scholarly journals Moroccan Facebook Visual Narratives and Cultural Production

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-51
Author(s):  
Driss Faddouli

In this paper, I argue that the creation and circulation of the visual narratives within Facebook groups by Moroccan Facebookers largely entail and substantiate a stronger process of cultural production that has its own logic and praxis. I argue that this process of cultural production has two major facets: an aestheticization of everyday life and promulgation of specific modes of consciousness. Through the aestheticization of everyday life, I posit that Moroccan youth’s acts of cultural production increasingly blur the formal boundaries between the Internet, art, and popular culture; an aspect which fundamentally empowers their creative online input. Through the promulgation of specific modes of consciousness, I argue that the visual narratives attempt to develop and enhance the cultural sensibilities which better champion their perceptions and stances. Taken together, I claim that these major manifestations of the process of cultural production, while being deeply wedded to the Gramscian and Foucauldian perception of power dynamics, set the tone for an underlying struggle over power and meaning-making in the Moroccan society, thus seeking to intervene and exploit the gaps and contradictions in these power dynamics in society.

Author(s):  
Anita L. Cloete

The reflection on film will be situated within the framework of popular culture and livedreligion as recognised themes within the discipline of practical theology. It is argued that theperspective of viewers is of importance within the process of meaning-making. By focusing onthe experience and meaning-making through the act of film-watching the emphasis is not somuch on the message that the producer wishes to convey but rather on the experience that iscreated within the viewer. Experience is not viewed as only emotional, but rather that, at least,both the cognitive and emotional are key in the act of watching a film. It is therefore arguedthat this experience that is seldom reflected on by viewers could serve as a fruitful platform formeaning-making by the viewer. In a context where there seems to be a decline in institutionalisedforms of religion, it is important to investigate emerging forms of religion. Furthermore, theturn to the self also makes people’s experiences and practices in everyday life valuableresources for theological reflection. This reflection could provide a theoretical framework forespecially empirical research on how film as specific form of media serves as a religiousresource and plays a role in the construction of meaning and religious identity.


Author(s):  
Maskur .

The development of popular culture, particularly, in the development of information technology such as as television, mobile phones, and the Internet, have an impact on the creation of a new reality called hyper-reality. Media, in this case, is able to reconstruct a new reality through the sophisticated technology. The construction of this medium also penetrates the religious area. This can be seen in the figure of Abdullah Gymnastiar (Aa Gym). Through the medium of information, Aa Gym is not only seen as a religious teacher who offers a depth of spirituality but also as a celebrity through the image formed. This paper aims to identify and describe the phenomenon of celebrity cleric/ ustadz Abdullah Gymnastiar in popular culture, using hyper-semiotics approach of Yasraf Amir Piliang. This paper attempts to explain the new reality of diversity of Abdullah Gymnastiar. Through the hyper-semiotics approach, religious hyper-reality form can be described scientifically.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kris M Markman

This paper explores the distinctions between mass and vernacular popular culture as manifestedin the fan productions of Star Trek fans. Fan-produced video represents an opportunity forordinary people to take the means of cultural production into their own hands. However, becauseof its roots in an already-existing, culture industry-produced world, there may exist limits to theamount of resistance this form of vernacular culture can provide. To explore these tensions, Icompare two fan film productions based on the popular Star Trek television and movie franchise.These two productions, both of which are distributed through the Internet, illustrate the differentlevels of attachment to and freedom from the main text that characterize much of fan film.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 223
Author(s):  
Claudia Janneth Jaramillo Sánchez

Se problematiza la configuración de las relaciones arte-biología en clave de las prácticas educativas contemporáneas, y sus nexos con la tecnología, punto concomitante en los modos de relación de las prácticas y discursos circundantes sobre la constitución de lo vivo y la vida como campo de acción de la biología, cuyo tinte histórico insta a poner en cuestión conceptos como evolución, género o especie a través del bioarte, práctica atravesada por la interdisciplinariedad, pero también, por las maneras en que circulan saberes de diversa índole, a través de escenarios de divulgación que además del laboratorio o la escuela, involucran el museo, la calle o la internet como lugares de apropiación de la cotidianidad. Las nociones de “vivo” y “vida”, se interpelan en la creación de obras de arte con las que el sujeto activa su inquietud por las condiciones que hacen posible su existencia y la de otros, toda vez que, permiten visibilizar nuevos modos de explorar, sentir y experimentar aquello que venimos siendo. Reescribir la historia de las prácticas educativas contemporáneas, implica dar una mirada a la investigación, más allá de una receta con resultados previsibles con los que se ausenta la inquietud y la sorpresa. La educación es susceptible de investigar desde diversas aristas que enriquecen su problematización al comprender que los saberes, las prácticas y los sujetos hacen parte de este gran tejido, ese camino no es univoco, se bifurca.* * *The configuration of art-biology relationships is problematized in the key of contemporary educational practices, and its links with technology, a concomitant point in the modes of relation of practices and surrounding discourses on the constitution of the living and life as a field of action of biology, whose historical tinge urges to question concepts such as evolution, gender or species through bio-art, practice crossed by interdisciplinarity, but also, by the ways in which knowledge of various kinds circulate, through scenarios of disclosure that in addition to the laboratory or school, involve the museum, the street or the internet as places of appropriation of everyday life. The notions of "living" and "life" are interpellated in the creation of works of art that activates the person, his concern about the conditions that make possible his existence and that of others, because it allows to make visible new ways of exploring, feeling and experimenting what we come being. Rewriting the history of contemporary educational practices implies looking at research, beyond a recipe with predictable results with which concern and surprise are absent. Education is susceptible to research from various angles that enrich its problematization for understanding that knowledge, practices and subjects are part of this great fabric, that path is not univocal, it bifurcates.


Author(s):  
Hannah Cornwell

This book examines the two generations that spanned the collapse of the Republic and the Augustan period to understand how the concept of pax Romana, as a central ideology of Roman imperialism, evolved. The author argues for the integral nature of pax in understanding the changing dynamics of the Roman state through civil war to the creation of a new political system and world-rule. The period of the late Republic to the early Principate involved changes in the notion of imperialism. This is the story of how peace acquired a central role within imperial discourse over the course of the collapse of the Republican framework to become deployed in the legitimization of the Augustan regime. It is an examination of the movement from the debates over the content of the concept, in the dying Republic, to the creation of an authorized version controlled by the princeps, through an examination of a series of conceptions about peace, culminating with the pax augusta as the first crystallization of an imperial concept of peace. Just as there existed not one but a series of ideas concerning Roman imperialism, so too were there numerous different meanings, applications, and contexts within which Romans talked about ‘peace’. Examining these different nuances allows us insight into the ways they understood power dynamics, and how these were contingent on the political structures of the day. Roman discourses on peace were part of the wider discussion on the way in which Rome conceptualized her Empire and ideas of imperialism.


Author(s):  
Laurence Maslon

A generational change at the beginning of the twenty-first century intersected with the technological advance of the Internet to provide a renaissance of Broadway music in popular culture. Downloading playlists allowed the home listener to become, in essence, his/her own record producer; length, narrative, performer were now all in the hands of the consumer’s personal preference. Following in the footsteps of Rent (as a favorite of a younger demographic), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton emerged as the greatest pop culture/Broadway musical phenomenon of the twenty-first century; its cast album and cover recording shot up near the top of music’s pop charts. A rediscovery of the power of Broadway’s music to transform listening and consumer habits seems imminent with the addition of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen to a devoted fan base—and beyond.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110194
Author(s):  
Rashid Yahiaoui ◽  
Marwa J Aldous ◽  
Ashraf Fattah

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The aim of this study is to investigate the sociolinguistic functions of code-switching and its relation to the meaning-making process by using the animated series Kim Possible as a case study. Design/methodology/approach: This study employs Muysken’s taxonomy to draw on code-switching patterns in lexico-grammar in relation to human behavior. The study also uses the functional approaches of Muysken and Appel and Gumperz as binary investigatory frameworks to locate interlingual and intralingual code-switching particularities and to elaborate on code-switching functions. Data and analysis: The analysis encompasses 48 episodes. Firstly, we extracted and transcribed code-switching occurrences in light of Muysken’s typology episode-by-episode and categorized them according to their code-switching type (interlingual or intralingual). Secondly, we quantified the occurrences according to their syntactic form to make more systematic claims about code-switching patterns. Next, we triangulated the patterns by examining the context of utterances and extralinguistic factors in the original series vis-à-vis the dubbed version to draw upon information beyond the structure or grammar. Findings/conclusions: The Arabic dubbed version was able to communicate the characters’ cosmopolitan diversity, which correlates with the series’ sense of linguistic modernity and humor. At the same time, the Arabic version was able to portray the extralinguistic reality of Lebanon and its multi-linguistic tapestry. Originality: This research is original because it focuses on Lebanese-Arabic, a dialect seldom discussed in the context of translation. The research also examines language variations in the context of dubbed discourse, where code-switching is integrally pertinent to visual-signs and the cultural background of characters. Significance/implications: The study recognizes the intricacy of code-switching as a reflective phenomenon of social reality and power dynamics; therefore, it contributes in the fields of translation and sociolinguistics.


2008 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 75-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
AbdouMaliq Simone

Abstract:In contemporary urban Africa, the turbulence of the city requires incessant innovation that is capable of generating new ways of being. Rather than treating popular culture as some distinctive sector, this article attempts to investigate the popular as methods of bringing together activities and actors that on the surface would not seem compatible, and as experimental forms of generating value in the everyday life of urban residents. This investigation, sited largely in Douala, Cameroon, looks at how youth from varying neighborhoods attempt to get by, and at the unexpected forms of contestation that can ensue.


Politics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandria J Innes ◽  
Robert J Topinka

This article examines the ways in which popular culture stages and supplies resources for agency in everyday life, with particular attention to migration and borders. Drawing upon cultural studies, and specific insights originating from the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, we explore how intersectional identities such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender are experienced in relation to the globalisation of culture and identity in a 2007 Coronation Street storyline. The soap opera genre offers particular insights into how agency emerges in everyday life as migrants and locals navigate the forces of globalisation. We argue that a focus on popular culture can mitigate the problem of isolating migrant experiences from local experiences in migrant-receiving areas.


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