go udostępniła. Proces ten jest jeszcze wyraźniejszy w przypadku memów, których autorstwa często nawet nie sposób ustalić. Obserwując wyłaniające się w internecie zjawiska, możemy w rezultacie mówić o nowej formie społecznej ekonomii kulturowej.

The critical theory of democracy in Western political thought

2020 ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Ruqaya Saeed Khalkhal
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Church ◽  
Theory Of Democracy ◽  
Or Applications ◽  
The Ideal

The darkness that Europe lived in the shadow of the Church obscured the light that was radiating in other parts, and even put forward the idea of democracy by birth, especially that it emerged from the tent of Greek civilization did not mature in later centuries, especially after the clergy and ideological orientation for Protestants and Catholics at the crossroads Political life, but when the Renaissance emerged and the intellectual movement began to interact both at the level of science and politics, the Europeans in democracy found refuge to get rid of the tyranny of the church, and the fruits of the application of democracy began to appear on the surface of most Western societies, which were at the forefront to be doubtful forms of governece.        Democracy, both in theory and in practice, did not always reflect Western political realities, and even since the Greek proposition, it has not lived up to the idealism that was expected to ensure continuity. Even if there is a perception of the success of the democratic process in Western societies, but it was repulsed unable to apply in Islamic societies, because of the social contradiction added to the nature of the ruling regimes, and it is neither scientific nor realistic to convey perceptions or applications that do not conflict only with our civilized reality The political realization created by certain historical circumstances, and then disguises the different reality that produced them for the purpose of resonance in the ideal application.

MYTHOLOGIZING YORUBA ORATURE: LOBOTO MIZING SWIVELLED PULSES OF LAUGHTER IN NIYI OSUNDARE’S WAITING LAUGHTERS AND REMI RAJI’S A HARVEST OF LAUGHTERS

Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-42
Author(s):  
Niyi Akingbe
Keyword(s):  
Seasonal Variations ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Oral Poetry ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Momentary Happiness ◽  
Political Turmoil

Every literary work emerges from the particular alternatives of its time. This is ostensibly reflected in the attempted innovative renderings of these alternatives in the poetry of contemporary Nigerian poets of Yoruba extraction. Discernible in the poetry of Niyi Osundare and Remi Raji is the shaping and ordering of the linguistic appurtenances of the Yoruba orature, which themselves are sublimely rooted in the proverbial, chants, anecdotes, songs and praises derived from the Yoruba oral poetry of Ijala, Orin Agbe, Ese Ifa, Rara, folklore as well as from other elements of oral performance. This engagement with the Yoruba oral tradition significantly permeates the poetics of Niyi Osundare’s Waiting laughters and Remi Raji’s A Harvest of Laughters. In these anthologies, both Osundare and Raji traverse the cliffs and valleys of the contemporary Nigerian milieu to distil the social changes rendered in the Yoruba proverbial, as well as its chants and verbal formulae, all of which mutate from momentary happiness into an enduring anomie grounded in seasonal variations in agricultural production, ruinous political turmoil, suspense and a harvest of unresolved, mysterious deaths. The article is primarily concerned with how the African oral tradition has been harnessed by Osundare and Raji to construct an avalanche of damning, peculiarly Nigerian, socio-political upheavals (which are essentially delineated by the signification of laughter/s) and display these in relation to the country’s variegated ecology.

Perception of Absence as Value-Driven Perception

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anya Farennikova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Ring Finger ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Form

Experiences of absence are often laden with values and expectations. For example, one might notice that a job candidate is not wearing a tie, or see the absence of a wedding band on a person's ring finger. These experiences embody cultural knowledge and expectations, and therefore seem like good candidates for being a form of evaluative perception. This chapter argues that experiences of absence are evaluative apart from the social or cultural values they take on. They are evaluative in their core, solely by virtue of being experiences of absence. The chapter begins by explaining why certain experiences of absence should be treated as a case of genuine perception. It then clarifies the role of the evaluative states in experiences of absence. The chapter concludes by arguing that experiences of absence constitute a new form of evaluative perception, and presents the subjective–objective dichotomy in a new light.

Islamists between revolution and the state: an epilogue

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Ghani Imad
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Arab World ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
Heavy Burden ◽  
New Type ◽  
Political Realities

The problematic addressed in this article is the challenge initiated by the Arab revolutions to reform the Arab political system in such a way as to facilitate the incorporation of ‘democracy’ at the core of its structure. Given the profound repercussions, this issue has become the most serious matter facing the forces of change in the Arab world today; meanwhile, it forms the most prominent challenge and the most difficult test confronting Islamists. The Islamist phenomenon is not an alien implant that descended upon us from another planet beyond the social context or manifestations of history. Thus it cannot but be an expression of political, cultural, and social needs and crises. Over the years this phenomenon has presented, through its discourse, an ideological logic that falls within the context of ‘advocacy’; however, today Islamists find themselves in office, and in a new context that requires them to produce a new type of discourse that pertains to the context of a ‘state’. Political participation ‘tames’ ideology and pushes political actors to rationalize their discourse in the face of daily political realities and the necessity of achievement. The logic of advocacy differs from that of the state: in the case of advocacy, ideology represents an enriching asset, whereas in the case of the state, it constitutes a heavy burden. This is one reason why so much discourse exists within religious jurisprudence related to interest or necessity or balancing outcomes. This article forms an epilogue to the series of articles on religion and the state published in previous issues of this journal. It adopts the methodologies of ‘discourse analysis’ and ‘case studies’ in an attempt to examine the arguments presented by Islamists under pressure from the opposition. It analyses the experiences, and the constraints, that inhibit the production of a ‘model’, and monitors the development of the discourse, its structure, and transformations between advocacy, revolution and the state.

An historical Homeric society?

1974 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 114-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Snodgrass
Keyword(s):  
Social System ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
The Social ◽  
One Step ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
Strong Body

I begin with two modern texts, both as it happens printed on the first page of earlier issues of this journal, and each, I think, expressive of a strong body of opinion in Homeric scholarship, at least in the English-speaking countries, at the time of their writing. First, Miss Dorothea Gray in 1954: ‘Belief in an historical Homeric society dies hard’. Secondly, Professor Adkins in 1971: ‘I find it impossible to believe … that the bards of the oral tradition invented out of their own imaginations a society with institutions, values, beliefs and attitudes all so coherent and mutually appropriate as I believe myself to discern in the Homeric poems. This aspect of the poems is based upon some society's experience’. Miss Gray's prophecy, whether or not one shares the misgivings that it embodied, was thus soundly-based: the seventeen years between these two quotations have indeed witnessed a powerful revival of the belief that the social system portrayed in the Homeric poems, and with it such attendant features as the ethical code and the political structure, are in large measure both unitary and historical. One good reason for the vitality of this belief is the simple fact that it has been alive since Classical times. Another is that it has received support from several influential recent works: if pride of place should be given to M. I. Finley's The World of Odysseus, on whose conclusions Professor Adkins expressely says that he takes his stand, a number of others should be acknowledged also. Whereas Finley located the social system of the Odyssey most probably in the tenth and ninth centuries B.C., A. Andrewes in his book The Greeks extends this type of inference when he argues for an historical origin in the ‘migration period’ of the twelfth and eleventh centuries for the Homeric political system. As influences on the other side, one may mention T. B. L. Webster's work in isolating Mycenaean practices and features, whose divisive effect on the social pattern is apparent; while G. S. Kirk has a significantly entitled chapter in his The Songs of Homer, ‘The cultural and linguistic amalgam’ (my italics). Most recently, the early chapters in the German Archaeologia Homerica have shown a certain tendency to discern a consistent and historical pattern in the allied area of the material and technological practices of the poems. It is true that in one chapter the author is led to conclude that the metallurgical picture of the Iliad is substantially earlier than that of the Odyssey, and that the date of composition of the former poem must accordingly be very much earlier. But this is only because he is pressing the arguments for the ‘historical’ case one step further: the historical consistency of the metallurgical pictures in each of the two poems is, for him, so apparent and so precise that each can and must be given an historical setting, even if the two are separated by a long period.

The Diaspora of the Novel

1992 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-146
Author(s):  
Artemis Leontis
Keyword(s):  
Uneven Development ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Type

Reflection on the history of the novel usually begins with consideration of the social, political, and economic transformations within society that favored the “rise” of a new type of narrative. This remains true even with the numerous and important studies appearing during the past ten years, which relate the novel to an everbroadening spectrum of ideological issues—gender, class, race, and, most recently, nationalism. Yet a history of the genre might reflect not just on the novel’s national, but also its transnational, trajectory, its spread across the globe, away from its original points of emergence. Such a history would take into account the expansion of western markets—the growing exportation of goods and ideas, as well as of social, political, and cultural forms from the West—that promoted the novel’s importation by nonwestern societies. Furthermore, it could lead one to examine the very interesting inverse relationship between two kinds of migration, both of which are tied to the First World’s uneven “development” of the Third. In a world system that draws out natural resources in exchange for technologically mediated goods, the emigration of laborers and intellectuals from peripheral societies to the centers of power of the West and the immigration of a western literary genre into these same societies must be viewed as related phenomena.

DEFINITION OF THE ELITE QUALITY INDEX AS A NEW TYPE OF THE SOCIAL RESEARCH

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
S. FURS ◽  
◽  
A. FEDOSEEV ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Quality Index ◽  
Social Research ◽  
International Study ◽  
Sharp Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
Long Time ◽  
New Type ◽  
Definition Of

The article is devoted to the consideration of such an object of interdisciplinary research as the elite, namely, the latest trends in its study. It is shown that the consideration of this phenomenon has been going on for a long time, but now there is a sharp change in the focus of research – a new methodology is being developed. This is due to the fact that the axiom taken is the provision of a significant influence of the elite not only on the distribution of resources (economic, political, administrative) but also on the development (or recession) of the nation as a whole. The article presents a detailed analysis of the methodology for measuring the elite quality index which formed the basis for an international study conducted in 2020.

Media Genealogy of the Contagion: Syphilis — AIDS — COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-112
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Control Society ◽  
Object Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Form ◽  
Society Of Control

The article is devoted to a genealogy of the attitude toward viruses in social and political practice in light of the new coronavirus pandemic. The disciplinary society and the society of control have taken on a completely new configuration since the HIV crisis in the 1980s. AIDS and now COVID-19 as phenomena of social crisis have had a great impact on (sexual) relationships and have also caused a significant change in the social and political order. Epidemics and pandemics mobilize political structures and constitute power relations, thus changing the way bodies are controlled, establishing new differentiations and redefining what disease is. The authors trace the development of discourses about syphilis, AIDS and COVID-19 to describe how knowledge about the disease is being generated today; it has origins in myth and would be unthinkable without aesthetic visualization and mass media technologies. Syphilis was an exact fit for the paradigm of the disciplinary society, which stigmatized bodily pleasure and abstracted pathology by activating projection mechanisms as a sign of the Other. However, AIDS already differed significantly from that paradigm because other medical technologies are used to define HIV, and that has affected the epistemology of the disease and epidemic. The article considers HIV/AIDS as a transitional model that forms a bridge between the epidemics of the past (leprosy, plague, smallpox, syphilis) and the COVID-19 pandemic. Above all there is a change in the biopolitical regime so that bodies are no longer controlled and regulated through sexuality. COVID-19 is a new form of sociality which is not based on the exclusion of “pathological” forms of sexuality or on “deviant” or “perverted” bodies, but involves the object-based, microlevel of relations between viruses, the immune system, and the human genome, which are then mapped with distortions and substitutions onto social relationships and practices. The authors use the term “delegated control” in a new context and introduce the original term “omniopticum” to describe the new regime of biopolitics and the “control society” in the post-COVID era.

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