scholarly journals Love Jihad in Contemporary Art in Norway

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1106
Author(s):  
Ragnhild Johnsrud Zorgati

This article explores the concept of ‘love jihad’ and the love jihad discourse in a Scandinavian setting, with a particular emphasis on contemporary works of art and popular culture in Norway. Arguing that ‘love jihad’ may be understood as part of a larger cluster of meaning related to fear of love across religious and cultural boundaries, and of losing ‘our women’ to ‘foreign men’, the article demonstrates that the love-jihad discourse and its related tropes exist in the Norwegian public sphere. It is directly articulated in far-right blogs and Facebook groups and indirectly present in the works of art and popular culture that this article explores. Indeed, read intertextually and in light of recent research in sociology and media studies about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric on the Internet, works such as Disgraced, Heisann Montebello, SAS plus/SAS pussy, and Norskish demonstrate—through challenging, mocking or discussing the love-jihad discourse—that ‘love jihad’ has echoes in contemporary Norway.

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-37
Author(s):  
P. David Marshall

McLuhan has enjoyed a resurgence in credibility through his rise with the Wired generation. This article identifies that McLuhan's major value is not so much contained in his aphorisms, but directly related to the way he was mediated and disseminated into the cultural consciousness. Thematically. McLuhan's mediation can be grouped around three valuable elements that are worth celebrating: his endeavour to operate at the level of the universal; his activity as a public intellectual: and his less obvious but currently important investment in the populace and popular culture. These components of the McLuhan persona/mediation have had a particular resonance with the changing divides of production/reception, the will to universalisation and the transformed ‘public sphere ‘ that the Internet has foregrounded.


Author(s):  
Pınar Aslan

This chapter intends to take a look at the concept of iconology with a focus on how it evolved into today's iconicity within the framework of cultural studies, media studies, and women's studies. The relation of icons to popularity and popular culture is paid special attention since icons are the best symbols of the zeitgeist of the era they belong to. The main theory of the literature study is taken from art history, that is Erwin Panofsky's study of iconology, and it is implemented into popular culture which can be summarized as a process of reading contemporary icons as works of art.


Author(s):  
Ekaterina Grishaeva

The following article presents a systematic review of the studies of religion in the mediatized public sphere of Scandinavian countries. The mediatized public sphere is tackled as constituted by interrelated media spaces, those of mass media, the Internet, and religious media and media of popular culture which are specifically organized public spaces, each of which varies in their degree of openness to different publics. A review of the empirical research reveals the specificity of the public (re)presentations of religion in each media space. In the Scandinavian mass media, religious issues are covered within the political frame, and “banalized” (Hjavard, 2013), while religious organizations have few opportunities to influence the representation of religious content. Due to its’ non-strict “entrance fee” and the spread of horizontal links, religious issues are articulated by agents though different ideologies on the Internet. Religious media space is an environment where religious organizations seek to maintain an institutional version of the religious narrative. In the media of popular culture, religious themes as a part of popular culture are interpreted aesthetically, and thus, makes this space a repository of religious meanings and identities that can be used in the course of political and public discussions about religion. The variety of media spaces enables the public circulation of diverse representations of religion, and allows various groups to discuss their ideological articulations of religion. However, this results in the polarization of public debates about religion and the fragmentation of the audience. The proposed model of the media spheres’ division into political spaces can be used as a framework for the analysis of the (re)presentation of religion in the Russian media.


1998 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Jones

This essay reviews John Hartley's Popular Reality: Journalism, Modernity, Popular Culture. The significance of this text is that it provides one of the most developed engagements with the public sphere literatures from an author within cultural studies. The article necessarily addresses the considerable weaknesses in Hartley's understanding of the public sphere case. However, the aim is not to dismiss Popular Reality out of hand. Rather, the critique highlights the methodological and ethical differences between analyses based in cultural studies and ‘critical sociology’. Hartley does partially recognise the significance of recent feminist critiques to the much-needed critical reconstruction of the public sphere thesis. The article acknowledges this insight and then moves to a discussion of the ways in which a reconstructed conception of the public sphere thesis might not only be of value to media studies but also to a settlement between cultural studies and ‘critical sociology’.


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolf Maresch

Durch den digitalen Medienwandel ist der Begriff der Öffentlichkeit problematisch geworden. Die Debatte fokussiert sich zumeist auf die Frage, ob die sogenannte bürgerliche Öffentlichkeit durch das Internet im Niedergang begriffen ist oder eine Intensivierung und Pluralisierung erfährt. Rudolf Maresch zeichnet die berühmte Untersuchung der Kategorie durch Jürgen Habermas nach und zieht den von ihm konstatierten Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit in Zweifel. Dagegen verweist er auf die gouvernementalen und medialen Prozesse, die jede Form von Kommunikation immer schon gesteuert haben. Öffentlichkeit sei daher ein Epiphänomen nicht allein des Zeitungswesens, sondern der bereits vorgängig ergangenen postalischen Herstellung einer allgemeinen Adressierbarkeit von Subjekten. Heute sei Öffentlichkeit innerhalb der auf Novitäts- und Erregungskriterien abstellenden Massenmedien ein mit anderen Angeboten konkurrierendes Konzept. Mercedes Bunz konstatiert ebenfalls eine Ausweitung und Pluralisierung von Öffentlichkeit durch den digitalen Medienwandel, sieht aber die entscheidenden Fragen in der Konzeption und Verteilung von Evaluationswissen und Evaluationsmacht. Nicht mehr die sogenannten Menschen, sondern Algorithmen entscheiden über die Verbreitung und Bewertung von Nachrichten. Diese sind in der Öffentlichkeit – die sie allererst erzeugen – weitgehend verborgen. Einig sind sich die Autoren darin, dass es zu einer Pluralisierung von Öffentlichkeiten gekommen ist, während der Öffentlichkeitsbegriff von Habermas auf eine singuläre Öffentlichkeit abstellt. </br></br>Due to the transformation of digital media, the notion of “publicity” has become problematic. In most cases, the debate is focused on the question whether the internet causes a decline of so-called civic publicity or rather intensifies and pluralizes it. Rudolf Maresch outlines Jürgen Habermas's famous study of this category and challenges his claim concerning its “structural transformation,” referring to the governmental and medial processes which have always already controlled every form of communication. Publicity, he claims, is an epiphenomenon not only of print media, but of a general addressability of subjects, that has been produced previously by postal services. Today, he concludes, publicity is a concept that competes with other offers of mass media, which are all based on criteria of novelty and excitement. Mercedes Bunz also notes the expansion and pluralization of the public sphere due to the change of digital media, but sees the crucial issues in the design and distribution of knowledge and power by evaluation. So-called human beings no longer decide on the dissemination and evaluation of information, but algorithms, which are for the most part concealed from the public sphere that they produce in the first place. Both authors agree that a pluralization of public sphere(s) has taken place, while Habermas's notion of publicity refers to a single public sphere.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Francoeur

There is a tendency, particularly among Western pundits and technologists, to examine the Internet in almost universally positive terms; this is most evident in any discussion of the medium’s capacity for democratization. While the Internet has produced many great things for society in terms of cultural and economic production, some consideration must be given to the implications that such a revolutionary medium holds for the public sphere. By creating a communicative space that essentially grants everyone his or her own microphone, the Internet is fragmenting public discourse due to the proliferation of opinions and messages and the removal of traditional gatekeepers of information. More significantly, because of the structural qualities of the Internet, users no longer have to expose themselves to opinions and viewpoints that fall outside their own preconceived notions. This limits the robustness of the public sphere by limiting the healthy debate that can only occur when exposed to multiple viewpoints. Ultimately, the Internet is not going anywhere, so it is important to equip the public with the tools and knowledge to be able to navigate the digital space. 


Author(s):  
Laurence Maslon

A generational change at the beginning of the twenty-first century intersected with the technological advance of the Internet to provide a renaissance of Broadway music in popular culture. Downloading playlists allowed the home listener to become, in essence, his/her own record producer; length, narrative, performer were now all in the hands of the consumer’s personal preference. Following in the footsteps of Rent (as a favorite of a younger demographic), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton emerged as the greatest pop culture/Broadway musical phenomenon of the twenty-first century; its cast album and cover recording shot up near the top of music’s pop charts. A rediscovery of the power of Broadway’s music to transform listening and consumer habits seems imminent with the addition of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen to a devoted fan base—and beyond.


Author(s):  
Robin M. Boylorn

This chapter considers the role, importance, and impact of public intellectualism on the future of qualitative research. The chapter argues that the move toward technology and the public dissemination of information via the internet requires a shift in how and what we research with an expressed intention of reaching a broader and nonacademic audience. The chapter considers the relationship between the private and public sphere, and the so-called “bastardization” of intellectualism to explain the role and rise of public intellectualism in qualitative research. By considering issues such as personal subjectivity, accountability, representation, and epistemological privilege, the chapter discusses how public contexts inform qualitative research and, conversely, how qualitative research can inform the public.


1989 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-21
Author(s):  
Darlene Tong

During the 1970s and 1980s, a number of American artists have made use of clothing as an art medium. Their work constitutes a new art movement, drawing on, and straddling divisions between, Pop Art, performing arts, popular culture, and fashion; it merits more thorough and accessible documentation, and there is a need for art libraries to make available the elusive information which does exist.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Giacomini

This viewpoint makes a theoretical effort to label the organization of the virtual sphere under new concepts: ‘encastellation’ and the ‘paradox of pluralism’. The former is a metaphorical synthesis of already-known concepts (selective exposure, polarization, homophily, echo chambers and filter bubbles). In the second case, we emphasize the existence of a ‘paradox of online pluralism’: the internet has increased the possibility for everyone to make their voice heard (in quantitative terms), but at the same time it appears to also be increasing the distance between voices, putting in jeopardy the achievement of the aims of the pluralist political system (in qualitative terms). In conclusion, we express doubts about the feasibility of the deliberative vision of democracy in the current virtual sphere.


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