scholarly journals Deep Mediatization: Rethinking a Figurational Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 664-671
Author(s):  
Evgeniya G. Nim

The article analyzes the possibilities and limitations of the figurative approach to the deep mediatization study, developed by Andreas Hepp and Nick Couldrie. To what extent is figurative theoretical optics sensitive to the processes of social worlds and practices transformation under the media influence? What are the possible directions of revision and further development of this approach? The figurative approach to deep mediatization is a powerful theoretical tool to explore this complex, non-linear meta-process. Focusing on figurations helps to avoid media centrism and emphasize the social life procedurality. At the same time, the figurations concept (understood as collectives, organizations, and institutions) raises some questions. In particular, the thesis about special media ensembles inherent in different figurations does not always work. This is due to the emergence of multifunctional platforms that can become a single digital infrastructure for many figurations. Such platforms have the potential of the ecosystem for a mediatized social life. Further analysis of the relationship between figurations and platforms is required, which does not reduce platforms only to the technological component of figurations. Bridging the deep divide between human actors and technology would also lead to new readings of medialogics (such as human-machine logics).

Ethnicities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 708-730
Author(s):  
Iwona Kaliszewska

It has recently become increasingly popular for small entrepreneurs in Dagestan to introduce elements of Islamic economy into their everyday economic practices. In my paper, I take a closer look at everyday life and the ways of conducting business among small entrepreneurs in Makhachkala, the capital of the Republic of Dagestan in the Russian Federation.  In order to scrutinize the relationship between everyday religious observance, space and economic practices within a broader socio-political context, I introduce the term ‘halal landscape’. ‘Halal landscapes’ emerge through the gradual infusion of Islam into the sphere of economic activities, where they form ‘Islam-inspired’ social spaces, in which economic and moral dimensions are interwoven with formal and informal norms and regulations, and where social life – the area of interaction between human and non-human actors – has its unique materiality and temporality.  In my paper, I look into the halal landscapes of Dagestani entrepreneurs in Makhachkala and demonstrate the analytical potential of the term to study the social and cultural nature of Islam-inspired economic practices. Important elements of these halal landscapes include the avoidance of deception and usury, promotion of honesty and observance in the workplace, payment of zakat, as well as thorough knowledge about these issues.  My analysis is based on the results of multi-temporal fieldwork conducted in Makhachkala in 2017–2019 as well as on earlier field observations gathered during regular visits in 2004–2016.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 152-159
Author(s):  
Vladimir V. Krivosheev

The review reveals the basic conceptions elaborated by one of the major Russian modern sociologists Zh.T. Toshchenko in his new research. The reviewer argues that the book’s author thoroughly examines the various methodological grounds for identifying the essential characteristics of social dynamics. At the same time, the reviewer focuses on the further development of the theory of modern society, proposed by the book’s author. Thus, Zh.T. Toshchenko, who spent many years researching social deformations, formulates an important concept – the concept of a society of trauma as the third modality of social development along with evolution and revolution. The book offers a fundamentally new view of social life, there is a holistic, systematic approach to all its processes and phenomena. The reviewer concludes that the new book of the social theorist Zh.T. Toshchenko is a significant contribution to sociological theory, since it develops ideas about the state and prospects of Russian society, gives accurate assessments of all social processes.


Human Affairs ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-364
Author(s):  
Cristiana Senigaglia

AbstractAlthough Max Weber does not specifically analyze the topic of esteem, his investigation of the Protestant ethic offers interesting insights into it. The change in mentality it engendered essentially contributed to enhancing the meaning and importance of esteem in modern society. In his analysis, Weber ascertains that esteem was fundamental to being accepted and integrated into the social life of congregations. Nevertheless, he also highlights that esteem was supported by a form of self-esteem which was not simply derived from a good social reputation, but also achieved through a deep and continual self-analysis as well as a strict discipline in the ethical conduct of life. The present analysis reconstructs the different aspects of the relationship between social and self-esteem and analyzes the consequences of that relationship by focusing on the exemplary case of the politician’s personality and ethic.


2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (2) ◽  
pp. 538-566
Author(s):  
Sandra Issel-Dombert

AbstractFrom a theoretical and empirical linguistic point of view, this paper emphasizes the importance of the relationship between populism and the media. The aim of this article is to explore the language use of the Spanish right wing populism party Vox on the basis of its multimodal postings on the social network Instagram. For the analysis of their Instagram account, a suitable multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) provides a variety of methods and allows a theoretical integration into constructivism. A hashtag-analysis reveals that Vox’s ideology consists of a nativist and ethnocentric nationalism on the one hand and conservatism on the other. With a topos analysis, the linguistic realisations of these core elements are illustrated with two case studies.


2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-705 ◽  
Author(s):  
RACHAEL DOBSON

AbstractThis article argues that constructions of social phenomena in social policy and welfare scholarship think about the subjects and objects of welfare practice in essentialising ways, with negativistic effects for practitioners working in ‘regulatory’ contexts such as housing and homelessness practice. It builds into debates about power, agency, social policy and welfare by bringing psychosocial and feminist theorisations of relationality to practice research. It claims that relational approaches provide a starting point for the analysis of empirical practice data, by working through the relationship between the individual and the social via an ontological unpicking and revisioning of practitioners' social worlds.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis Linnemann ◽  
Bill McClanahan

This paper engages the cultural politics of criminal classifications by aiming at one of the state’s most powerful, yet ambiguous markers—the ‘gang.’ Focusing on the unique cases of ‘crews’ and collectives within the ‘straight edge’ and ‘Juggalo’ subcultures, this paper considers what leads members of the media and police to construct—or fail to construct—these street collectives as gangs in a seemingly haphazard and disparate fashion. Juxtaposing media, cultural, and police representations of straight edge ‘crews’ and Juggalo collectives with the FBI’s Gang Threat Assessment, we detail how cultural politics and ideology underpin the social reality of gangs and thus the application of the police power. This paper, furthermore, considers critical conceptualizations of the relationship between police and criminal gangs.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Mônica Machado

Esse artigo objetiva refletir sobre as representações sociais das favelas cariocas em registros midiáticos ao longo os últimos anos, o crescente movimento do Favela-tour e seus paradoxos, bem como as suas implicações conceituais. Em seguida reflete sobre as experiências do turismo cultural do Museu de Favela, com destaque para o processo de criação do hotsite Museu de Favela Tour como dispositivo que faz circular o capital cultural comunitário. Todas essas noções associam-se aos pressupostos teóricos da cultura material, como um campo da antropologia que estuda as correlações entre objetos e inventários socioculturais e avança para o estudo da sub-linha da pesquisa da antropologia digital, onde as relações entre sujeitos sociais e tecnologias são imaginadas como reelaborações da sociabilidade que precedem a essa tradição e se predispõem a revelar as contradições sociais já dispostas na cultura.Social narratives about slum in Rio:the cultural-tourism in favela museum and digital activismAbstract This article aims to analyse favelas in Rio and also the media records about this issue, arguing that the Favela-tour concept can be seen as paradoxal process. Then will be debated Favela Museum’s cultural tourism heritage, highlighting the process of creating the Favela Museum Tour’s hotsite as a way of spread the favela’s legacy. All these notions are associated with the theoretical frame of material culture as a field of anthropology and links between socio-cultural objects and inventories. This research is called digital anthropology where the relationship between social and technology subject are imagined as re-workings of sociability that precedes this tradition, where the digital technologies are predisposed to share the social-cultural contradictions.


Harmoni ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-240
Author(s):  
M. Alie Humaedi

The relationship between Islam and Christianity in various regions is often confronted with situations caused by external factors. They no longer debate the theological aspect, but are based on the political economy and social culture aspects. In the Dieng village, the economic resources are mostly dominated by Christians as early Christianized product as the process of Kiai Sadrach's chronicle. Economic mastery was not originally as the main trigger of the conflict. However, as the political map post 1965, in which many Muslims affiliated to the Indonesian Communist Party convert to Christianity, the relationship between Islam and Christianity is heating up. The question of the dominance of political economic resources of Christians is questionable. This research to explore the socio cultural and religious impact of the conversion of PKI to Christian in rural Dieng and Slamet Pekalongan and Banjarnegara. This qualitative research data was extracted by in-depth interviews, observations and supported by data from Dutch archives, National Archives and Christian Synod of Salatiga. Research has found the conversion of the PKI to Christianity has sparked hostility and deepened the social relations of Muslims and Christians in Kasimpar, Petungkriono and Karangkobar. The culprit widened by involving the network of Wonopringgo Islamic Boarding. It is often seen that existing conflicts are no longer latent, but lead to a form of manifest conflict that decomposes in the practice of social life.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-101
Author(s):  
V. Constanza Ocampo-Raeder

In this article I present the social life of camarones, a Peruvian river crustacean used in some of the region’s favorite dishes, and the liminal space they occupy in the geography, minds, and ecosystem of Peru and its people. I situate the relationship between these crawfish and the folks who capture them, known as camaroneros, within insights of environmental anthropologists and food scholars who also explore the connections between cultural and biological diversity and the entangled socio-ecological histories that inform the manner in which nature is mediated and understood by local societies. In this article, however, I expand this understanding to reveal unexpected spaces of engagement, especially those that emerge while eating, which tend to be overlooked by bounded notions of culture and nature and limit the ways we can imagine human-nature relationships. Via the story of camarones and camaroneros of one river valley of Peru, I argue that eating is a socio-ecological act that is imbued with profound cultural meanings involving a wide range of participants—not just farmers or producers—each with their own ecological identities yet still implicitly linked to one another through the process of producing, preparing, and consuming food.


Author(s):  
Adam Wray

Darren O’Donnell (b. 1965) is a writer, director, actor, playwright, and designer, and the artistic director of the highly decorated Mammalian Diving Reflex. My study is focused on his work in social acupuncture, outlined in his Social Acupuncture: A guide to suicide, performance, and utopia (2006). Social acupuncture is a style of theatre/performance art that “blurs the line between art and life,”impelling people to come together in unusual ways and tap into the power of the social sphere. With social acupuncture, O’Donnell and Mammalian Diving Reflex are striving to create an aesthetic of civic engagement: an avenue through which social edifices like public space, schools, and the media can be used as the armature for the mounting of work that “takes modest glances at simple power dynamics and, for a moment, provides a glimpse of other possibilities.” Mammalian Diving Reflex began their exploration of the form in the summer of 2003 with The Talking Creature, and since then have devised and performed almost two‐ dozen similar “needles” worldwide.Social acupuncture warrants examination not only from a socio‐ political perspective, but through a theatrical lens, as well. It probes the relationship between audience and performer, raises questions about theatre’s ability to keep up with other media in the digital age, and offers tremendous insight into the potential for positive, fruitful intersections between art and civil society.  My project will include theoretical examination of O’Donnell’s work, as well as practical exploration of the form’s potential.


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