scholarly journals Maternal Rights Digital Activism and Intersectional Feminism: an Analysis of the Independent Media Platform “Cientista Que Virou Mãe”

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-201
Author(s):  
Andrea Meyer Medrado ◽  
Ana Paula Muller

This article seeks to obtain a deepened understanding of the phenomenon of maternal rights digital activism, drawing from an analysis of Cientista Que Virou Mãe (CQVM or Scientist who became a mother, in Portuguese), a blog which became an independent media platform. By doing this, we hope to fill an important research gap as little is written on the relationships between motherhood, feminism and the media. Based on preliminary evidence, we also wish to suggest that the CQVM platform can be located within the context of digital activism, arguing that the latter has lots to benefit from incorporating the perspectives of intersectional feminism. In order to achieve this, our study has a netnographic inspiration, analyzing one particular event that was significant in the history of the CQVM platform as it echoed the voices of black mothers.    Neste artigo, buscamos compreender o ativismo digital materno a partir da análise de um blog que passou a operar como uma plataforma de mídia independente: o Cientista Que Virou Mãe (CQVM). Gostaríamos de apresentar os indícios que revelam que esta plataforma atua como importante iniciativa de ativismo digital materno. Tanto nos estudos feministas, como nos estudos de comunicação e mídia, este recorte, mais voltado para a análise das relações entre maternidade, feminismo e mídia, é relativamente pouco trabalhado. Após localizarmos a plataforma CQVM dentro do contexto do ativismo digital materno, destacamos que tal fenômeno pode ser beneficiado por uma maior incorporação das perspectivas do feminismo interseccional. Para demonstrar esse ponto, adotamos uma abordagem de inspiração (n)etnográfica, analisando um evento marcante na história da plataforma, o qual trouxe à tona as vozes das mulheres e mães negras.  El objetivo de este artículo es conducirnos una comprensión más profunda del fenómeno del activismo digital materno, a partir de un análisis de Cientista Que Virou Mãe (CQVM, La Cientista que se Convirtió en Madre, traducido al español), un blog que se convirtió en una plataforma de medios independientes. A partir de aqui, esperamos llenar una brecha de investigación importante ya que se escribe poco sobre las relaciones entre la maternidad, el feminismo y los medios. También deseamos sugerir que la plataforma CQVM se pueda ubicar dentro del contexto del activismo digital, argumentando que este último tiene mucho que beneficiarse al incorporar las perspectivas del feminismo interseccional. Para cumplir con este propósito, nuestra investigación adopta una inspiración (n)etnográfica, analizando un evento particular que fue significativo en la historia de la plataforma CQVM ya que se manifestaron más fuertemente las voces de las madres negras.

Author(s):  
O. I. Molchanova

The purpose of this article is to examine the process of emergence and views of foreign and Russian researchers on the problem of the processes of media convergence. Focuses on the sociological aspect of the phenomenon. Provided basic concepts, the trends and prospects in the study of media convergence as a modern phenomenon. Rethinking the concept of convergence began with the publications in which knowledge and technology have been named as key components of future economy, convergence has become a phenomenon to be reckoned with, which will soon become a defining concept in the context of globalization. Considering the media environment as a system consisting of means of communication, foreign sociologists have radically changed the view of modern media, of their possibilities, their degree of influence on the society. The impact of media convergence on the life of each person, his worth in society, his mind, the ways of communication, to the professional world, and to leisure is only a part of important research areas. In general, the history of the development of sociological views on the processes of media convergence adjusts to multicontextual in the study of media. Today should be studied in the aggregate of all modern scientific disciplines, in both theoretical and practical applied aspects. In the end, the author has compiled a table that presented the stages of development of sociological views on the processes of media convergence with a brief description of each of them. The main trends and promising sociological research relevant to the challenges of the present time.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-96
Author(s):  
Ramon Reichert

The history of the human face is the history of its social coding and the media- conditions of its appearance. The best way to explain the »selfie«-practices of today’s digital culture is to understand such practices as both participative and commercialized cultural techniques that allow their users to fashion their selves in ways they consider relevant for their identities as individuals. Whereas they may put their image of themselves front stage with their selfies, such images for being socially shared have to match determinate role-expectations, body-norms and ideals of beauty. Against this backdrop, collectively shared repertoires of images of normalized subjectivity have developed and leave their mark on the culture of digital communication. In the critical and reflexive discourses that surround the exigencies of auto-medial self-thematization we find reactions that are critical of self-representation as such, and we find strategies of de-subjectification with reflexive awareness of their media conditions. Both strands of critical reactions however remain ambivalent as reactions of protest. The final part of the present article focuses on inter-discourses, in particular discourses that construe the phenomenon of selfies thoroughly as an expression of juvenile narcissism. The author shows how this commonly accepted reading which has precedents in the history of pictorial art reproduces resentment against women and tends to stylize adolescent persons into a homogenous »generation« lost in self-love


Author(s):  
Olga Lomakina ◽  
Oksana Shkuran

The article analyzes methods of explication of the traditional and widely used stable biblical expression «forbidden fruit». The study is based on a diachronic section – from the interpretation of the biblical text to the communicative intention of dialogue participants in the media space illustrating nuclear and peripheral meanings. The analysis includes biblical texts that realize the archetypal meaning of the biblical expression «forbidden fruit» in which it is called the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The secularized interest in the kind of tree, on which forbidden fruits grew, is motivated by a realistic presentation of a sad history of the first people’s fall in the Book of Genesis. Scientific hypotheses have their origins since the Middle Ages, when artists recreated the author’s story of eating the forbidden fruit. For religion, the variety of the fruit is not of fundamental importance, however, visualization in the works of art has become an incentive for the further use of the biblical expression with a new semantic segment. Modern media texts actively represent the transformation of the biblical expression«forbidden fruit» for different purposes: in advertising texts for pragmatic one, in informative, educational, ideological texts for cognitive one, in entertaining textsfor communicative one, lowering the spiritual and semantic value register of the modern language. Therefore, the process of desemantization and profanization of the biblical expression results in the destruction of national stereotypes in Russian people’s worldview.


Author(s):  
Chris Forster

Modernist literature is inextricable from the history of obscenity. The trials of such figures as James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Radclyffe Hall loom large in accounts of twentieth-century literature. Filthy Material: Modernism and the Media of Obscenity reveals the ways that debates about obscenity and literature were shaped by changes in the history of media. The emergence of film, photography, and new printing technologies shaped how “literary value” was understood, altering how obscenity was defined and which texts were considered obscene. Filthy Material rereads the history of modernist obscenity to discover the role played by technological media in debates about obscenity. The shift from the intense censorship of the early twentieth century to the effective “end of obscenity” for literature at the middle of the century was not simply a product of cultural liberalization but also of a changing media ecology. Filthy Material brings together media theory and archival research to offer a fresh account of modernist obscenity with novel readings of works of modernist literature. It sheds new light on figures at the center of modernism’s obscenity trials (such as Joyce and Lawrence), demonstrates the relevance of the discourse of obscenity to understanding figures not typically associated with obscenity debates (such as T. S. Eliot and Wyndham Lewis), and introduces new figures to our account of modernism (such as Norah James and Jack Kahane). It reveals how modernist obscenity reflected a contest over the literary in the face of new media technologies.


Author(s):  
Alan Kelly

What is scientific research? It is the process by which we learn about the world. For this research to have an impact, and positively contribute to society, it needs to be communicated to those who need to understand its outcomes and significance for them. Any piece of research is not complete until it has been recorded and passed on to those who need to know about it. So, good communication skills are a key attribute for researchers, and scientists today need to be able to communicate through a wide range of media, from formal scientific papers to presentations and social media, and to a range of audiences, from expert peers to stakeholders to the general public. In this book, the goals and nature of scientific communication are explored, from the history of scientific publication; through the stages of how papers are written, evaluated, and published; to what happens after publication, using examples from landmark historical papers. In addition, ethical issues relating to publication, and the damage caused by cases of fabrication and falsification, are explored. Other forms of scientific communication such as conference presentations are also considered, with a particular focus on presenting and writing for nonspecialist audiences, the media, and other stakeholders. Overall, this book provides a broad overview of the whole range of scientific communication and should be of interest to researchers and also those more broadly interested in the process how what scientists do every day translates into outcomes that contribute to society.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Rose

The Literary Agenda is a series of short polemical monographs about the importance of literature and of reading in the wider world and about the state of literary education inside schools and universities. The category of 'the literary' has always been contentious. What is clear, however, is how increasingly it is dismissed or is unrecognised as a way of thinking or an arena for thought. It is sceptically challenged from within, for example, by the sometimes rival claims of cultural history, contextualized explanation, or media studies. It is shaken from without by even greater pressures: by economic exigency and the severe social attitudes that can follow from it; by technological change that may leave the traditional forms of serious human communication looking merely antiquated. For just these reasons this is the right time for renewal, to start reinvigorated work into the meaning and value of literary reading. For the Internet and digitial generation, the most basic human right is the freedom to read. The Web has indeed brought about a rapid and far-reaching revolution in reading, making a limitless global pool of literature and information available to anyone with a computer. At the same time, however, the threats of censorship, surveillance, and mass manipulation through the media have grown apace. Some of the most important political battles of the twenty-first century have been fought--and will be fought--over the right to read. Will it be adequately protected by constitutional guarantees and freedom of information laws? Or will it be restricted by very wealthy individuals and very powerful institutions? And given increasingly sophisticated methods of publicity and propaganda, how much of what we read can we believe? This book surveys the history of independent sceptical reading, from antiquity to the present. It tells the stories of heroic efforts at self-education by disadvantaged people in all parts of the world. It analyzes successful reading promotion campaigns throughout history (concluding with Oprah Winfrey) and explains why they succeeded. It also explores some disturbing current trends, such as the reported decay of attentive reading, the disappearance of investigative journalism, 'fake news', the growth of censorship, and the pervasive influence of advertisers and publicists on the media--even on scientific publishing. For anyone who uses libraries and Internet to find out what the hell is going on, this book is a guide, an inspiration, and a warning.


Author(s):  
Peer Ghulam Nabi Suhail

This chapter begins with tracing the roots of colonialism in India, followed by understanding its various structures and processes of resource-grabbing. It argues, that India has largely followed the colonial approach towards land appropriation. After independence, although the Indian state followed a nationalistic path of development, the developmental approach of the state was far from being pro-peasant and/or pro-ecology. In a similar fashion, hydroelectricity projects in Kashmir, developed by NHPC from 1970s, have been displacing thousands of peasants from their lands and houses. Despite this, they are yet to become a major debate in the media, in the policy circles, or in academia in India.


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hou Yuxin

Abstract The Wukan Incident attracted extensive attention both in China and around the world, and has been interpreted from many different perspectives. In both the media and academia, the focus has very much been on the temporal level of the Incident. The political and legal dimensions, as well as the implications of the Incident in terms of human rights have all been pored over. However, what all of these discussions have overlooked is the role played by religious force during the Incident. The village of Wukan has a history of over four hundred years, and is deeply influenced by the religious beliefs of its people. Within both the system of religious beliefs and in everyday life in the village, the divine immortal Zhenxiu Xianweng and the religious rite of casting shengbei have a powerful influence. In times of peace, Xianweng and casting shengbei work to bestow good fortune, wealth and longevity on both the village itself, and the individuals who live there. During the Wukan Incident, they had a harmonizing influence, and helped to unify and protect the people. Looking at the specific roles played by religion throughout the Wukan Incident will not only enable us to develop a more meaningful understanding of the cultural nature and the complexity of the Incident itself, it will also enrich our understanding, on a divine level, of innovations in social management.


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