scholarly journals "We are the new Lithuania"

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 54-78
Author(s):  
Clinton Glenn
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Gender Diversity ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Gay Identity ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Lgbt Activism ◽  
The Media ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Baltic

In the Baltic States, LGBT representation in the media is limited at best. While LGBT activism continues to gain support and visibility, LGBT characters are considerably less common on film and television, and only Lithuania has produced films with openly gay or lesbian characters in main roles. This stands in contrast to the tendency in Baltic media and politics to lay claim to Nordic values and to identify as Northern European rather than Eastern European. In this paper I examine how two Lithuanian films grapple with identity and place in their depictions of gay characters. Porno Melodrama (Romas Zabarauskas, 2011) follows a gay couple as they are forced to choose between nationalistic homophobia and fleeing to “safer” cities in Western Europe. Nuo Lietuvos Nepabėgsi (You Can’t Escape Lithuania, Romas Zabarauskas, 2016) features a fictionalised version of its director in a meta-narrative meditation on the meaning of cinema as well as the place of queerness in the “new” Lithuania. In this article I interrogate how sexual and national identity are placed in contra-distinction to one another in the two films by Romas Zabarauskas: in Porno Melodrama, where gay identity is met with violent retribution; and in You Can’t Escape Lithuania, where queerness serves as a critique of the underlying foundations of gender, sexuality and nationalist narratives of belonging. I critique Western conceptions of homonormativity and homonationalism, where their problematic mapping onto a Baltic context fails to take into account the diverging reality in which neoliberalism has not been accompanied by more inclusive attitudes to sexual and gender diversity.

scholarly journals Creative industries in the capital cities of the Baltic States: Are there innovations in urban policy?

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 47-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Külliki Tafel-Viia ◽  
Erik Terk ◽  
Silja Lassur ◽  
Andres Viia
Keyword(s):  
Urban Policy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
European Cities ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract The transformation of urban policy, resulting from ‘creative industries’ policy developments, is explored in this article, with respect to the Baltic capitals. Policy initiatives in the creative industries in Central and Eastern European cities have predominantly developed through policy transfers from Western Europe, with its long-term market economy experience. How adaptable are such policies for post-socialist cities? Using the concept of social innovation, this article describes mechanisms that facilitate policy acceptance and examines whether and how the development of creative industries has resulted in urban policy renewal in the Baltic capitals.

scholarly journals LGBTQI+ Healthcare (in)Equalities in Portugal: What Can We Learn from Asexuality?

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 583
Author(s):  
Rita Alcaire
Keyword(s):  
Gender Diversity ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Sexual Diversity ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
Formal And Informal Learning ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Doctor's Office

The main purpose of this article is to analyse how healthcare providers in Portugal perceive asexuality. To do so, the author makes use of qualitative data from both the CILIA LGBTQI+ Lives project and The Asexual Revolution doctoral research on asexuality in Portugal, namely, a focus group conducted with healthcare providers, drawing from their assessment of interview excerpts with people identifying as asexual. The data were explored according to thematic analysis and revealed three major tendencies: (1) old tropes at the doctor’s office; (2) narratives of willingness to learn about the subject; and (3) constructive and encouraging views of asexuality. From this analysis, valuable lessons can be drawn concerning the respect for gender and sexual diversity. The author argues that both formal and informal learning play an important role in building cultural competence among healthcare providers. This could be achieved both by introducing sexual and gender diversity in curricula in HE and through media exposure on these subjects. Overall, it will lead to building knowledge and empathy about marginalised groups, and will help fight inequalities of LGBTQI+ people in healthcare. As such, LGTBQI+ activism that puts the topics of asexuality and LGBTQI+ in the media agenda, is a powerful strategy. Hence, because healthcare providers show willingness to learn, the media becomes a source for learning about asexual and LGTBQI+ experiences, which they can incorporate in their medical practice.

scholarly journals The Digital Divide in Western Europe: Problems and Prospects

10.28945/2456 ◽  
2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Carveth ◽  
Susan B. Kretchmer
Keyword(s):  
Digital Divide ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Effective Solution ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Internet Penetration ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Public Partnerships

This paper reviews the digital divide in Western Europe, as well as policy options for combating that divide. While age, income and gender are significant predictors of the digital divide in Western Europe, geography plays a crucial role. The countries in Southern Europe have less computer and Internet penetration than their Northern European counterparts. The paper then discusses four policy options for combating the divide, suggesting that the most effective solution would be private/public partnerships.

scholarly journals Top management diversity: A survey of Lebanese journalists in top media teams

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-49
Author(s):  
May Chidiac ◽  
Mireille Chidiac El Hajj
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Gender Diversity ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Top Management ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Women Journalists ◽  
The Media ◽  
And Gender

The media community in Lebanon has currently recognized the importance of women journalists’ role; few papers, however, have sought to discuss why they are still underrepresented in governance positions. Despite making up a majority and being active in the media field, Lebanese women journalists are still excluded from top management positions. This paper studies the factors that hinder them from climbing the ladder to top levels. It examines the status of women journalists in leadership positions in the media field, studies the obstacles and the barriers, and explores the glass ceiling they face. It highlights the religious, the political beliefs, the social issues and the binary division between the soft and the hard news that affect women’s leadership positions in the media sector. It is a blend of qualitative and quantitative approaches, as we looked for consistency among knowledgeable informants, to ensure comprehensive explanations and in-depth understanding of the related issues. The findings of the paper investigate media journalists’ points-of-view in terms of gender diversity and gender discrimination. They shed the light on the main obstacles, women and men journalists interviewees felt about women lack of progress as well as their inability to assume a place in decision-making processes and policy-setting positions. However, this study is not without its limitations; therefore, it recommends further research in order to explicitly explore strategies that promote the active participation of women in decision making structures in media in Lebanon. It creates value not only for the media sector but benefits as well the Lebanese society at large.

Agonistic Queer TV Studies for Western Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Vanlee
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gender Diversity ◽  
Direct Interaction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Television Industry ◽  
Television Production ◽  
Lgbt Community ◽  
Western European ◽  
And Gender

Queer TV studies have until now focused predominantly on U.S. TV culture, and research into representations of sexual and gender diversity in Western European, Asian, and Latin American programming has only recently found traction. Due to this U.S. focus, queer television in Western Europe has yet to be comprehensively documented in scholarly sources, and Western European queer television studies hardly constitute an emancipated practice. Given that U.S.-focused queer theories of television remain the primary frame of reference to study LGBT+ televisibility in Western Europe, but its domestic small screens comprise a decidedly different institutional context, it is at this time necessary to synthetically assess how the U.S. television industry has given way to specific logics in queer scholarship and whether these logics suit conditions found in domestic television cultures. Queer analyses of U.S. TV programming rightly recognize the presence and form of non-heterosexual and non-cisgender characters and stories as a function of commerce; that is to say, television production in the United States must primarily be profitable, and whether or how the LGBT+ community is represented by popular entertainment is determined by economic factors. The recognition hereof pits queer scholars against the television industry, and the antagonistic approach it invites dissuades them from articulating how TV could do better for LGBT+ people rather than only critiquing what TV currently does wrong. While it is crucial to be attentive toward the power relations reflected and naturalized by television representations, it is also important to recognize that the discretion of prescriptive, normative interventions by queer TV scholars relates to conditions of U.S. television production. The dominance of public service broadcasters (PSBs) and their historical role in spearheading LGBT+ televisibility highlights the distinctive conditions queer TV scholarship is situated in in Western Europe and troubles established modes of engaging the medium. Where the modest scale of national industries already facilitates more direct interaction between academics and TV professionals, PSBs are held to democratic responsibilities on diverse representation and have a history of involving scholars to address and substantiate their pluralistic mission. Consequently, Western European television cultures offer a space to conceive of an agonistic mode of queer TV scholarship, premised not only on contesting what is wrong but also on proposing what would be right. Hence, future engagements with domestic LGBT+ televisibility must look beyond established analytics and explore the value of articulating openly normative propositions about desirable ways of representing sexual and gender diversity.

scholarly journals Vernacular Beliefs and Official Traditional Religion: The position and meaning of Mari worldview in the current context

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-100
Author(s):  
Tatiana Alybina
Keyword(s):  
Eastern European ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Baltic Region ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Vernacular Religion ◽  
Tribal Societies ◽  
Current Context ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Asian People ◽  
Catholic Churches

Vernacular religion connected with the clan was expected to adapt in the context of globalisation and the vanishing ideals of traditional (tribal) societies. But at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries a revival of European ‘paganism’ has appeared. A return to vernacular beliefs is not only happening in the mass religious mind of some Eastern European and Asian people, but also in the romantic mythologemes which are being created by national elites. Lithuanians, who were Christianised in the fourteenth century – the last nation in the Baltic region to undergo this process  – recall their heathen roots; Ukrainians revive their rodnoverie – indigenous beliefs – in an attempt to resist the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Apart from this there are other pre-Christian faith organisations in Latvia, Estonia, Germany and England. The traditions of the pre-Christian societies attract people through their apparent proximity to communal peasant culture. Followers of some of these beliefs are interested in popularising Viking mythology. The activities of druids and adherents of the Northern European Asatru religion revive ancient festivals and ceremonies. The popularisation of these movements can be seen as an attempt to resist an encroachment of the modern, globalised, urbane society.

scholarly journals The Changing Relation Between Sexual and Gender Minorities and Religion in Finland: Some Observations in the Light of Postsecularity

2020 ◽  
pp. 171-196
Author(s):  
Peter Nynäs ◽  
Eetu Kejonen ◽  
Pieter Vullers
Keyword(s):  
Gender Diversity ◽  
Interview Study ◽  
Sexual And Gender Minorities ◽  
Sexual Diversity ◽  
Gender Minorities ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Media ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
Religious Landscape

AbstractThis chapter addresses some relevant issues regarding religion and sexual and gender diversity in Finland. Starting from the notion of a postsecular condition and making use of three complementary lenses, the chapter first provides an overview of recent developments in both legislative equality and changing attitudes in Finland. Second, it provides additional depth with an interview study including professionals from organizations working with issues of relevance to sexual and gender minorities. The chapter identifies some remaining challenges in the nexus of religion and gender and/or sexual diversity in Finland, an aspect that is emphasized when the chapter finally turns to public discussions in the media where different positions and views tend to clash today. The discussion in this chapter exemplifies the need to critically account for recent changes in the religious landscape.

scholarly journals Social Responsibility

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-134
Author(s):  
Sameera Mian
Keyword(s):  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Junior Faculty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Keynote Address ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Market Driving ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Media ◽  
And Gender

The 2nd Annual AMSS-UK Conference, “Social Responsibility:Challenges for the Future,” took place October 21-22 at the University ofWestminster, London. Scholars from the United Kingdom, Ireland,Malaysia, the United States, Western Europe, and Turkey presented fortytwopapers. Over one hundred participants attended the two-day event. TheConference featured scholars such Malik Badri, Kamal Hassan, MuradHofmann, Abdelwahab El-Affendi, in addition to emerging intellectualssuch as Mashood A. Baderin and Fauzi Ahmad. The vital participation ofgraduate students and junior faculty at the AMSS-UK and the AMSS-USconference in Washington, DC, the prior weekend indicates the growingpresence of Muslims in western academia.Asad Ahmad was master of ceremonies and Yusuf El-Khoie from theKhoie Foundation gave the opening remarks. The keynote address inauguratedthe conference and was followed by a plenary session. Paper sessionscomprised the rest of the event with a “book Iaunch” and final plenary sessionconcluding the program Sunday afternoon.Paper sessions were organized around various subthemes directly relatedto social responsibility and the future. Presenters reflected upon social welfare,the state, social policy and community development, law, health andsocial care, grassroots action, globalization and the media, education, andmethodologies and gender. The direct link between the Conference themeand paper sessions encouraged a lucid and fertile ground for intense discussion,paving the way for an emerging discourse on social responsibilityin Islam.The keynote address was delivered by Kamal Hassan, rector,International Islamic University, Malaysia, and established the importanceof scholars and academics in promoting social responsibility. He reflectedupon the role of universities in promoting social responsibility under globalization.At present, universities are reacting to globalization by adoptinga “corporatization of curriculum” and a “market driving” approach to ...

Suicide and the Media

Crisis ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 163-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Warwick Blood ◽  
Jane Pirkis
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Causal Association ◽  
Media Messages ◽  
Film And Television ◽  
Media Portrayal ◽  
The Media ◽  
Actual Suicide ◽  
Multiple Meanings

Summary: The body of evidence suggests that there is a causal association between nonfictional media reporting of suicide (in newspapers, on television, and in books) and actual suicide, and that there may be one between fictional media portrayal (in film and television, in music, and in plays) and actual suicide. This finding has been explained by social learning theory. The majority of studies upon which this finding is based fall into the media “effects tradition,” which has been criticized for its positivist-like approach that fails to take into account of media content or the capacity of audiences to make meaning out of messages. A cultural studies approach that relies on discourse and frame analyses to explore meanings, and that qualitatively examines the multiple meanings that audiences give to media messages, could complement the effects tradition. Together, these approaches have the potential to clarify the notion of what constitutes responsible reporting of suicide, and to broaden the framework for evaluating media performance.

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