scholarly journals Media and postmodern reality

Sociologija ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
Ljubomir Masirevic

The paper tackles the ideas of key postmodern theoreticians on the role of the media in contemporary societies. The aim is to show that according to postmodern theory the media have become the leading factor in contemporary social processes marked by the loss of sense of historical continuity in everyday human experience. Postmodern theoreticians claim that, since the media system, which has come to wholly encompass reality at the turn of this century, is unable to reclaim the past, human existence has found itself in the ceaseless schizophrenic present. Simulations of events that once were and come back to us today like a string of anachronistic media notions about the past, bring us into the state of historical amnesia. The media, and cinema above all, are the main catalyst of this process, as well as of what postmodernists call the new superficiality and shallowness of social life. Postmodern reality is characterized by a simulation of history which didn't happen; today people are exposed to pseudo-experience emerging from constant exposure to the simulacrum of historical events. In place of conclusion, Baudrillard's interpretation of the Gulf War as a virtual media event is offered.

2008 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 121-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Juraitė

Žiniasklaida, kaip visuomenės institucija, ypatinga tuo, jog jai būdinga tiek ekonominė, tiek ir politinė veikla. Privatus ir viešas prekių ir paslaugų gamybos pobūdis sąlygoja tai, kad žiniasklaida atlieka svarbią politinę funkciją, informuodama ir konsoliduodama visuomenę, o taip ekonominę – pajamų generavimo – funkciją. Todėl šalia demokratinių įsipareigojimų, žiniasklaidos organizacijos yra taip pat ir verslo įmonės. Tačiau rinkos dėsnių ir komercinės žiniasklaidos dominavimas apsunkina demokratinių funkcijų įgyvendinimą. Nuo 1980-ų metų pabaigos Lietuvos žiniasklaidos raida gali būti skirstoma į keturis etapus: liberalizacijos, diversifikacijos, marketizacijos ir antrąjį diversifikacijos etapą. Pagrindinis dėmesys straipsnyje skiriamas Lietuvos žiniasklaidos organizacijoms ir auditorijoms, taip pat augančiam žiniasklaidos sistemos vaidmeniui politiniame ir socialiniame gyvenime. Kokį vaidmenį atlieka žiniasklaida demokratinėje visuomenėje? Koks jos santykis su galios institucijomis? Kas lemia žiniasklaidos galią? Kokios problemos iškyla realizuojant šią galią? Šie ir kiti klausimai yra kontekstualizuojami ir diskutuojami šiame straipsnyje.Media power in the Lithuanian news market reconsidered*Kristina Juraitė SummaryThe media as a social actor is particular in the sense that its activities are both economic and political. The production of goods and services is often both private and public; therefore, the media is playing an important political function in informing and consolidating the public, as well as the economic one of generating revenue. Thus, apart from their democratic responsibilities, the media are also run as business enterprises. However, dominance of the market mechanisms and of commercial media makes the fulfilment of democratic functions complicated enough. Since late 1980s, the evolution of the Lithuanian media has passed four phases including liberalization, diversification, marketization and the second phase of diversification. Reflecting on the recent developments of the media in Lithuania, the article focuses on the media organizations and audiences, also increasing role of the media system in political and social life. What is the role of media in a democracy? What is its relationship to the power institutions? What does it make the media powerful? What kind of problems do emerge in executing the power? These and other questions are contextualized and discussed in the article.Key words: Lithuanian media market, advertising, liberalization, marketization, diversification, concentration, popularization.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Brosius ◽  
Erika J van Elsas ◽  
Claes H de Vreese

Over the past decade, the European Union has lost the trust of many citizens. This article investigates whether and how media information, in particular visibility and tonality, impact trust in the European Union among citizens. Combining content analysis and Eurobarometer survey data from 10 countries between 2004 and 2015, we study both direct and moderating media effects. Media tone and visibility have limited direct effects on trust in the European Union, but they moderate the relation between trust in national institutions and trust in the European Union. This relation is amplified when the European Union is more visible in the media and when media tone is more positive towards the European Union, whereas it is dampened when media tone is more negative. The findings highlight the role of news media in the crisis of trust in the European Union.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ergin Bulut ◽  
Başak Can

Following the coup attempt in Turkey, former Gulenists made appearances on various television channels and disclosed intimate and spectacular information regarding their past activities. We ask: what is the political work of these televised disclosures? In answering this question, we situate the coup within the media event literature and examine the intimate work of these televised disclosures performed as part of a media event. The disclosures we examine were extremely spectacular statements that worked to reconstruct a highly divided and polarized society through an intimate language. Consequently, these television performances had two functions: ideological and affective. First, these disclosures and television shows chose to foreground sensation and therefore mystified the illegal networks that historically prepared the coup. Second, using a language of regret and apology, these disclosures aimed to teach the audience how to be purified and good citizens through a mediated, pedagogical relationship. Within the vulnerable context of a hegemonic crisis, these disclosures intended to form their own publics where citizens were invited to sympathize with those who made mistakes in the past, ultimately aiming to create national unity and reconciliation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 377-423
Author(s):  
Slađana Josipović Batorek ◽  
Valentina Kezić

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia’s (CPY) rise to power in 1945 was followed by a period of fundamental socio-political changes that encompassed all aspects of life. In order to establish a complete political and ideological authority, the government attempted to suppress all elements which, in their view, were not aligned with the doctrine of the Communist Party. As a result, everything that was perceived as remnants of the old socio-political order was marginalised, such as religion, tradition and customs. Moreover, reinterpretation of the past also took place, as well as creation of new rituals and Tito’s cult of personality. Accordingly, a completely new calendar of official, state holidays was established, deprived of any national or religious tradition. One of those holidays was May Day, which was celebrated for two days and whose purpose, like most other holidays of that period, was to create uniqueness of feelings and actions in society, focusing on the working class, socialism, CPY, Yugoslavia and Josip Broz Tito. Besides, celebrations of major anniversaries and holidays, including May Day, presented an opportunity for transmission of ideological and political messages, most often articulated through numerous slogans which clearly defined the direction in which the society should move. The media played a key role in this process. Therefore, the central part of the paper consists of the analysis of newspaper articles from Glas Slavonije in order to understand its role in the implementation of those new political rituals and social values.


Author(s):  
David Lê

Abstract While Hegel’s infamous “end of art” thesis states that art is “for us, a thing of the past” he insists that philosophy and, to a degree that is often underestimated by contemporary readers, religion endure within the structure of modern life. In this paper I aim to demonstrate how by focusing on Hegel’s claim that religion meets no end, we can come to a better understanding of how and why he thinks art does end. This will lead us away from common, but false, picture of Hegel as being indifferent (or even hostile) to art’s sensuous mode of intelligibility. Inasmuch as religion remains both necessarily sensuous and a component of social life that realizes freedom and divinity within modernity, the “problem” with art cannot be its sensuousness per se. What art ultimately finds itself unable to do, and what religion can do, is find a way to reconcile the destabilizing force of individual, subjective freedom with a jointly-held representation of who and what we are and what we value most, what Hegel calls “divinity” (das Göttliche). By countenancing the vital role of religion in Hegel’s thought, we can therefore better understand one of his most famous, and least understood philosophical claims.


Author(s):  
Olga Smirnova ◽  
Luisa Svitich ◽  
Mikhail Shkondin

The role of journalism and the media in forming the world of everyday life has been viewed as a key one for quite a long period of human history. Moreover, in the context of digitalization and mediatization of every social reality, it is becoming even more important. The integrative nature of the modern media provides for an environment where interaction between journalism, the media and their audiences has a crucial impact on all social phenomena, on the life of every person and of the society in general. The article states that, in the context of media digitalization, the world of everyday life is intensively mediatized and undergoes radical changes, which makes it a relevant object of media studies. The authors emphasize the great significance of the media in social construction processes that are based on fast information exchange and the synchronous dynamics of events in the world of everyday life. They also underline the relevance of studying both journalism and media processes as integral parts the world of everyday life, which features continuous variability of social realities and their newsworthiness. In today’s society, contradictions between the opportunities offered by digitalization and mediatization of social realities on the one hand, and the limited practical usage of these opportunities on the other, are aggravating. Therefore, it is necessary to reassess the functions of journalism in optimizing the world of everyday life, and correlate the renewed understanding of these functions to that of journalists as key agents that provide informational support and coverage of all social processes.


Pedagogika ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 112 (4) ◽  
pp. 101-106
Author(s):  
Vaidas Matonis

The purpose of the article is to show how the principle of historical continuity could be realized in order to make educational process more integral and purposeful. Research reveals relevance of historical continuity to the valuable forms of human’s spiritual activity. Main ideas which are developed in the article are based on the principles of the cultural policy elaborated by M. Lukšiene. The author of the article established a goal to evaluate art as a means to educate the sense and/or understanding of historical continuity, by the same token elevating perception of artworks to the metacognitive level and enlarging the field of historical and cultural contexts. Material of the investigation is laid by invoking the philosophical analysis of socio- and psychocultural phenomena and their impact on modernization of arts education. The role of the historical continuity and cultural awareness have activated during the last decades after the method of interpretation had intensified in valuable forms of human spiritual activity (moral, politics, aesthetics). So after such qualities of the works of art as depiction and/or craftsmanship had depreciated, the interpretation of the works of art and even the evaluation of interpretations sets in more and more robustly. In the presents of such or other contradictions the reform of European education has rippled by various different waves. As a result, the competence of democratic culture which enables the values, including artistic values, of democratic culture to implant to the attitudes of learners becomes the most essential orientation for teacher education. Development of democratic culture in EU defies such aspects of activity as knowledge and understanding of human rights, democratic participation and especially the development of competence for engaging in a meaningful and open - minded intercultural dialogue. Author is convinced that in order to realize and promote these ideas they should be accompanied by the development of the competence of dialogue with the past. Development of the competences of historical continuity and cultural context is increasing by mastering the ideas of great thinkers on education, including arts education, and helps to impersonate one of the most important domains of cultural heritage – educational potential of culture. In other words, historical continuity and cultural context are such core principles and values which can enable the development of the competence of full-rate intercultural dialogue. In case of arts education, when the paradigm of artistic thinking is rapidly changing, it is evident that an integrated history of artistic education should be developed. The main role of such academic course is not only to reveal cultural peculiarities of different countries but also to show the reasons of unequal educational power of different arts in different epochs. The role of historical continuity and cultural context is growing according to the development of digital technologies which are changing social conditions and possibilities of traditional artistic functions. Just the history of art and ideas of artistic education could balance both historical continuity of social artistic functions and involve learners into dialogue with the past.


Asian Studies ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 67-77
Author(s):  
Sasa ISTENIČ

The importance of the media in democracies has long been recognized. The media has often been seen as a preliminary mechanism of democratization process. Over the past 20 years, both Taiwan and Slovenia have been undergoing profound political changes, transforming from authoritarianism to democracy. This research will be a modest attempt to portray the significant role that media has played in the two countries’ democratization processes and draw some interesting parallels between them.   


Author(s):  
Marina Yanglyaeva ◽  
Tamara Yakova

This article presents the theoretical aspects of media and communication research in space and time. The authors of the article pay attention to the role of mass media in constructing a region and a regional identity and demonstrate how the media geographic categories work as determinants in understanding the place of mass media in shaping the region as a whole in the context of globalization and glocalisation. Media geography as a separate line of humanitarian research concerns the interrelations of media and spaces in their different forms and at different levels (personality, community, nation state), behavior patterns of media in constructing space, the role, the place and significance of media in socio-spatial relations etc. Having used the main thesis of media geography that all forms of communication are laid out and implemented in space and time, and spaces are constructed and represented by mass media, the authors make an attempt to interpret the theories of spatial production, which to a certain extent should be understood as the theories of communication and mediatazation. Furthermore, they analyze the theoretical and practical approaches of a number of foreign scholars to the role of mass media in the region’s construction. The concept of space in the social context with the emphasis on “location” in the process of the formation and strengthening of the regional identity through media products is considered in detail. The authors focus their attention on the regional market of concepts related to the political, economical and social life of the region, and on the role of the regional newspapers as public space where the main images of the region are revealed and the capabilities of main media in managing the regional processes come to light. The authors draw a conclusion that the regional media market fills every person’s life with concepts which are capable of influencing their national (and regional) identity.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57
Author(s):  
Peter Zuurbier

Individual media events, from the extraordinary to the mundane, as well as the logic they present, have transcended society. Media events no longer happen in isolation, they are intertextually and extratextually linked and mixed together. The ability to view, create, join in, and affect the shape of media events has caused a profound shift in the conception of what they are. What Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz refer to as individual media events, Guy Debord, Michel Foucault and Douglas Kellner consider collectively as spectacle. Their work on media events and spectacle features a debate on the role of contestation within it. Live audience members have an opportunity to impact media events and the spectacle either through individual or collective action. This action can go along with the intents ascribed to the media event and spectacle, or it can oppose them. Contestation often takes the form of an oppositional interruption of the linear messaging promoted within media events and spectacle. Contestation is typically a strategy used by voices that feel marginalized by the images of the spectacle. But contestation of media events and spectacle through their own logic becomes a means of deeper seduction.


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