scholarly journals The Nordic Model of Whiteness and Exceptionalism: Representation of Otherness in Some Nordic Film and Television

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ružica Radulović

Race is a controversial question in the Global North, especially in those environments that consider themselves to be colorblind, while in fact they are predominantly white. This seems to be particularly the case in the Nordic countries, where the concepts of equality and egality are central to the mutual feeling of identity and where the racial discourse is marked by the prohibition of racial discrimination. By reducing the category of race to something fictive, one cannot address it openly in the contemporary Nordic societies. Therefore, this paper deals with the representation of Otherness – external and internal – in the Nordic film and television. As the paper focuses on the closely related notions of Nordic whiteness and Nordic exceptionalism, it is based on the categorial apparatus of postcolonial studies. The main hypothesis is that the widely spread positive hetero image of the Nordic region as socially open, tolerant and free, is undermined by the media representation of the identity of Other, where the prejudices, racism and paternalism towards the non-white population (and especially the non-white immigration) are being disclosed. The aim of the paper is to reveal how film and television, as potential correctives of the existing stereotypes, can reflect the ever changing political, cultural and social circumstances and by that, how (and whether) this image of Otherness necessarily corresponds to the narrative of exceptionalism and whiteness of the Nordic region. Nordic exceptionalism, together with Nordic whiteness as the integral part of the broader feeling of the Nordic identity, has become a part of the common political discourse and an object of discussion within the field of popular culture, literature and film. Still, the sense of one own’s exceptionalism has become a subject of critical debate, a myth to be debunked, as the phenomena such as the escalation of ethnic violence have marked the recent years in the Nordic societies. This development of the social, cultural and political circumstances has been reflected in the contemporary Nordic media production (film and television) and continues to be analyzed. The image of the Nordics, as being inherently white and homogenous, has thus been exposed as artificial and constructed.

Tripodos ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 131-146
Author(s):  
Viktorija Car ◽  
Barbara Ravbar

Violence against women and girls in the 21st century remains a common and profoundly consequential violation of women’s human rights. It is part of gender inequality, an integral part of the social system, and linked to other aspects of human and economic development. When reporting about it, the media produce additional damage by continuously highlighting the hostile and violent treatment of women. Representations of gender and sexuality in the news reinforce the common perception that women are sexual objects and therefore disadvantage women, continuously reinforcing imbalances of power between women and men. This study explores media representations in Croatian online media articles about violence against women. The results of analysis show how violence against women is framed as a private problem, how women are addressed as unfaithful wives and prostitutes which gives excuses for the perpetrator while the blame for the violence is partly shifted to the woman. Also, results show how the secondary victimization is manifested in articles, and how violence against women as a topic is exploited to attract the readers’ attention.


2020 ◽  
Vol 82 (7) ◽  
pp. 611-627
Author(s):  
Ylva Rodny-Gumede

Comparative media systems theory has failed to pronounce on trajectories of media development in postcolonial societies in a meaningful way, as media development in postcolonial societies has been analysed from within normative liberal frameworks emanating from North America and Western Europe and later transitional societies in Eastern Europe and East Asia, societies with histories quite separate from the Colonial heritage and legacies that have, and keep, influencing the media–politics nexus in many postcolonial societies. To expand the analysis of media development in postcolonial societies, postcolonial studies have much to add to comparative media systems analysis, not only to expand the analysis beyond the global North but also for the analysis of global disruptions that are challenging normative models of media systems analysis.


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 500-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eero Vaara

This article focuses on the discursive underpinnings of the legitimacy crisis that the Eurozone as a transnational institution is facing. By adopting a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective, the empirical analysis focuses on the media discussion in Finland. The analysis shows how discourses of financial capitalism, humanism, nationalism and Europeanism played a central role in legitimation, delegitimation and relegitimation. Furthermore, the analysis elaborates on the legitimation strategies that were often used in the media texts: position-based authorizations involving institutionalized authorities and ‘voices of the common man’, knowledge-based authorizations focusing on economic expertise, rationalizations concentrating on economic arguments, moral evaluations based on unfairness used especially for delegitimation, mythopoiesis involving alternative future scenarios and cosmology used to construct inevitability. By so doing, this study adds to our understanding of the discursive and ideological underpinnings of the social, political and financial crisis in Greece and other European countries and contributes to research on discursive legitimation more generally.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Jacob Burmeister ◽  
Robert Carels

People with obesity are often the target of disparaging humour. The typical derision of obesity found in everyday life also extends into the realm of the media. Many assumptions have been made about the effects this type of humour may have on the public’s attitudes toward people with obesity, but little empirical research exists. In the present research, two studies sought to uncover whether jokes and humorous media depictions of people with obesity affect individuals’ attitudes. In Study 1, participants (N = 271) either read a list of derogatory jokes about obesity, read a list of derogatory comments about obesity, or read a list of jokes that were unrelated to obesity. All participants were then asked to report their 1) attitudes toward people with obesity in several domains, 2) level of belief in stereotypes about obesity and 3) judgement of the social acceptability of jokes about obesity. Participants’ scores on these dependent measures did not differ across groups suggesting obesity jokes do not have an immediate impact on attitudes. In Study 2, participants (N = 146) were shown video clips from film and television programmes that featured derogatory humour targeting obese characters. Again, participants’ scores on dependent measures did not differ across groups. The results of these studies suggest that brief exposure to derogatory weight-related humour may not affect individuals’ attitudes toward people with obesity as might be assumed. Longer exposure to disparaging humour may be required to shift individuals’ attitudes about people with obesity


2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (119) ◽  
pp. 35-54
Author(s):  
Devika Sharma

In this article I examine a recurrent critique of humanitarianism and humanitarian phenomena, a critique centering on the presumably anti-political and emotionally complacent nature of such phenomena. But from which position, I ask, does it make sense to critique the humanitarian culture in which we live. In discussing these issues, I take as my point of departure the satirical campaign video Radi-Aid by the fictitious humanitarian NGO, Africa for Norway. This spoof campaign parodies humanitarian aesthetics, humanitarian emotions, as well as the stereotyping typically involved in humanitarian campaigns. Yet, for all its satirizing it does not make a clean break with the very humanitarian culture whose negative aspects it aims to expose. The criticality of the Africa for Norway initiative is thus clearly constrained, but does this imply that the satire is doomed to sheer complicity with the social dynamics it questions? My interest is these issues stems from dissatisfaction with the common notion that a relevant critique of humanitarian relations between the global North and the global South must be a critique of macro level political economy.


Author(s):  
Cássio Eduardo Soares Miranda

Este ensaio tem como objetivo analisar os discursos construídos acerca da violência urbana pela revista Veja online no intuito de se verificar o modo de organização do discurso acerca do tema, bem como os saberes compartilhados pela revista. Assume como referencial as teorizações sobre o discurso midiático proposto por P. Charaudeau e seus efeitos nos imaginários sociais a partir de J. Lacan. Metodologicamente, o ensaio descreve o corpus coletado, apresenta as regularidades discursivas, identifica suas visadas e demonstra  a intencionalidade do veículo de comunicação. Por fim, apresenta os critérios comuns que regem a construção do discurso informativo. Como resultado preliminar, contata-se o uso recorrente da encenação argumentativa pelo sujeito argumentante jornalista com predomínio de fórmulas discursivas que acionam valores compartilhados por um grupo tendo em vista o alcance do horizonte de expectativas desse grupo pela fabricação do consenso social.Abstract: This essay aims to analyze the discourses about urban violence by Veja online magazine to verify the way of organizing the discourse about the theme, as well as the knowledge shared by the magazine. It assumes as reference the theories on the media discourses proposed by P. Charaudeau and its effects on the social imaginaries from J. Lacan. Methodologically, the essay describes the collected corpus, presents the discursive regularities, identifies its aims and demonstrates the intentionality of the communication vehicle. Finally, it presents the common criteria that govern the construction of informative discourse. As a preliminary result, we contact the recurrent use of argumentative staging by the argumentative journalist subject with a predominance of discursive formulas that trigger values shared by a group in order to reach the expectations horizon of this group by the fabrication of social consensus.


Crisis ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 163-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Warwick Blood ◽  
Jane Pirkis

Summary: The body of evidence suggests that there is a causal association between nonfictional media reporting of suicide (in newspapers, on television, and in books) and actual suicide, and that there may be one between fictional media portrayal (in film and television, in music, and in plays) and actual suicide. This finding has been explained by social learning theory. The majority of studies upon which this finding is based fall into the media “effects tradition,” which has been criticized for its positivist-like approach that fails to take into account of media content or the capacity of audiences to make meaning out of messages. A cultural studies approach that relies on discourse and frame analyses to explore meanings, and that qualitatively examines the multiple meanings that audiences give to media messages, could complement the effects tradition. Together, these approaches have the potential to clarify the notion of what constitutes responsible reporting of suicide, and to broaden the framework for evaluating media performance.


1969 ◽  
Vol 21 (01) ◽  
pp. 001-011 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Onoyama ◽  
K Tanaka

SummaryThe tissue fibrinolysis was studied in 550 specimens of 7 kinds of arteries from 80 fresh cadavers, using Astrup’s biochemical method and Todd’s histochemical method with human fibrinogen.In the microscopically normal aortic wall, almost all specimens had the fibrinolytic activity which was the strongest in the adventitia and the weakest in the media.The fibrinolytic activity seemed to be localized in the endothelium.The stronger activity lay in the adventitia of the aorta and the pulmonary artery and all layers of the cerebral artery.The activity of the intima and media of the macroscopically normal areas seemed to be stronger in the internal carotid artery than in the common carotid artery.Mean fibrinolytic activity of the macroscopically normal areas seemed to decrease with age in the intima and the media of the thoracic aorta and seemed to be low in the cases with a high atherosclerotic index.The fibrinolytic activities of all three layers of the fibrous thickened aorta seemed to decrease, and those of the media and the adventitia of the atheromatous plaque to increase.The fibrinolytic activity of the arterial wall might play some role in the progress of atherosclerosis.


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):  
Walter D. Mignolo

This book is an extended argument about the “coloniality” of power. In a shrinking world where sharp dichotomies, such as East/West and developing/developed, blur and shift, this book points to the inadequacy of current practices in the social sciences and area studies. It explores the crucial notion of “colonial difference” in the study of the modern colonial world and traces the emergence of an epistemic shift, which the book calls “border thinking.” Further, the book expands the horizons of those debates already under way in postcolonial studies of Asia and Africa by dwelling on the genealogy of thoughts of South/Central America, the Caribbean, and Latino/as in the United States. The book's concept of “border gnosis,” or sensing and knowing by dwelling in imperial/colonial borderlands, counters the tendency of occidentalist perspectives to manage, and thus limit, understanding. A new preface discusses this book as a dialogue with Hegel's Philosophy of History.


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