scholarly journals A Tale of Two Versions—I Am Legend (2007) and the Political Economy of Cultural Production

Nordlit ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Pötzsch
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Propaganda Model ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
Market Pressures

Based on a comparative reading of the officially released version and the director’s cut of Francis Lawrence’s movie I Am Legend (2007a; 2007b), the present contribution interrogates possible connections between the political economy of film production and aesthetic form. Drawing upon theoretical frameworks such as Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model and Artz’ critical study of global entertainment industries, and combining these with an analysis of Lawrence’s two versions, I argue that profit-oriented adaptations to implied market pressures are not neutral endeavours, but inherently political acts that shape aesthetic form to, often-tacitly, reiterate a received hegemonic status quo.

scholarly journals Exploring Cultural Memory Through Political Economy—Manufacturing History in the Documentary The Battle for Hitler’s Supership (2005)

Nordlit ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane C. Bockwoldt
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Royal Air Force ◽  
Propaganda Model ◽  
Self Perceptions ◽  
Manufacturing History ◽  
Self Presentations

This article suggests supplementing Astrid Erll’s framework for analysis of memory making media with key insights from Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model. An analysis of the documentary The Battle for Hitler’s Supership that portrays the story of the German battleship Tirpitz, which the British Royal Air Force sunk in Tromsø in 1944, will illustrate the benefits of this approach. The combination of a formal analysis with an examination of the structural conditions that predispose the medium’s appearance provide valuable insights into how and why a specific dominant message that is conveyed by the documentary emerges. I show that the political economy behind the TV production has an impact on the documentary’s content and form and argue that the evolving narrative not only depicts a story about the specific events of November 1944 but also about current national self-perceptions and self-presentations.

scholarly journals A Critical Study of Informal New Media Uses in Sweden

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 1025-1047
Author(s):  
Yiannis Mylonas
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
New Media ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
Critical Literature ◽  
Critical Perspectives

This study looks at a variety of “informal” uses of new media and ICTs. The term informal describes popular uses of digital technologies that often exist outside the norms, laws, and codes that dictate how digital technologies and networks are to be used. Such activities include what is commonly described as “piracy,” but also embrace different peer-to-peer practices. Informal activities develop due to the affordances of digital technologies, which allow space for creativity and personalization of use, but are also due to broader sociocultural variables and contextual issues. In general terms, informal activities are those that concern the amateur activities of people using digital programs, tools, and networks. Media scholars see great potential in new media/ICT affordances, as related to the proliferation of grassroots participation, communication, and creativity. Nevertheless, a growing critical literature forces us to examine the actualization of such potential. This paper discusses the aforementioned issues by looking at new media/ICT uses in Sweden; it departs from critical perspectives that take into consideration the political economy of new media, and the cultural-political critiques of late-modern consumer societies.

scholarly journals The Aging Enterprise: A 40-Year Retrospective

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 718-719
Author(s):  
Larry Polivka ◽  
Carroll Estes
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Construction Of Reality ◽  
Older Americans ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Critical Gerontology ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Iconic Status

Abstract Dr. Carroll Estes has long been recognized as one of our most influential social gerontologists beginning with the publication of the Aging Enterprise over 40 years ago. This book quickly achieved iconic status among gerontologists and other social scientists as one of the founding texts in critical gerontology, which Dr. Estes has played a leading role in developing with numerous publications over the course of her illustrious career. The panelists will focus on Dr. Estes’ application of the theoretical frameworks offered by the social construction of reality and the political economy of aging to a critique of federal and state policies designed to improve the quality of life of older Americans. Many of the programs and policies included in Dr. Estes’ critique are still in place, including the Older Americans Act and the nonprofit aging network. On the other hand, much about the aging enterprise has changed since 1979. The panelists, Drs. Chris Phillipson, Pamela Herd and Larry Polivka, will discuss the value of and challenges to these theoretical and empirical perspectives within the current contemporary neoliberal political economy that has gradually displaced the welfare state capitalism of the postwar period. As this shift has occurred in the political economy, a neoliberal policy agenda featuring for-profit privatization of public services, including aging services, has become dominant at the federal and state levels. Dr. Estes will respond to the panelists’ presentations and discuss the future of critical gerontology. Women's Issues Interest Group Sponsored Symposium.

scholarly journals Review of Hegemony, Mass Media, and Cultural Studies: Properties of Meaning, Power, and Value in Cultural Production by Sean Johnson Andrews (Rowman & Littlefield)

Lateral ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Wood
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Readership ◽  
History Of

Sean Johnson Andrews has produced an engaging text of multifaceted value. His work, particularly the opening chapters, provides a concise history of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), the (early) Frankfurt School Critical Theory, and the Political Economy of Communication (PEC). Although the histories and notable figureheads of these schools will be broadly familiar to most scholars working in the realm of cultural studies, these opening chapters would be an excellent introduction to the field for either a general readership or students. Indeed, this would make a good textbook in many contexts.

The Political Economy of Localism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Ali
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Alternatives ◽  
Critical Regionalism ◽  
Local Media ◽  
The Status ◽  
Policy Windows ◽  
Definition Of

In Chapter 6, the case studies are analyzed through the frameworks of critical regionalism and critical political economy. The first section describes how a political economy of localism has come to exist within media policy discourse. This system favors the status quo over alternatives, tethers local media exclusively to specific places, and impedes our ability to think through ways to bridge the spatial and social divides of localism. The second section reintroduces critical regionalism as an approach that tempers this political economy. The chapter argues that while the political economy of localism works to stifle policy alternatives, there are policy windows – “moments of critical regionalism” – that require our attention. The chapter offers a definition of media localism based on critical regionalism and the case studies.

Managerial Discretion and Organizational Slack: A Commentary

1991 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-40
Author(s):  
Subhash Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Managerial Discretion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Organizational Slack ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Central Focus

The central focus of this study is to analyse some important theoretical frameworks for understanding the phenomenon of managerial discretionary bahaviour. The study suggests that the political – economy framework is useful in gaining insights into the modalities of managerial discretionary behaviour. In this paper, Subhash Sharma further tries to decipher the implications of managerial discretion for explaining organizational slack.

scholarly journals What’s the Problem with Learning Analytics?

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Selwyn
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Learning Analytics ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
The Status

This article summarizes some emerging concerns as learning analytics become implemented throughout education. The article takes a sociotechnical perspective — positioning learning analytics as shaped by a range of social, cultural, political, and economic factors. In this manner, various concerns are outlined regarding the propensity of learning analytics to entrench and deepen the status quo, disempower and disenfranchise vulnerable groups, and further subjugate public education to the profit-led machinations of the burgeoning “data economy.” In light of these charges, the article briefly considers some possible areas of change. These include the design of analytics applications that are more open and accessible, that offer genuine control and oversight to users, and that better reflect students’ lived reality. The article also considers ways of rethinking the political economy of the learning analytics industry. Above all, learning analytics researchers need to begin talking more openly about the values and politics of data-driven analytics technologies as they are implemented along mass lines throughout school and university contexts.

The political economy of fanzines on the threshold of state socialism and post-socialism: The story of Czech(o)slovak fanzines

2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942110074
Author(s):  
Karel Šima
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Safe Space ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Alternative Communities ◽  
Cultural Hierarchies

In this article, I analyse Czech and Slovak fanzine-making during the transition from state socialism to post-socialism. The regime change ushered in new dominant forms of cultural production, and thus a situation emerged in which cultural hierarchies were being negotiated and new ways of collective action being formed. Fanzines played a crucial role in building up alternative communities in the new neoliberal system, when there was strong demand for Western subcultural styles and the need of safe space of domestic scenes. Independent publishing depends heavily upon that which it opposes, and when major social changes occur, fanzine-making provided a space for negotiating cultural hierarchies, resulting in specific ways in which fanzines help build and maintain alternative scenes.

scholarly journals Fetishism or Ideology? A Contribution to the Political Economy of Television

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-190
Author(s):  
Noam Yuran
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Television Advertising ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ontological Category ◽  
Visual Medium ◽  
Broadcast Television ◽  
Material Goods

The dominant approach to the political economy of television argues that television produces "audience commodity" which is sold to advertisers. It situates the economic effects of television in the sphere of subjects and subjectivity. This article presents a different approach, according to which television produces objects. Television advertising produces brands as economic objects possessing qualities that material goods cannot provide. For that purpose, it changes the basis of a critical study of television form ideology, which is primarily an epistemological category, to the ontological category of fetishism. This change entails a shift in the topology of critique of the visual image. Instead of seeing images as inverted representations of reality, in fetishism, according to Marx, things “appear as what they are”. The article argues that broadcast television is the distinctive fetishistic visual medium, in both the Marxian and the psychoanalytic senses of the term.

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