Keep it “real”: the co-construction of authentic performance and audience connection in poetry slam competitions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gloria Eid
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Spoken Word Poetry ◽  
Message Production ◽  
Interactionist Perspective ◽  
Poetry Reading ◽  
Audience Connection ◽  
Performance Strategies

With the poetry slam competition – a live, competitive spoken word poetry reading – as context for this project, the study explores the concepts of authenticity and audience connection as they relate to message production and meaning-making processes in the field of professional communication. This project uses a symbolic interactionist perspective and Goffman’s (1959) theory of dramaturgy to investigate the poet-audience relationship and discover how a display of authentic performance works to achieve the goal of audience connection. The researcher interviewed six slam poets from the Greater Toronto and Southwestern Ontario area about their experiences in the poetry slam world. Results from the interviews reveal that authenticity is co-constructed between poet and audience, involving a coalescence of private preparation strategies and onstage performance strategies that help craft a sense of credibility and honesty from the poet that, in turn, contribute to achieving successful audience connection by the slam poet as performer.

scholarly journals Keep it “real”: the co-construction of authentic performance and audience connection in poetry slam competitions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gloria Eid
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Professional Communication ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Spoken Word Poetry ◽  
Message Production ◽  
Interactionist Perspective ◽  
Poetry Reading ◽  
Audience Connection ◽  
Performance Strategies

With the poetry slam competition – a live, competitive spoken word poetry reading – as context for this project, the study explores the concepts of authenticity and audience connection as they relate to message production and meaning-making processes in the field of professional communication. This project uses a symbolic interactionist perspective and Goffman’s (1959) theory of dramaturgy to investigate the poet-audience relationship and discover how a display of authentic performance works to achieve the goal of audience connection. The researcher interviewed six slam poets from the Greater Toronto and Southwestern Ontario area about their experiences in the poetry slam world. Results from the interviews reveal that authenticity is co-constructed between poet and audience, involving a coalescence of private preparation strategies and onstage performance strategies that help craft a sense of credibility and honesty from the poet that, in turn, contribute to achieving successful audience connection by the slam poet as performer.

scholarly journals Love and homophobia in Malawi's spoken-word poetry movement

Africa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-387
Author(s):  
Harri Englund
Keyword(s):  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Modern Poetry ◽  
Spoken Word Poetry ◽  
The People ◽  
Popular Interest ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractBy the early 2010s, a number of Malawian poets in their twenties had begun to substitute the elliptical expression of earlier generations with a language that resonated with popular idioms. As poetry directed at ‘the people’, its medium is spoken word rather than print, performed to live audiences and distributed through CDs, radio programmes and the internet. Crafted predominantly in Chichewa, the poems also address topics of popular interest. The selection of poetry presented here comes from a female and a male poet, who, unbeknown to each other, prepared poems sharply critical of homosexuality and what they regarded as its foreign and local advocacy. The same poets have also gained success for their love poems, which have depicted intimate desires in remarkably compatible ways for both women and men. The poets who performed ‘homophobic’ verse went against popular gender stereotypes in their depictions of romantic love and female and male desires. This introductory essay, as a contribution toAfrica's Local Intellectuals series, discusses the aesthetic challenges that the new poets have launched in the context of Malawi's modern poetry. With regard to gender relations in their love poems, the introduction also considers the poets’ possible countercultural contribution despite their avowed commitment to perform for ‘the people’.

‘Why don’t you let me flow in my space?’

Matatu ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 444-455
Author(s):  
Hugh Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Women Performers ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Spoken Word Poetry ◽  
Gender Based

Abstract The practice of performance or ‘spoken word’ poetry has gained a significant foothold among the youth in urban Namibia in the last two decades. While this poetry has been put to many socio-political uses, one of the main ones has been a protest against patriarchal elements in Namibian society and culture, and an outcry against Namibia’s high rates of gender-based violence. Patriarchal aspects of Namibia’s national culture are often explicitly linked to violence and to the intersectional nature of oppression. Spoken word poetry has also often given LGBT+ women a space to speak out against their oppression and to normalise their existence. This article shows how women performers have used and modified the conventions of poetry and song to get this challenging—in the Namibian context often radical—message across. The paper argues that poetry in this context has the potential to approximate a localised ‘public sphere’ where inclusive discourse can be held around social issues—bearing mind that people are not excluded from this discourse because of arbitrary reasons such as gender or sexuality.

Sociology of Mass and New Media through an Interactionist Lens

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie B. Wiest
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Media Influence ◽  
Presentation Of Self ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist

This chapter explores symbolic interactionist insights and perspectives on both mass media and new media, with a concentration on the ways in which different forms of media influence meaning-making through social interaction while also being influenced by those interpretive processes. It also examines the relations between various media and the construction and interpretation of social reality, the ways that media shape the development and presentation of self, and the uses and interpretations of media within and between communities. Although it clearly distinguishes between mass media and new media, the chapter also discusses the variety of ways in which they intersect throughout social life.

The Role of International Tribunals in the Development of Historical Narratives

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-428
Author(s):  
Moshe Hirsch
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interactionist Perspective ◽  
International Tribunals

AbstractCollective memories are significant for both individuals and societies, as they play an important role in the construction of collective identities. This article focuses on the role of non-criminal international tribunals in the development of collective memories, asking whether it is desirable for such international tribunals to be involved in the construction of historical narratives. International tribunals have not adopted a consistent approach concerning the presentation of a case’s historical background in their judgments. The question of whether it is desirable for non-criminal tribunals to assume an active role in this sphere is analysed using three major sociological perspectives: the structural-functional approach, the symbolic-interactionist perspective, and the social conflict approach. The discussion regarding each theoretical approach is accompanied by illustrative examples from the case law of international tribunals. The conclusions drawn from this analysis integrate certain elements from each theoretical approach; but primarily draw on recommendations associated with the symbolic-interactionist perspective, and to a lesser extent on some recommendations associated with the social-conflict approach.

Knowledge of Self: Possibilities for Spoken Word Poetry, Hip Hop Pedagogy, and “Blackout Poetic Transcription” in Critical Qualitative Research

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-82
Author(s):  
Anthony Keith ◽  
Crystal Leigh Endsley
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Spoken Word Poetry ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Critical Qualitative Research ◽  
Hip Hop Pedagogy ◽  
Poetic Transcription ◽  
Alternative Identities

This article traces the development of Blackout Poetic Transcription (BPT) as a critical methodology for artist-scholars engaged with Hip Hop pedagogy in higher education spaces.  We include Keith’s outline of the BPT method and Endsly’s first hand account of implementing the practice in an undergraduate classroom. Together, the authors grapple with mainstream and alternative identities within their Hip Hop praxis as spoken word artists and educators.

A Deeper Examination of Social Skill

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Obstfeld
Keyword(s):  
Social Skill ◽  
Behavioral Adaptation ◽  
Field Observations ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
Role Taking ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interactionist Perspective ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
The Voice

The relational astuteness that underlies brokerage process and knowledge articulation is the major focus of this chapter. One’s ability to encode a communication has to work hand in hand with the ability to read one’s audience, in order to shape the knowledge that is to be articulated and manage relationships. The chapter first examines the social astuteness that underpins a dyadic exchange, drawing on Mead’s symbolic interactionist perspective and the communication practices of role taking, self as object, imaginative rehearsal, and behavioral adaptation. The chapter then extends that approach to the triadic perspective emphasized in this book. The chapter next explores perspective articulation in greater depth and then turns to riffing—another facet of social skill—where actors draw on the voice or lived-in experience of another individual or category of individuals to drive innovation. The chapter concludes with field observations to capture the influential program manager’s social skill.

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