Feminist Jedi and a politically correct empire: Popular culture and transformative bridges in alternative media content

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-71
Author(s):  
Joshua D Atkinson ◽  
Scott Chappuis ◽  
Gabriel Cruz ◽  
Shanna Gilkeson ◽  
Chelsea Kaunert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
Ideological Assumptions

This article explores the role of writing about popular culture in politically motivated alternative media. In our study, we engaged in different forms of textual analysis in order to investigate three kinds of articles about Star Wars: The Force Awakens in conservative and liberal alternative media. Specifically, we conducted a close reading of reviews of the film, opinion articles about the film and fluff articles about the film. Essentially, we found that the three types of popular culture articles were necessary for the establishment of strong transformative bridges that allowed for intersections between activist alternative media and mainstream media. In addition, we also found the ideological assumptions embedded within the fluff articles to be the most important aspect of this bridge; these ideologies about culture and consumerism allowed for the strongest intersections to emerge.

A heteropatriarchy in moderation: Reading family in a Thai Boys Love lakhon

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-94
Author(s):  
Ying-kit Chan
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Parental Acceptance ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Cultural Concepts ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Impact

A subgenre of popular culture, Thai Boys Love (BL) series is increasingly significant within Asia, but it remains under-researched in the light of new series that push the parameters of viewer acceptance of homoerotic romance in Thai society. Drawing upon a close reading of the BL lakhon Love by Chance, this article explicates how Thai cultural concepts surrounding the family are reflected in the series. While acknowledging the impact of East Asian popular culture on Thai understandings of gender and sexuality, the article highlights how the themes of familial dynamics and parental acceptance in Love by Chance represent a glocalization of the BL genre, or BL with Thai characteristics. By introducing the concept of ‘moderated heteropatriarchy’ and sketching the role of family in Thai queer lives, the article suggests that there is still space for subtle challenges or changes to the heteronormative structure as plotted in Love by Chance, even as the lakhon continues to uphold national and patriarchal principles that deny overt expressions of homoerotic romance.

Alternative media, self-representation and Arab-American women

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenza Oumlil
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Arab American ◽  
Media Content ◽  
American Women ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
The Media ◽  
Arab American Women ◽  
Artistic Interventions

Arab-American women often find themselves represented in the mainstream media as oppressed victims in need of saving, but what sometimes gets less attention are the ways in which Arab-American women themselves are adding to the media landscape, through poetry, film and other forms. This article offers a textual analysis of artistic interventions circulated by Arab-American women in the media sphere, and supplements the analysis of the content and context of these interventions with individual interviews with the artists involved. It focuses on the poetry of Suheir Hammad and the cinematic interventions of Annemarie Jacir, which I situate as alternative media. I conceptualise alternative media as media content that challenges dominant assumptions and offers stylistic innovations for the purpose of inspiring social change. In addition, I argue that alternative media consist of transforming the existing stock of material into ones own language in order to promote social justice. The article concludes with remarks regarding the opportunities and the limitations of alternative media in effecting social transformation.

Can an indigenous media model enrol wider non-Indigenous audiences in alternative perspectives to the ‘mainstream’

Ethnicities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146879682110298
Author(s):  
Susan Nemec
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Civic Society ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Indigenous Media ◽  
Indigenous Perspective

This paper offers a theoretical model to analyse an example of Indigenous media through an Indigenous lens and discusses its potential to increase audiences in other alternative media. Adapted from New Zealand Māori filmmaker and philosopher Barry Barclay’s idea of the ‘fourth cinema’ and a metaphorical ‘communications marae’, 1 the model has been applied to New Zealand’s Indigenous broadcaster, Māori Television. This article discusses the model and suggests that the ‘communications marae’ has the potential to be used by non-mainstream media providers to, not only address their own audiences, but also to enrol wider communities in alternative perspectives to the ‘mainstream’. Research has demonstrated how Indigenous broadcasting can serve its own audience while also attracting wider, non-Indigenous audiences. However, this paper’s focus is a case study of migrants engaging with Māori Television because it is migrants who frequently operate outside of established power relationships and represent an often unrecognised niche audience segment in mainstream media. The model demonstrates the potential pedagogical role of the broadcaster and how its content can make a positive difference to migrants’ lives and attitudes towards Indigenous people through its ability to counter the, often negative, representations of Indigeneity in mainstream media. Outside of Māori Television, migrants have limited access to an Indigenous perspective on the nation’s issues and concerns, which calls into question both democracy and migrants’ ability to engage in civic society. Migrants need information to negotiate and weigh up important tensions and polarities, to understand multiple perspectives inherent to democratic living and to evaluate issues of social justice and to solve problems based on the principles of equity. Indigenous media, as in all alternative media, has a role to play in questioning or challenging accepted thinking and to present counter hegemonic discourses to all citizens in participatory democratic societies.

Televisual diplomacy: I am the Ambassador and Danish nation branding at home and abroad

Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-447
Author(s):  
Robert A Saunders ◽  
Joel Vessels
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Nation Branding ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Culture Form ◽  
The Us ◽  
At Home

In a time when the current US president came to office via a career in reality television, it seems unnecessary to argue that popular culture and International Relations intersect in meaningful and dramatic ways. Operating from this premise, mass-mediating the act of diplomacy via a television series presents a fecund object of analysis that questions many of the myths surrounding what we call the ‘diplomatic community’. Consequently, this article is interested in the geopolitical interposition of Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) via the popular culture form of reality television. We achieve this through a close reading of the DR series I am the Ambassador/Jeg er ambassadøren fra Amerika (2014–2016), ‘starring’ the real US ambassador to Denmark. We situate Ambassador within the evolving space of ‘new diplomacy’ through an evaluation of how it imagines, popularises, and expands ‘everyday’ sites of diplomacy via mass-mediation. However, as we argue, the series – when viewed holistically – says more about the Danish state and its people than it does about the role of the US ambassador, thus functioning as a tool of nation branding as much at home as abroad.

Commodifying Black Expressivity: Race and the Representational Politics of Streetball

2020 ◽  
pp. 216747952094522
Author(s):  
Brandon Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Television Show ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Representational Politics ◽  
Black Bodies

The distinct style of basketball popularly termed “streetball” is inextricably linked to Black bodies, spaces, and forms of expression. Although streetball operates as a Black cultural repertoire constituted in response to historical marginalization, I demonstrate how representations of streetball in mainstream media are underpinned by, and thus reify, harmful racial logics that circulate throughout even purportedly innocuous forms of popular culture in the “colorblind” neoliberal moment. Through a textual analysis of three of the most culturally renowned media representations of streetball—the television show AND1 Mixtape Tour, the video game series NBA Street, and the film Uncle Drew—I argue that streetball is depicted as illustrative of the perceived pathological and inferior nature of Blackness; romanticized and divorced from the structural contexts of its production; and materially and symbolically exploited by corporate commercial entities. I conclude by reflecting on how mediated commodification often participates in reproducing, trivializing, and concealing the effects of structural racism and suggest that critical analyses of the politics of popular culture must inform anti-racist objectives.

Alternative hybrid media in Greece: An analysis through the prism of political economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lambrini Papadopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Ownership Structures ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
National Cooperative ◽  
Insight Into

This article explores Greek alternative media, records their hybridity and analyses them under the prism of political economy. Drawing theoretically on researchers who emphasize the elusiveness and heterogeneity of alternative media and examining them on account of their ownership structures, production practices and media content, I propose their conceptualization as a vibrant organism in a constant dialectic relationship with mainstream media. These ‘alternative hybrid media’ may borrow people, ideas and practices from mainstream media, but they do not compromise their values for the pursuit of profit or political power. This article focuses on Efimerida ton Syntakton, the country’s first national cooperative newspaper, which emerged out of a collective of laid-off journalists and constitutes a representative example of the hybridity that characterizes the Greek alternative media ecosystem. Based on interviews with journalists and secondary data, this article aims to point to the defining characteristics of ‘alternative hybrid media’ and generate a deeper insight into the complex area of alternative media.

In Love with Inspector Morse: Feminist Subculture and Quality Television

1995 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyn Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Discussion Group ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Gender Representation ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

This article consists of textual analysis of a highly successful television series, Inspector Morse, combined with qualitative audience study. The study of Morse and the fan culture surrounding it is presented in the context of a discussion of recent feminist work on the texts and audiences of popular culture. The textual analysis focuses on those elements of the programmes which contribute to its success as ‘quality’ television, and particularly on Morse as an example of the role played by nostalgic representations of Englishness in ‘quality’ media texts of the 1980s. The article goes on to discuss whether the presence of such representations in these programmes leads inevitably to a convergence of ‘quality’ and conservative ideology. The discussion of the ideological subtexts of the programmes then focuses on the area of gender representation, and on the extent to which feminist influences are discernible in this example of quality popular culture, particularly in its representations of masculinity. The second part of the article presents an analysis of a discussion group involving fans of the series, which was organized as part of a larger qualitative study of the fan culture surrounding the programmes. There is a detailed discussion of the impact of the social dynamics of the group on their readings of Morse. The analysis also focuses on the ways in which the discourses identified in the textual analysis, such as gender representation, quality and Englishness, are mobilized in talk about the programmes. Finally, the nature of the group made it possible to discuss the construction of a feminist subcultural identity in talk about a mainstream media text, and to identify irony and critical distance as key components of that identity, particularly in the discussion of the pleasures offered by the romance narratives of the programmes.

scholarly journals The role of popular media in 2016 US presidential election memes

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyra Osten Hunting
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Harry Potter ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Star Wars ◽  
Female Candidates ◽  
Female Politicians ◽  
Us Presidential Election

The 2016 US presidential election was marked by the extensive role that social media played in the construction of the candidates as well as by the growth of a number of forms of digital political rhetoric, including memes. The subgenre of popular culture–based political memes that draw on well-known entertainment media, particularly those with large fandoms like Star Wars and Harry Potter, reveal inequities in gender representation in entertainment media that are subsequently virally deployed. Memes based on popular culture that are designed to celebrate female candidates are disadvantaged by having a more limited popular culture lexicon than do memes featuring male candidates. This imbalance is compounded by the ways negative stereotypes of women already present in popular culture can be deployed in these memes, often in ways that align with the framing of news that works to police female politicians. The popular culture materials deployed by memes work to exacerbate existing prejudices and inequities.

scholarly journals Six ways alt-left media legitimatize their criticism of mainstream media: An analysis of The Canary and Evolve Politics (2015–19)

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Cushion
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Media Report ◽  
Media Reporting ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Close Textual Analysis

In recent years, new alternative left-wing media sites in the United Kingdom – labelled alt-left media – have become popular sources of news. They often focus their attention on the ‘MSM’, an acronym used to pejoratively represent ‘mainstream media’. But there has been limited academic attention about how these new alternative media report mainstream media and critique professional journalism. Drawing on a highly focused dataset of 158 stories from a sample of 1284 articles, this study examined two alt-left media sites in the United Kingdom, The Canary and Evolve Politics, from 2015 to 2019, and identified six specific ways they legitimized their criticism of mainstream media. This involved the constant surveillance of mainstream media reporting, questioning editorial judgements with close textual analysis and drawing on authoritative sources to substantiate claims. It is argued that more research is needed to understand how alternative media are delegitimizing the value of professional journalism.

Parallel Discourses and “Appropriate” Bodies: Media Constructions of Anorexia and Obesity in the Cases of Tracey Gold and Carnie Wilson

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie E. Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Media Images ◽  
Media Constructions ◽  
Cultural Body ◽  
Two Bodies

Mass media images of gender, beauty, and women have been at the heart of many feminist arguments about the need for change in our understanding of gender and the role it plays in our day-to-day existence. The role of a body, much like the role of a woman, is also negotiated between the pages and airwaves of a popular culture that precariously favors particular excessive behaviors and norms. A textual analysis of the popular press discourse surrounding two bodies, prominently defined in popular culture, demonstrates specific rhetorical strategies at work in the construction of the “appropriate” cultural body. This article explores how these two bodies are positioned at the border of cultural intelligibility and how these bodies, acting as discourse themselves, speak to culture and reify their positions on the margins.

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