A Theological Engagement with the Science of Science Skepticism

When Christians reject the claims of scientific experts, are they being irrational? Much of recent discussion in scholarly and popular media have discussed science denialism by conservative Christians, linking a low view of scientific expertise to the United States’ current political turmoil. This paper will focus on scientific explanations of science skepticism, asking whether there is anything unique to religious communities that make them vulnerable to misinformation.

The New Deep Web Drug Market Place (And the role of Bitcoin as a currency for drugs)

Drugs are a true menace to our society today. “Drug use on the rise” is an increasingly common headline in newspapers and it is well-known that this is the case. With the topic of drugs becoming more and more common in popular media, youngsters are especially influenced to try drugs. This is not a new problem, as such, and has been a relevant issue in modern society. Coupled with this, the internet plays a huge role in spreading information about emerging drugs (such as synthetic and ‘designer’ drugs). [2] This paper aims to understand the role of the internet’s Deep Web [3] and Bitcoin (and other Crypto currencies) in dealing drugs online.

Media and Parental Communication

Both popular media and scholarship have attributed adolescents' antisocial values and behaviors in part to media usage. Nevertheless, many scholars posit that media usage can be positive in certain contexts and that parent-child communication may abate negative media effects. An analysis of the educational longitudinal study data from 2002 to 2006 examines the effects both parent-child communication and various forms of media had on millennial teenagers' values development during a time of tremendous digital evolution. Results support that not all media was negative in effect on millennial value development and that parent-child communication may counteract some negative effects of media.

Javanese Cultural Values of the Yogyakarta Palace in the Film ‘Marak: Mresani Panji Sekar’

Film is one of the effective and popular media in cultural learning, both local and foreign cultures. The film that is used as the object of research by the researcher is the film 'Marak: Mresani Panji Sekar'”. This film becomes an interesting study material because it explains the Javanese culture of the courtiers of the Yogyakarta Palace who will focus more on culture in the film. This research uses descriptive qualitative research method. Analyzing cultural values by means of observation and study of documents in films in an effort to gain an overview and understanding of what is being studied. The values obtained are in the form of many values contained in it, namely the values of honor, trust, politeness, responsibility, and art. Describe the Javanese values of the Yogyakarta Palace which are shown in the film 'Marak: Mresani Panji Sekar' and reveal and understand the meaning contained in these traditional values.Keywords: Film, Values, Javanese Cultural

The pilgrimage and illustrated journals of David Roberts in the southern Mediterranean Sea and the Near East (1838-39) and the marketing of his illustrated journals in the Shows of London

The body of drawings and sketches created by the Scottish painter David Roberts (1796-1864) during his expedition to the Holy Lands in 1838-9 marked the high point of his professional career. This paper will look at the period after his return to Britain in July 1839, particularly to 1842. It will suggest that although Roberts was no doubt influenced by his Scottish Presbyterian upbringing, religious faith was not as central to his trip as has often been supposed. It was instead through the business acumen of his publisher F.G. Moon that this body of work came to be regarded not merely as an aesthetic achievement but as a cause célèbre. A skilful and coordinated marketing campaign elevated these drawings to the status of a pilgrimage; a contemplative journey through the sites of biblical antiquity. Through detailed analysis of contemporaneous accounts it will show how one of the costliest publications of the era was disseminated, passing from prestigious galleries and the libraries of a wealthy elite through a continuum of public art exhibitions and popular media including panoramas, dioramas and the newly-emerging field of dissolving views. This will provide a rare case study into the interconnectedness of London’s exhibition culture in the 1840s.

Undermining the gendered genre: Kabuki in manga

According to Jaqueline Berndt, Thomas LaMarre, and other critics, manga is a highly participatory media form. Narratives with vibrant characters and creative inconsistences in the plotline encourage the reader to recontextualise the text, create new contents and unfold activities which go beyond reading (such as fan art and CosPlay). Recent popularity of manga about Japanese traditional arts – for example, Kabuki – further expanded the potential interaction with manga and other popular media to include (re)discovering traditional Japanese culture. Examples, such as Kabukumon by Tanaka Akio and David Miyahara (Morning 2008-2011), or Kunisaki Izumo no jijō by Hirakawa Aya (Weekly Shōnen Sunday 2010-2014) and a variety of other manga, anime and light novels exemplify this tendency. Consequently, influential franchises, such as Naruto and One Piece boast adaptations as Super Kabuki stage-plays. Furthermore, Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto observes how thematic and stylistic overreaching in contemporary manga further distort the notions of the gendered genre that lays at the foundation of the manga industry. In this case, Kabuki theatre as a theme employs a variety of gender fluid characters and situations. For this purpose, Kabuki manga utilise cross-genre narrative and stylistic tropes, from overtly parodying borrowed tropes, to homage, and covert inclusions. On the example of Kabuki-manga I will explore a larger trend in manga to employ elements of female genres in male narratives, thus expanding the target readership. My paper explores specific mechanism that facilitates reading manga cross-genre, I also inquire what novel critical potential thematic and stylistic exchange between audiences may entail.

Earth Black Rising and Queen Sono: A Critical Decolonial Analysis

In this article two series are analyzed: Black Earth Rising (a BBC/Netflix production) and Queen Sono (the first African Netflix original series), shows that are about African realities from an African perspective (Rwanda in Black Earth Rising and South Africa in Queen Sono). The findings in this article show that both series address social and political issues such as neocolonialism, neoextractivism, internal colonialism, racism, inequality, justice, self-determination, corruption, violence, peace, memory, necropolitics, mental health, and decoloniality. I also argue that the shows could be used as pedagogical tools to raise critical consciousness in a wide public regarding the social and political issues addressed. The research in this article has been conducted with a qualitative methodology, using both shows as case studies and using content analysis and bibliographical research. The analysis of the series is based in the discussion of critical theory and decoloniality approaches and authors, especially from Latin America and Africa. Furthermore, the analysis of popular media (such as series) is a relevant effort to decolonize knowledge, using alternative and non-academic sources to produce and socialize knowledge.

Narrativised simile and emotional responses to Brexit

This study looks at two figurative ways in which popular media and social media represent the publics response to the process of implementing Brexit. Specifically, it contrasts analogies, which construe the nature of Brexit in terms of the nature of the problems arising (e.g. the impossibility of taking the eggs out of the cake ), with tweets relying on simile to express emotional responses. The focus of this study is on the nature of simile, as the trope of choice in profiling emotional responses, and especially on narrativised similative constructions, such as Brexit is like X , where X as an extended narrative. These similes match the real story of Brexit, which lasted several years, with other narrative scenarios. Crucially, the scenarios created are focused on how the person feels about the story of Brexit (e.g. the long period of hesitation and indecisiveness) and not on political affiliations and arguments. In effect, Brexit is like X framing could be loosely paraphrased as Experiencing Brexit makes me feel similarly to experiencing a narrative such as X , where X is a made-up story, depicting unimportant social events or movie genres. The emotions targeted in the Brexit is like X examples (such as disappointment, boredom, feeling exasperated or bemused) are complex emotional reactions to a narrative failing to reach a satisfying resolution. From the perspective of figuration, Brexit is like X similes suggest the need to re-evaluate the nature of simile as a conceptual mapping and to consider the role fictive stories play in expression of emotions. Also, the complex syntactic forms used to represent the narrative structure of X provide the material for reconsidering simile as a construction.

Popular Culture, Gender and State Socialism: Zhenata dnes Magazine

This article deals with the discourse of popular culture during the state socialism in Bulgaria and especially with the media aimed at female audiences. The Zhenata dnes (The Woman of Today) magazine is a starting point for the topic of what are the concepts of gender within socialism and are they changing. During the Cold War, there was a widespread belief that media were a direct reflection of narrow ideological norms. However, the example of Zhenata dnes clearly outlines the permeability and flexibility of topics related to the emancipation of women. The magazine openly publishes letters from readers, as well as analyses criticizing the government for the unhappy fate of women. Dissent, feminism and Western themes. The magazine was disliked and warned in the period 1966‒1980 that it had gone beyond the ideologically acceptable limits, but nevertheless it still exists. How did popular media targeting women create their image in the society of that time? How did the government want to build their image and how is it achieved in the magazine, thanks to the progressive positions of its editors and authors?

More than a makeover: Discourses of masculinity, hyposexuality, and marriage in Queer Eye: We’re in Japan!

This article examines Anglo-American portrayals of sexual inactivity in Japan, a media narrative that has been critically overlooked, yet offers much insight into how the regulation of sexuality and masculinity is tied to global power relations and nationalist ideologies. Global fascination with the rise of sexual inactivity in Japan has mostly been confined to news media; however, the topic has also begun to appear in popular media texts such as Netflix's makeover show Queer Eye: We’re in Japan!, presenting a valuable opportunity to expand our understanding of this narrative and the questions it raises about sexual normativity. Drawing from a comparative textual analysis, I argue that while both news coverage and Queer Eye consistently frame Japan as a site of dysfunctional sexuality and masculinity, differences in aesthetic, narrative, and industrial conventions lead these texts to create divergent common-sense understandings about sex, masculinity and Japaneseness that formulate their Orientalist narrative.