Feminist Politics of Emotions and Critical Digital Pedagogies: A Call to Action

Emotions, and truths, are in crisis. in 2005, halfway through the stunning legacy of the bush-cheney-rumsfeld trifecta, stephen colbert kicked off the debut of The Colbert Report and his parodic critique of mendacious politicians and news outlets like Fox by popularizing the notion of “truthiness.” Welcome to the brave new world where felt truths replace facts! The concept of truthiness spread like wildfire, capturing the global zeitgeist. The public crisis of faith in traditionally trusted sources of authority reflects a profound skepticism experienced by many around the world besides discerning dissidents: all we are certain of is that truths proffered by governments, the media, and corporations are constructions (Boler, “Daily Show”; Boler with Turpin). But when we add to this mix the interests of corporate capitalism and science in designing citizens, can we even trust truthiness, what “I feel… to be true”? Or, as Samantha asks in the film Her, “Am I feeling these feelings? Are they mine? Or are they programmed?”

Download Full-text

The Impact of Media Censorship: 1984 or Brave New World?

The American Economic Review ◽

10.1257/aer.20171765 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 109 (6) ◽

pp. 2294-2332 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Yuyu Chen ◽

David Y. Yang

Keyword(s):

New World ◽

Authoritarian Regimes ◽

Social Transmission ◽

Free Access ◽

Sensitive Information ◽

Transmission Of Information ◽

The Media ◽

Brave New World ◽

The Impact ◽

Media Censorship

Media censorship is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. We conduct a field experiment in China to measure the effects of providing citizens with access to an uncensored internet. We track subjects’ media consumption, beliefs regarding the media, economic beliefs, political attitudes, and behaviors over 18 months. We find four main results: (i) free access alone does not induce subjects to acquire politically sensitive information; (ii) temporary encouragement leads to a persistent increase in acquisition, indicating that demand is not permanently low; (iii) acquisition brings broad, substantial, and persistent changes to knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and intended behaviors; and (iv) social transmission of information is statistically significant but small in magnitude. We calibrate a simple model to show that the combination of low demand for uncensored information and the moderate social transmission means China’s censorship apparatus may remain robust to a large number of citizens receiving access to an uncensored internet. (JEL C93, D72, D83, L82, L86, L88, P36)

Download Full-text

Museums at the Crossroads: Between Digitality, Reality, and COVID-19

10.31235/osf.io/2g567 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Tula Giannini ◽

Jonathan P. Bowen

Keyword(s):

Performing Arts ◽

New World ◽

Daily Routine ◽

The Public ◽

Public Square ◽

Work From Home ◽

The Arts ◽

Life Itself ◽

Brave New World ◽

The Impact

When Covid-19 rushed into our lives, it sent shockwaves across the globe – suddenly we faced “lockdown” – we said goodbye to the way it was but did not understand what this brave new world of isolation and separation would mean and how it would the impact life as we knew it – our identity, relationships and freedoms we enjoyed, and wondered what daily routine post-Covid-19 would look like, while the experiences defining life itself were up for grabs. With social distancing, masks and work from home mandates, the arts and performing arts from theatres, museums, galleries and the public square were shuttered – their very existence challenged and spiralling out of control as staff were laid-off, exhibitions cancelled while concurrently creating an urgency to go online to dwell in cyberspace, the new daily destination.

Download Full-text

The Unsafe Spaces of Theatre and Feminism in India

Theatre Research International ◽

10.1017/s0307883311000812 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 77-79 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

BISHNUPRIYA DUTT

Keyword(s):

Visual Culture ◽

Public Sphere ◽

Identity Construction ◽

Electronic Media ◽

Sudden Expansion ◽

Political Imagination ◽

The Public ◽

Feminist Politics ◽

Chief Minister ◽

The Media

In April 2011, after thirty-five years in power, the left-oriented progressive rule in Bengal, India, was brought down. Masterminding the overthrow was Mamata Banerjee. Banerjee has enjoyed a political career spanning over twenty years, during which time she has succeeded in maintaining a high public profile in the media and public sphere to become Bengal's first ‘woman’ chief minister. Surprisingly, during her campaign Banerjee neither asserted her identity as a woman nor as the non-feminine, monstrous presence of the public woman (à la Indira Ghandi's media presence in the 1970s), but rather performed a non-threatening, gender-neutral didi (elder sister in Bengali). I attribute this ‘smooth’ identity construction to a comfortable entente between a Western globalized visual culture, indigenous images commodified and circulating on the periphery, and the sudden expansion of electronic media. The convergence of all these factors served to create a non-dialectical identity construction which stood against all feminist politics or, as I would call it, feminism with a political imagination.

Download Full-text

Vaccine Rejection and Hesitancy: A Review and Call to Action

Open Forum Infectious Diseases ◽

10.1093/ofid/ofx146 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 39

Author(s):

Tara C Smith

Keyword(s):

Infectious Diseases ◽

Direct Contact ◽

Healthcare Professionals ◽

Medical Professionals ◽

Call To Action ◽

The Public ◽

Vaccine Refusal ◽

The Us ◽

The Media

Abstract Vaccine refusal has been a recurring story in the media for well over a decade. Although there is scant evidence that refusal is genuinely increasing in the population, multiple studies have demonstrated concerning patterns of decline of confidence in vaccines, the medical professionals who administer vaccines, and the scientists who study and develop vaccines. As specialists in microbiology, immunology, and infectious diseases, scientists are content experts but often lack the direct contact with individuals considering vaccination for themselves or their children that healthcare professionals have daily. This review examines the arguments and players in the US antivaccination scene, and it discusses ways that experts in infectious diseases can become more active in promoting vaccination to friends, family, and the public at large.

Download Full-text

The Game and Simulation Analysis of the Government, the Media and the Public in Public Crisis Event

DEStech Transactions on Environment Energy and Earth Science ◽

10.12783/dteees/peem2016/5078 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Long-ying HU ◽

Jing-wei DONG ◽

Yong ZHAO

Keyword(s):

Simulation Analysis ◽

The Public ◽

Public Crisis ◽

The Media ◽

The Government

Download Full-text

The media’s role in shaping the public opinion on education: A thematic and frame analysis of externalisation to world situations in the Portuguese media

Research in Comparative and International Education ◽

10.1177/17454999211057753 ◽

2022 ◽

pp. 174549992110577

Author(s):

Íris Santos ◽

Luís Miguel Carvalho ◽

Benedita Portugal e Melo

Keyword(s):

Public Opinion ◽

Frame Analysis ◽

Social World ◽

Double Reduction ◽

The Public ◽

The Social ◽

Sources Of Authority ◽

The Media ◽

Media Communications

This article uses thematisation theory (Luhmann, 1996; Pissarra Esteves, 2016) and frame analysis (Entman, 1993) to analyse externalisations to world situations (Schriewer, 1990) in the Portuguese print media’s discussion of education. Our data constitutes news and opinion articles collected after each PISA cycle’s results was published. The analysis demonstrates that the education themes discussed in the media between 2001 and 2017 are consistent, despite occasionally being discussed more intensively, frequently following the themes highlighted by PISA reports and OECD media communications. The frames used for these themes are more diverse, changing according to the speaker’s agenda and viewpoints. Externalisations (frequently PISA, OECD, and other participants in the survey) serve as sources of authority that help in thematising and framing education. This process works as a mechanism of double reduction for the complexity of the social world, narrowing the possibilities of how education is seen and interpreted by the public.

Download Full-text