New Media and Hegemonic Discourse in Pakistan

Author(s):  
Saman Talib ◽  
Saadia Gardezi

Cell phones in the Sahara, Internet in Burma, cable television in Pakistan: modern media developments are finally touching the far flung reaches of Earth. With the arrival of these innovations come myriad uses, effects, and consequences. Once again the debate on the emancipatory utility of these media is renewed as these media reach deeper into global society. This chapter states that the effects of the ‘new media’ may not be what we expect with respect to the democratization of society. The analysis shows that ideological hegemony is not only alive and well, but might even thrive in these new media. To scrutinize these effects, the chapter focuses on the impact of Pakistani cable television on identity and culture discourse through the lens of three topics: identity and the new communication technologies; ideology, power and the new media; and new media and new popular cultures.

2007 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-70
Author(s):  
Melissa Gregg

As the use of wireless communication technologies begins to settle into particular patterns, this essay considers the impact of such devices on workplace culture — particularly that of the professional middle class engaged in information work. While the study of workplace culture is usually the domain of sociology, management theory or organisational behaviour, media and cultural studies methods such as semiotic and discourse analysis, media consumption and theories of everyday life have a useful role to play in understanding how technology is marketed and subsequently used in and outside work contexts. As a starting point for this kind of approach, the paper combines an account of recent wireless advertising in Australia with research that is developing in ‘production-side cultural studies’ (Liu, 2004; Du Gay, 1997). In recognising the significance of new media technologies in contemporary labour practice and politics, it aims to move discussions beyond the notion of ‘work-life balance’ as a research endpoint to allow more variegated notions of freedom and flexibility for the workplaces of the present and near future.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Goldberg

A descriptive exploration of the impact on contemporary Québécois performing arts by new media and communication technologies, this thesis provides a historical and critical evaluation of "multimedia theatre" in Quebec. Drawing on Turner's theories of performative ritual and Armour & Trott's writing on culture and the Canadian mind, as well as the work of Benjamin, Ellul, Grant, Heidegger, Innis, and McLuhan on technology and cultural production, and the issues of time and space raised by the work of Gilles Maheu, Josette Féral, Patrice Pavis, and Robert Lepage, among others, this thesis argues that while prior research has located Quebec's arts culture in provincial drives for sovereignty and cultural recognition, it might better be understood as a narrative of a people in search of self-identification, offering new perspectives by which to understand an interlinked development of technology and artistic endeavour that has long been in need of critical examination.


2007 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-70
Author(s):  
Melissa Gregg

As the use of wireless communication technologies begins to settle into particular patterns, this essay considers the impact of such devices on workplace culture — particularly that of the professional middle class engaged in information work. While the study of workplace culture is usually the domain of sociology, management theory or organisational behaviour, media and cultural studies methods such as semiotic and discourse analysis, media consumption and theories of everyday life have a useful role to play in understanding how technology is marketed and subsequently used in and outside work contexts. As a starting point for this kind of approach, the paper combines an account of recent wireless advertising in Australia with research that is developing in ‘production-side cultural studies’ (Liu, 2004; Du Gay, 1997). In recognising the significance of new media technologies in contemporary labour practice and politics, it aims to move discussions beyond the notion of ‘work–life balance’ as a research endpoint to allow more variegated notions of freedom and flexibility for the workplaces of the present and near future. We feel free only because we lack the language to describe our unfreedom. — Slavoj Zizek, Welcome to the Desert of the Real


Author(s):  
Guo-Ming Chen ◽  
Kai Zhang

New media has been the main force accelerating the development of globalizing society in the last two decades. With its digital, convergent, interactive, hypertextual, and virtual nature, new media has brought human interaction and society to a highly interconnected and complex level. The rapid transformation of human society due to the impact of the convergence of new media and globalization directly influences the construction and development of cultural identity. The emergence of new media and globalization not only breaks through the limit of the traditional time and space, but also may challenge the meaning of cultural identity. The purpose of this chapter is to unravel the intricate relationships between new media, globalization, and cultural identity through the process of definition, interpretation, and critical analysis.


2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus D. Watson ◽  
Evans A. Atuick

Abstract:Many scholars have concluded, perhaps prematurely, that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are inherently empowering for Africans. In order to look more closely at the impact of ICTs on relationships and society, this article focuses on everyday life. Specifically, it uses ethnographic methods and the theory of “affordances” to illuminate the use of cell phones among Bulsa of Ghana’s Upper East Region. While cell phones help users connect with distant loved ones, they also plant seeds of alienation between users and those who remain physically present. These changes are evident in new body habits and in social behaviors that would be culturally unacceptable in face-to-face interactions but are largely excused in the interventions of the virtual world.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Archetti

Summary Based on a range of interviews with foreign diplomats in London, this article explains the considerable variation in the way that communication technologies both affect diplomatic practices and are appropriated by diplomats to pursue the respective countries’ information-gathering and public outreach objectives. The study shows that London, as an information environment, is experienced differently by each of the diplomats and embassy actors. The analysis elaborates a model of the ‘communication behaviour’ of foreign diplomats, based on an evolutionary analogy: foreign diplomats in the context of the British capital, within their respective embassy organizations, can each be compared to the members of a species that is attempting to survive in a natural environment. The nuances highlighted by the explanatory model challenge the largely homogeneous and generalized nature of current debates about media and diplomacy, as well as public diplomacy.


2020 ◽  
pp. 311-336
Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand

This chapter focuses on the concept of civil society, along with interest groups and the media. It first provides a background on the evolution of civil society and interest groups before discussing corporatism. In particular, it examines the ways in which civil society responds to state actors and tries to manoeuvre them into cooperation. This is politics from below. The chapter proceeds by considering the notion of ‘infrapolitics’ and the emergence of a school of ‘subaltern’ studies. It also explores the role of the media in political life and the impact of new communication technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones on politics. Finally, it evaluates some of the challenges presented by new media to civil society.


Author(s):  
Peter Ferdinand

This chapter focuses on the concept of civil society, along with interest groups and the media. It first provides a background on the evolution of civil society and interest groups before discussing corporatism. In particular, it examines the ways in which civil society responds to state actors and tries to manoeuvre them into cooperation. This is politics from below. The chapter proceeds by considering the notion of ‘infrapolitics’ and the emergence of a school of ‘subaltern’ studies. It also explores the role of the media in political life and the impact of new communication technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones on politics. Finally, it evaluates some of the challenges presented by new media to civil society.


Author(s):  
Todd Wolfson

This book examines the impact of new media and communication technologies on the spatial, strategic, and organizational fabric of social movements. It begins with the rise of the Zapatistas in the mid-1990s, and how aspects of the movement—network organizational structure, participatory democratic governance, and the use of communication tools as a binding agent—became essential parts of Indymedia and all Cyber Left organizations. From there the book charts the media-based think tanks and experiments that continued the Cyber Left's evolution through the Independent Media Center's birth around the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. After examining the historical antecedents and rise of the global Indymedia network, the book melds virtual and traditional ethnographic practice to explore the Cyber Left's cultural logic, mapping the social, spatial and communicative structure of the Indymedia network and detailing its operations on the local, national and global level. It also looks at the participatory democracy that governs global social movements and the ways the movement's twin ideologies, democracy and decentralization, have come into tension, and how what the book calls the switchboard of struggle conducts stories of shared struggle from the hyper-local and dispersed worldwide. As the book shows, understanding the intersection of Indymedia and the Global Social Justice Movement illuminates their foundational role in the Occupy struggle, Arab Spring uprising, and the other emergent movements that have in recent years re-energized radical politics.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Goldberg

A descriptive exploration of the impact on contemporary Québécois performing arts by new media and communication technologies, this thesis provides a historical and critical evaluation of "multimedia theatre" in Quebec. Drawing on Turner's theories of performative ritual and Armour & Trott's writing on culture and the Canadian mind, as well as the work of Benjamin, Ellul, Grant, Heidegger, Innis, and McLuhan on technology and cultural production, and the issues of time and space raised by the work of Gilles Maheu, Josette Féral, Patrice Pavis, and Robert Lepage, among others, this thesis argues that while prior research has located Quebec's arts culture in provincial drives for sovereignty and cultural recognition, it might better be understood as a narrative of a people in search of self-identification, offering new perspectives by which to understand an interlinked development of technology and artistic endeavour that has long been in need of critical examination.


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