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Media Discourses (media + discourse)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences87%

Selected Abstracts

"Speaking Shadows": A History of the Voice in the Transition from Silent to Sound Film in the United States

JOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2009
Jessica Taylor
In this paper I examine the media discourse surrounding the voice in the silent to sound film transition in American cinema. When the technologies of synchronized sound became widespread in the late 1920s the question of how this new technology would be incorporated into the well-established film culture was of great interest, revealing some of the underlying ideologies of language at the time. These discussions worked to stabilize the new sound cinema around an ideology of the voice, closely tied to an ideology of American society, which became less audible as it became more certain, leaving behind its now naturalized structures of voiced race, class, gender and ethnicity.,[voice, technology, cinema, race, gender] [source]

Middle-earth Meets New Zealand: Authenticity and Location in the Making of The Lord of the Rings*

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 5 2005
Deborah Jones
abstract In focusing on the making of a specific cultural project, The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) film trilogy, this paper draws out the tensions between two sometimes divergent strands of authenticity: creative authenticity and national authenticity. This study is located in New Zealand, a small post-colonial country which was the location for LOTR and home to its key film-makers. The case is based on a discourse analysis of published texts on LOTR and New Zealand's film and tourism industries, exploring the paradoxical concept of ,fabricating authenticity' (Peterson, 1997) and its importance to cultural industries. In reviewing the media discourse of the LOTR project we ask: how are creative and national authenticity constructed? Creative authenticity refers to the claims of artistic integrity and merit that are made for the film. National authenticity is predicated on the idea of a national identity. In terms of LOTR, national authenticity is based on claiming the trilogy as a local ,New Zealand' product. We highlight the theme of ,location' by linking LOTR with a national tourism campaign which has been developed side-by-side with the film project, forging connections between the Middle-earth of the LOTR trilogy, and the New Zealand of the present. We argue that LOTR has both shaped, and been shaped by, ideas of national identity, and that the success of LOTR as a flagship of the ,new' creative industries is central to emerging visions of nationhood. [source]

Contesting meaning: Newfie and the politics of ethnic labelling

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 4 2002
Ruth King
The ethnic label Newfie is a site of ideological dispute: for some, it is simply an informal term for residents and expatriates of the Canadian province of Newfoundland, for others it may function as an in,group term of solidarity which takes on negative connotations when used by non,Newfoundlanders, and for still others it is the equivalent of a racial slur. In this study we first trace the history of the term, a fairly recent innovation. We then examine present,day attitudes as expressed in (provincial and national) media discourse and in self,report data. We argue that debate over Newfie is part of a larger ideological struggle concerning the commodification of an ,invented' Newfoundland culture, which itself must be understood in terms of Newfoundland's socioeconomic position as Canada's poorest province. Finally, we compare the Newfie case to other instances of contested group labelling. [source]

Why the democratic nation-state is still legitimate: A study of media discourses

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2009
ACHIM HURRELMANN
Focusing on media discourses, this article maps the communicative reproduction of legitimacy in Great Britain, the United States, Germany and Switzerland. It argues that political communication constitutes a distinctive dimension of legitimation that should be studied alongside public opinion and political behaviour. Research on legitimation discourses can help us understand why the legitimacy of established democracies remains stable in spite of the challenges of globalisation: Delegitimating communication tends to focus on relatively marginal political institutions, while the core regime principles of the democratic nation-state, which are deeply entrenched in the political cultures of Western countries, serve as anchors of legitimacy. These democratic principles also shape the normative benchmarks used to evaluate legitimacy, thus preventing a ,de-democratisation' of legitimation discourses. Finally, the short-lived nature of media interest as well as ritualistic legitimation practices shield the democratic nation-state from many potentially serious threats to its legitimacy. [source]

Men staying at home looking after their children: feminist linguistic reform and social change

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS, Issue 1 2006
Jo Winter
nicht-sexistische Sprache und Diskurse; Männlichkeit und Identität; Soziolinguistik und Ernennung; Englische Soziolinguistik; Berufsbezeichnungen The (mis)representation and stereotyping of gendered identities remain central concerns for applied linguistics and feminist linguistic reformers despite the history, since the 1970s, of promoting gender-fair or gender-inclusive language reform. To date, the primary focus has been the reform of linguistic discrimination against women. Here we examine the ,naming' of men who have entered the ,occupation', primary childcare provision , traditionally exclusively reserved for women. Drawing upon on-line survey and media data, we investigate the extent to which principles of feminist linguistic reform, equality, and inclusivity are evident in the labelling of, and media discourses about, these men. Regional variation in Englishes together with discourses of masculinity impact upon the implementation of linguistic reform. Normative meanings for masculinities and occupation construct a ,house father and working father' discourse context for men who are primary childcare providers. Die sprachliche Darstellung und Stereotypisierung der Geschlechter bleibt trotz der seit den siebziger Jahren eingeführten Maßnahmen zur Förderung nicht-sexistischen Sprachgebrauchs ein zentrales Anliegen der angewandten Sprachwissenschaft und der feministischen Sprachplanung/Politik. Bisher lag der Schwerpunkt auf der Reform der sprachlichen Diskriminierung gegen Frauen. In diesem Beitrag liegt der Akzent auf dem "Nennen" jener Männer, deren Hauptbeschäftigung die Betreuung der eigenen Kinder ist, eine Tätigkeit, die bis jetzt fast exklusiv mit Frauen verbunden war. Anhand einer on-line Datenerhebung und einer Analyse von Medientexten wird untersucht in wiefern die Prinzipien der feministischen Sprachreform , Gleichstellung und Inklusivität , in der Ernennung dieser Männer und deren Darstellung in Medientexten Anwendung finden. Festgestellt wird, daß das Ernennen solcher Männer regional gebunden ist und, daß der Einfluß der feministischen Sprachreform durch, dominante und normative' Diskurse der Männlichkeit gemäßigt wird. [source]

Nonviolence and Media Studies

COMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 2 2005
Vamsee Juluri
This article proposes a meeting of media studies and the philosophy of nonviolence in order to better critique the tendency in popular media discourses about war and international conflict to naturalize violence as an eternal and essential human trait. Nonviolence exposes certain foundational myths about violence in the media; namely, the myths that violence is cultural (as implied in the "clash of civilizations" thesis), historical, or natural. However, this is possible only if nonviolence is retrieved from its present marginalization as a mere technique for political activism or personal behavior and understood more accurately as a coherent, universal, practical worldview that can inform a critical engagement with media discourses of violence. Using Gandhi's writings on nonviolence, this essay aims to initiate such an understanding, particularly in connection with existing critical approaches to media violence, such as cultivation research and cultural studies, and concludes by proposing a set of concrete questions for media research based on nonviolence. [source]