(Not) Dealing with War Crimes on Film

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-340
Author(s):  
Rimantė Jaugaitė

Abstract This article argues that contemporary post-Yugoslav cinema contributes to a better understanding of the deeply divided societies in the aftermath the Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001), in terms of stimulating empathy for the Other, and, more specifically, raising awareness of the loss of human lives, thus memorializing and commemorating these experiences. It also explores how film directors deal with social issues, including war crimes, and how they appear as activist citizens while their governments struggle to take relevant action. The research aims to bridge the gap between the more theoretical literature that focuses on the role of the media in dealing with the past and more practical analysis providing examples from contemporary post-Yugoslav cinema, and to illuminate the link between film, peace-building and active citizenship. Finally, the article stresses how the idea of post-war reconciliation may be communicated through films and pertains to the notion that a positive film effect exists.

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-71
Author(s):  
Lorna Hill

Abstract This study will explore the role of female authors in contemporary Scottish crime fiction. Over the past thirty years, women writers have overhauled the traditionally male dominated genre of crime fiction by writing about strong female characters who drive the plot and solve the crimes. Authors including Val McDermid, Denise Mina and Lin Anderson are just a few of the women who have challenged the expectation of gender and genre. By setting their novels in contemporary society they reflect a range of social and political issues through the lens of a female protagonist. By closely examining the female characters, both journalists, in Val McDermid’s Lindsay Gordon series and Denise Mina’s Paddy Meehan series, I wish to explore the issue of gender through these writers’ perspectives. This essay documents the influence of these writers on my own practice-based research which involves writing a crime novel set in a post referendum Scotland. I examine a progressive and contemporary Scottish society, where women hold many senior positions in public life, and investigate whether this has an effect on the outcome of crimes. Through this narrative, my main character will focus on the current and largely hidden crimes of human trafficking and domestic abuse. By doing this I examine the ways in which the modern crime novel has evolved to cross genre boundaries. In addition to focusing on a crime, the victims and witnesses, today’s crime novels are tackling social issues to reflect society’s changing attitudes and values.


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.


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.


2006 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 256-275
Author(s):  
Christian Moe

The wars that dissolved Yugoslavia – were they religious wars? Why are conflicts increasingly coded as religious, rather than as, for example, social or ethnic? What constitutes a ‘religious’ or ‘holy’ war. This article attempts an inventory of important cat­egories and hypotheses generated in the relevant literature so far, with a few critical notes along the way. The author considers the role assigned to religion in structural, cultural, and actor-oriented explanations of the Yugoslav wars. Structural and cultural explanations downplay the role of human agency and, hence, of moral responsibility; actor-oriented approaches focus on it.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Μαντώ Λαμπροπούλου (Manto Lampropoulou)

Over the past two decades, utilities policy in Greece has been steadily shifting towards privatization and liberalization. This shift signified a critical reconsideration of the boundaries and the dynamics of the relationship between the state and the market in network industries. Public debate usually focuses on issues of ownership of public enterprises and economic performance. On the contrary, this book places the emphasis on the socio-economic implications of utilities policy for citizens. A key issue is the impact of privatization on the relationship between government (state), public enterprises (market) and citizens (society). The study covers the period from the post-war state monopolies to the current circumstances of mixed/private ownership of public enterprises and liberalized markets. The main questions addressed in this book are the following: What is the rationale (legitimization) for government intervention in the utilities sector? What are the politics of nationalization and privatization? How different policy contexts affect the institutional, organizational and regulatory framework of the utilities sector? Who are the key-stakeholders and policy actors? What is the role of citizens? What is the (re)distribution of utilities policy costs and benefits among stakeholders?


Author(s):  
Hanna Köttl ◽  
Verena C Tatzer ◽  
Liat Ayalon

Abstract Background and Objectives Media discourses have the power to construct and perpetuate positive and negative aging images and influence public and individuals’ attitudes. This study aims to critically examine the media portrayal of older persons’ everyday information and communication technology (EICT) usage during the first and second waves of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Research Design and Methods A total of 51 articles published in 3 leading German newspapers between March 2020 and November 2020 were identified from the LexisNexis Academic database. Data were analyzed employing critical discourse and thematic analysis. Results EICT use was associated with youthful, consumption-orientated, and active lifestyles, while nonuse was constructed as failures on the policy or individual level. The pandemic seemed to have acted as an amplifier, further exacerbating and perpetuating stereotypical, dichotomous, but also empowering aging images. Discussion and Implications Neoliberal rational and binary distinctions of active users and nonusers opened and encouraged critical discussions on positive aging trends, the concept of the third and fourth ages, and aging-and-innovation discourses. Moreover, the crucial educative role of the media in raising awareness about power imbalances and reducing EICT-related ageism is stressed.


1991 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Wardle

Modern comprehensive multidisciplinary mental-health services for children and adolescents have four origins: psychology from 1890, psychoanalysis from 1906, the child-guidance movement from 1920, and the children's departments of psychiatric teaching hospitals from 1930. Post-war changes in society and reform, especially the NHS Act 1946, contributed to rapid development of services and an increasingly wide range of sophisticated therapeutic interventions; professional and interdisciplinary associations and trans-Atlantic exchange were also influential. In the last three decades a succession of official inquiries, reports, legislation and reorganisations have had a damaging effect. Children and their services have been prey tocauses célèbres,fashion and the exaggerated fads and foibles of the media and politicians; they have thrived best when society and their carers were tolerant, and loving, sought good qualities to augment, not evil to exorcise, and succeeded in balancing structure and control with flexibility and freedom to grow. Planners should review the past before acting.


2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Simmons

In early 1992, the “three m's” (tri m), which denoted a multicultural, multiethnic, and multiconfessional Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), became the rallying cry against the forces of disintegration, or more accurately, of partition. These identifying characteristics or national ideals could not avert catastrophe. Indeed, BiH's liminal position at the crossroads of cultures, religions, and history rendered it the most vulnerable of republics in the Yugoslav wars of succession. However “three m” Bosnia and Herzegovina was in 1992, it was less so by 1995. Yet, despite the bloodshed, forced expulsions, migrations, and the inevitable rise in nationalism, citizens of BiH have no choice, in the aftermath, but to examine what their country was before the war and the potential for a new “multi-multi” Bosnia and Herzegovina. Such an investigation must begin with the past, as a Sarajevan colleague implied when I asked her how she envisioned the future in Bosnia. She replied that Bosnians could hardly conceive a future when in 1998 they still had no idea what had happened, and why. This work addresses the reality behind the epithets that gained currency during and after the war, of a “three-m,” “multi-multi,” and multi-kulti (multicultural) Bosnia and Herzegovina. Within the framework of a particular understanding of multiculturalism, it will suggest why, despite its multiethnic and multiconfessional reality, BiH proved in many instances vulnerable to nationalistic rhetoric. This analysis proceeds from the conviction that multiculturalism must be both studied and encouraged in the international community's efforts to support the growth of democratic institutions and practices in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Coates

A distinctive feature of post-war Japanese cinema is the frequent recurrence of imagistic and narrative tropes and formulaic characterizations in female representations. These repetitions are important, Jennifer Coates asserts, because sentiments and behaviours forbidden during the war and post-war social and political changes were often articulated by or through the female image. Moving across major character types, from mothers to daughters, and schoolteachers to streetwalkers, Making Icons studies the role of the media in shaping the attitudes of the general public. Japanese cinema after defeat in the Asia Pacific War and World War II is shown to be an important ground where social experiences were explored, reworked, and eventually accepted or rejected by audiences emotionally invested in these repetitive materials. An examination of 600 films produced and distributed between 1945 and 1964, as well as numerous Japanese-language sources, forms the basis of this rigorous study. Making Icons draws on an art-historical iconographic analysis to explain how viewers derive meanings from images during this peak period of film production and attendance in Japan.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anamika Srivastava

The election has always been the prominent feature of a nation. It’s a remarkable process to choose a leader or a party to whom or which public want to see at the position of power. It’s a medium of indirect communication and the voice of democratic nation. It’s a medium through which mass speaks out. Election provides ways to the citizens to choose their representatives which based on the policies of state to adapt and follow in governance. On the other hand, Media is the most effective and influential tool for disseminating information. It provides its availability in every convenient manner. The media plays an indispensable role in the proper functioning of a democracy. During elections, Media have the various roles in scrutinizing the electoral process itself, electoral management, in order to evaluate the fairness of the process, its efficiency, and its probity. Media enables the full public participation. The paper looks into the very implementation part of Media during election. It deeply looks into the role of Media in keeping abreast to the citizens and raising awareness. The paper also looks the discussion of the media’s functions within electoral contexts, watchdog role and educating voters on how to exercise their democratic rights.


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