Origins of Bosnian humor and its role during the siege of Sarajevo

This article presents an ethnographic study of Bosnian humour during the siege of Sarajevo. The siege of Sarajevo, which followed the collapse of Yugoslavia, lasted four years. Despite the atrocities and war crimes committed against the residents of Sarajevo during this period, they are known for the spirit they demonstrated, and humour was a crucial element of this spirit. On the basis of two-month fieldwork in Sarajevo, I demonstrate how Bosnians employed humour to comment on this traumatic event, made sense of it, and coped with the experience. Although humour under extreme conditions is mainly viewed as a coping mechanism, by exploring the origins of Bosnian humour and stereotypes about Bosnians, I demonstrate that a notable humorous response to the traumatic events of the 1990s was more than a coping mechanism or just a response to this particular war. As I argue, a humorous attitude toward life in Bosnia belongs to people’s identity; it has developed historically as a response to the sufferings of a peripheral group in the region and, as a result, has become a cultural artifact belonging to Bosnians’ ethnic consciousness. In their attempt to preserve a sense of normalcy and restore dignity during the siege, Sarajevans continued to engage in their traditional humour, as doing otherwise would mean they had lost control over who they were.

Cultural Participatory in Tourism Digital Marketing Communication Channel

Tourism is one of Indonesia's leading sectors that has been seriously affected by the pandemic. This study aims to describe participatory culture in digital tourism marketing communication channels during the pandemic, through Instagram social media channels from micro-influencers, that focus on three priority tourism destinations that have been set by the government. By using the Participatory Media Culture Theory from Henry Jenkins, it is further studied how consumers and producers create cultural artifacts with commodity value. The research applied a netnographic method, the data were gathered and analyzed by the social media analysis application Analysis.io. The subject of research is the influencers and followers in 3 (three) Instagram accounts: @explorejogja, @indraseptianazhari, and @travelwithgerie, while the object of the research was the forms of participation as cultural artifacts in these accounts This study concludes that the participants build a participatory culture by the power of visual and narrative artifacts, as well as their spreadability. Further this research shows that (1) cultural artifacts in each account have their own characteristics, with similarities in the prosumer participation, where reposting becomes a cultural artifact that has its own power to form virtual relationships; (2) attractive visuals and informal guides in the form of narratives are also cultural artifacts that invite further involvement of participants, in the form of likes, comments, reposts, etc.; and (3) the presence of micro-influencers who are inherently intertwined with these accounts jointly contributing to the dissemination of content and their respective accounts, which in turn becomes a force for the spread of tourism marketing, especially during the pandemic. Pariwisata adalah salah satu sektor unggulan Indonesia yang terkena dampak serius dari pandemi ini. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan budaya partisipatif dalam saluran komunikasi pemasaran pariwisata digital selama pandemi, melalui saluran media sosial Instagram dari mikro-influencer, yang berfokus pada tiga destinasi wisata prioritas yang telah ditetapkan oleh pemerintah. Dengan menggunakan Teori Budaya Media Partisipatif dari Henry Jenkins, lebih lanjut dipelajari bagaimana konsumen dan produsen menciptakan artefak budaya dengan nilai komoditas. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode netnografi, data dikumpulkan dan dianalisis dengan aplikasi analisis media sosial Analysis.io. Subjek penelitian adalah influencer dan followers di 3 (tiga) akun Instagram: @explorejogja, @indraseptianazhari, dan @travelwithgerie, sedangkan objek penelitian adalah bentuk partisipasi sebagai artefak budaya dalam akun tersebut. Penelitian ini menyimpulkan budaya partisipatori dibangun dengan kekuatan artefak visual dan naratif, serta daya sebarnya. Lebih lanjut, penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa (1) artefak budaya di setiap akun memiliki ciri khas tersendiri, dengan kesamaan berupa partisipasi prosumer, dimana reposting menjadi artefak budaya yang memiliki kekuatan untuk membentuk hubungan virtual; (2) visual yang menarik dan panduan informal berupa narasi juga merupakan artefak budaya yang mengundang keterlibatan peserta lebih lanjut, dalam bentuk ekspresi rasa suka, komentar, repost, dll; dan (3) kehadiran micro-influencer yang secara inheren terjalin dengan akun-akun tersebut secara bersama-sama berkontribusi dalam penyebaran konten dan akunnya masing-masing, yang pada akhirnya menjadi kekuatan bagi penyebaran pemasaran pariwisata, khususnya di masa pandemi.

From the Margins to the Center

Self-publishing is a topic not typically discussed in the literature classroom, yet it can provide an opportunity to highlight voices and works from the margins, think critically about the publishing methods, and promote the study of the book as a cultural artifact. This article provides a case study on using special collections materials to teach undergraduates about self-published American literature. It includes suggestions about how to find and select materials, details about facilitating a discussion and a hands-on activity on the topic, and recommendations for adapting these ideas for other teaching contexts.

How to use a mask

In the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asians wearing masks in white colonized countries became a target of white supremacist violence. This piece of fabric has been a point of contention for anti-maskers who feel like their freedoms are being threatened. To dispel the myths of why people might wear masks, this is a basic 101 tutorial on how to use a mask. The comic tutorial breaks down what this apparently exotic cultural artifact is, why people wear it and how to use it properly. This is directed at white people so that next time they see East Asians wearing face masks, they will be equipped with all the relevant information to NOT punch us in the face, kick us out of supermarkets, bully Asian hospital workers, or abuse us on the streets or online. This comic was inspired by the safety instruction cards on flights and the patronizing posters in Anglo colonial university washrooms that tell Chinese students not to stand on the toilet seats. Thanks to Kirsty Fong for the idea and for being a reference.

Inventing the Recording

Inventing the Recording: The Phonograph and National Culture in Spain, 1877–1914 focuses on the decades in which the recording went from technological possibility to commercial and cultural artifact, and it does so through the analysis of a specific and unique national context: Spain. It tells the stories of institutions and individuals in the country, discusses the development of discourses and ideas in close connection with national concerns and debates, and pays close attention to original recordings from this era. The book starts with the arrival in Spain of notices about Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877, followed by the first demonstrations (1878–1882) at the hands of scientists and showmen. These demonstrations greatly stimulated the imagination of scientists, journalists, and playwrights, who spent the rest of the 1880s speculating about the phonograph and its potential to revolutionize society once it was properly developed and marketed. The book then moves on to analyze the “traveling phonographs” and salones fonográficos of the 1890s and early 1900s, with phonographs being paraded around Spain and exhibited in group listening sessions in theaters, private homes, and social spaces pertaining to different social classes. It finally covers the development of an indigenous recording industry dominated by the so-called gabinetes fonográficos: small businesses that sold imported phonographs, produced their own recordings, and shaped early discourses about commercial phonography and the record as a commodity between 1896 and 1905.

Introduction

The introduction sets out the aims of the book—namely, to produce a cultural history of the phonograph in Spain, from the first notices about Edison’s invention in 1878, to the development of the music record as a commercial product and as a cultural artifact. It situates the book within existing research, arguing that telling the early history of recording technologies necessitates a context-sensitive approach that puts the focus on how local discourses, practices, and communities contributed to shaping these transnational technologies. It sets out the historical and political context in which the phonograph arrived to and developed in Spain, focusing on the political and cultural movement known as Regeneracionismo.

Advancing book clubs as non-formal learning to facilitate critical public pedagogy in organizations

Book clubs are a well-known form of social engagement and are beneficial for those who take part, yet book clubs are not fully realized within management as a site for learning. This is unfortunate because book clubs that read fiction can foster social processes and help employees in search of more critical and emancipatory forms of learning. We theoretically synthesize the literature to advance current thinking with regard to book clubs as critical public pedagogy in organizations. We begin by introducing book clubs as non-formal adult learning. Then, book clubs that employ fiction as a cultural artifact are presented as a way for members to build relationships, learn together, and to engage in cultural change work. Next, the traditional notions of book clubs are made pedagogically complex through the lens of critical public pedagogy. Finally, we offer two implications: (1) as public pedagogy, book clubs can act as an alternative to traditional learning structures in organizations; and (2) book clubs, when valued as public pedagogy, can be fostered by those in management learning and HRD for consciousness raising and challenging existing mental models in their organizations.

‘Modulation’ by Richard Powers: Digital sound, compression and the short story

This article presents a reading of ‘Modulation’ (2008) by Richard Powers. Firstly, I consider the short story’s representation of the MP3 music file, specifically its effects on how music is circulated and stored, as well as how it sounds. These changes are the result of different processes of compression. The MP3 format makes use of data compression to reduce the file size of a digital recording significantly. Such a loss of information devises new social and material relations between what remains of the original music, the recording industry from which MP3s emerged and the online markets into which they enter. I argue that ‘Modulation’ is a powerful evocation of a watershed moment in how we consume digital sound: what Jonathan Sterne has termed the rise of the MP3 as ‘cultural artifact’. I contend that the short story, like the MP3, is also a compressed manner of representation. I use narrative theory and short story criticism to substantiate this claim, before positioning ‘Modulation’ alongside Powers’s novels of information. I conclude by suggesting that ‘Modulation’ offers an alternative to representing information through an excess of data. This article reads Powers’s compressed prose as a formal iteration of the data compression the story narrates.

Internet Memes as Form of Cultural Discourse: A Rhetorical Analysis on Facebook

Internet memes are phenomena that rapidly gain popularity on the Internet which construct intercultural discourse. Using visual rhetoric, the Internet memes convey a set of symbols and ideals that express socio-political structure represented on the Internet. The story of memes is crucial in understanding the digital culture along with revealing the identity of an Internet subculture, as well as in analyzing the impacts of this cultural artifact. This study analyzes the nature and functions of internet memes and its contribution to formulate a new cultural discourse. The findings have been instrumented to illustrate how memes operate as rhetoric to explore the intercultural communication and identity construction prevalent in representative cyber-culture. It has specially been targeted to inquire the inter-textual nature of memes which are created and disseminated by the Bangladeshi Facebook prosumers. In addition, the study makes a comparison of theoretical approaches to the study of memes, including visual rhetoric approach which combines elements of the semiotic and discursive approaches to study the persuasive constituents of visual texts. These methods help deconstruct a sign or a text and decode possible hidden meanings through discourse analysis in terms of written texts and through semiotic analysis in terms of images. The presence of both an image (sign) and a caption (text) in an internet meme requires such a combined approach for reflective output.

"The Cashtro Hop Project" Hip Hop music and an exploration of the construction of artistic self-identity

While Hip Hop culture has regularly been legitimized within academia as a social phenomenon worthy of scholarly attention (witness the growing number of studies and disciplines now taking Hip Hop as object for analysis), this is the first Hip Hop-themed project being completed within the academy. Indeed, academic and critical considerations of one's own Hip Hop-based musical production is a novel venture; this project, as a fusion of theory with practice, has thus been undertaken so as to occupy that gap. The paper's specific concern is with how (independent) Hip Hop recording artists work to construct their own selves and identity (as formed primarily through lyrical content); the aim here is to explore Hip Hop music and the construction of artistic self· presentation. I therefore went about the task of creating my own album - my own Hip Hop themed musical product - in order to place myself in the unique position to examine it critically as cultural artifact, as well as to write commentary and (self-)analyses concerning various aspects of (my) identity formation. The ensuing outlined tripartite theoretical framework is to serve as a model through which other rappers/academics may think about, discuss, and analyze their own musical output, their own identities, their own selves.