Cultural and Critical Studies 2011 Abstracts
Reflections of culture in Nigerian video films • Emmanuel Alozie, Governors State University • For more than 25 years, Nigeria has emerged as one of the world’s leading video film producers. Since its inception, the cultural messages and values contained in these films have been a subject of interest. Several studies have been conducted to examine the contents. This study relies on a collection of these studies to extract the most common themes that have emerged. It uses the information and communication technologies as its conceptual framework.
An American in Paris, Rio & Morocco: A Transnational Analysis of The Price of Beauty • Emilia Bak, UGA • The Price of Beauty follows Jessica Simpson and two friends as they travel the world and talk to women about ideas of beauty. The show appears to be a benign exploration of women’s ideas about beauty, but complicated issues about diversity, the dominance of the West, and the genre of the travel show itself arise. Using a transnational feminist lens, this paper explores how diversity, in ideas about beauty, constructed the cultures explored as “”other.””
The Political Economy of Hip-Hop Culture in USA Today • Sean Baker, Central Michigan University; Johnny Mann, Towson University • A content analysis was conducted on hip hop articles in the USA Today to observe ways hip-hop culture has been portrayed. Several factors were analyzed including the amount of articles, story location, story type, and story length. The context in which hip-hop culture was presented was measured by the number of references to violence, race, crime, affiliations, success and observing the changes over time. Articles in the early years were more likely to discuss hip hop in short news briefs as violent and criminal. As references to sales and success increased, hip hop received positive and more prominent feature coverage.
When Ritual Media Events Fail to Unite: A Case Study on Holodomor Commemoration in Ukraine • Olga Baysha, University of Colorado at Boulder • During recent years, the problematic of social disenchantment, cynicism, and divide as manifestations of media effects has become one of the central areas of inquiry in social research. It has been acknowledges that, instead of enhancing social solidarity, late modern media events sharpen the forces of social disruption. This paper presents the case study of the commemoration of Ukrainian Holodomor (Great Famine) – a media event that has widened the split within the Ukrainian society.
Drawing Lines in the Journalistic Sand: Jon Stewart, Edward R. Murrow and Memory of News Gone Bye • Dan Berkowitz; Robert Gutsche Jr, The University of Iowa • In mid-December 2010, Daily Show host Jon Stewart asked Congress to address the healthcare needs of 9/11 rescue workers – which it did. Shortly after, The New York Times published an analysis piece comparing Stewart to the legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. This paper explores how collective memory of Murrow was used by both mainstream media and the blogosphere to negotiate membership boundaries of journalism itself, with analysis conducted through textual analysis of online news texts.
“”To See Life as a Poem””: Toward a Mythology of Music • Phil Chidester, Illinois State University • Taking aim at the scholarly consensus that verbal language is the sole symbol system capable of conveying the complexities and nuances of myth, this paper seeks to establish music’s own ability to invoke a sense of mythic transcendence. Turning to Bob Dylan’s Biograph (1985) as a case study, I argue that Dylan’s performance as a mythic storyteller invites listeners to perceive and reconsider their relationships to society and their connections to the cosmos.
Haunted asylums? Stigma and mental illness in paranormal reality TV • Michelle Dangiuro-Baker, Penn State University • Stigma is a phenomenon that teaches individuals to discredit those who pose a threat to society. Persons with mental illness have long been stigmatized as abnormal, dangerous, and criminal. Paranormal reality TV, which features former mental institutions, provides the seedbed for such stigma communication. Through textual analysis, episodes of Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures featuring mental institutions were analyzed within Smith’s (2007) framework for stigma communication. Results suggest that both series perpetuate mental illness stigma.
The effects of normalizing forces on the development of an online radicalized public sphere • Rachel Davis, West Virginia University; Bob Britten • This study examines to what degree homosexual blogs are effective in forming online counter-publics as a form of ‘other’ discussion against mainstream and oppositional discourses. This work draws from Dahlberg’s conceptualization of a radicalized public sphere as well as other theories relating to public sphere and homosexual communication. The findings in this study illustrate the ability of blogs to facilitate radicalized public sphere formations through online discourse by enabling users to form discourses of contestation.
Power Evasive Diversity: How Journalism’s Focus on the Personal and Individual Leaves Racial Power Imbalances Intact • Kevin Dolan • This paper explores how white and journalistic identifications and journalistic conventions and practices perpetuate the racial status quo. If find mainstream U.S. journalism consistently serves white racial interests and the racial status quo despite its push for diversity and stated aims to improve coverage of nonwhite communities. This is based on an in-depth ethnographic study of two daily newspapers and extensive one-on-one interviews with more than 60 journalists.
Silence and Agony: A Comparison of Chronic Pain Depictions in Blogs and Newspapers • Robin Donovan • This critical discourse analysis compared blog and newspaper coverage of chronic pain. Framing, definition/self-definition of people with chronic pain, and otherization were examined in a study of 1,223 articles. Bloggers described pain specifically, focusing on its social impact and self-redefinition. In contrast, newspaper coverage highlighted debilitation, victimization, and addiction. Newspapers medicalized and otherized ill people by portraying chronic pain as less impactful, less agonizing, and less real than bloggers’ descriptions.
“”Below The Yellow Line””: Competitor Discourse on NBC’s “”The Biggest Loser”” • Eric Dunning; Mary Katherine Alsip, University of Alabama; Kim Bissell, University of Alabama • This paper is unique in the sense that it will be an investigation into what has so far been ignored in both body image and reality TV scholarship: participant’s ideas about body image/weight loss in the media constructed, competitive “”reality”” of TV. In doing so, this paper utilizes the most robust method of evaluation, especially when looking at contestant attitudes, conceptualizations and responses to body image/weight issues, is a critical discourse analysis of their rhetoric.
Framing in the ‘New Media Environment’: Fox News Channel (FNC) Covers the Bristol Palin Pregnancy • Frank Durham • On 1 September 2008, the opening day of the Republican National Convention, Bristol Palin’s teen pregnancy was publicly announced. Fox News Channel (FNC) framed Bristol Palin’s pregnancy as a positive story, foreclosing critical debate on the issue of teen pregnancy. Based on Couldry’s critique of the use of media rituals to construct and consolidate ‘centered’ media power, this critical textual analysis examines framing as a media ritual operaating to make the media’s symbolic power legitimate.
Thinking about Journalism with Superman • Matthew Ehrlich, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • Superman is an icon of American popular culture. However, although Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent is a reporter who works for a daily newspaper, few have analyzed in any depth the role that journalism plays in the Superman mythology. This paper uses Superman in its various incarnations in comics, radio, movies, and television as a way of thinking critically about real-world journalism’s complex and contradictory relationship to truth, justice, and the American way.
Questioning the Kibera Discourse: Articulating Representations and Lived Experience in a Nairobi Slum • Brian Ekdale, University of Wisconsin – Madison • I argue the discourse surrounding the Nairobi slum Kibera exaggerates the community’s deplorable conditions and ignores features residents value. As a result, a disconnect exists between this discourse and the lived experiences of Kibera residents. I examine this disconnect by asking Kibera residents to articulate their life experiences and what they understand to be the Kibera discourse. In interviews, residents demonstrate an awareness of and dissatisfaction with the dominant discourse about their community.
Theorizing Cultural Development vis-à-vis Cultural Imperialism Theory: Lessons from Nigeria • Nnamdi Ekeanyanwu, Department of Mass Communication, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria • Cultural Imperialism Theory is one of the loose theories that discuss media, society and cultural relations between nations. Scholars of media/cultural orientation have questioned the fundamental pillars of this theory while a few others have continued to support it. This paper re-evaluates the possible positions and concludes that the very foundation upon which this theory is built is no longer solid considering 21st century questions that the proponents have failed to answer satisfactorily.
The Copyright Wars, the Free Culture Movement, and Second Wave Critical Legal Studies • Victoria Ekstrand, Bowling Green State University; Cynthia Nicole Shipman; Andrew Famiglietti • This paper maintains that the free culture movement in intellectual property (IP) law, inspired by Critical Legal Studies (CLS), has generated a second wave of CLS critique and activism, in somewhat indirect and unintentional fashion. The practical effect is a new kind of dialogue about IP law that is inclusionary, participatory, and capable of effecting change.
The Next Cable Star: Critical industrial practice in HGTV’s reality competition format • Madeleine Esch, Salve Regina University • Unlike other better-known reality talent competition shows, HGTV’s Design Star offers as grand prize the chance for winning contestant to host his/her own series on the network. I argue that such a “”farm league”” format is not only a hyper-efficient commercialization of necessary processes but also a revealing self-reflexive act (what J. T. Caldwell calls “”critical industrial practice””) that affirms the value of on-camera television labor in an increasingly rationalized production environment.
Peace is War: Epistemological and Ethical Concerns in Peace Journalism’s Theory, Praxis, and Practice • Nicholas Gilewicz, Temple University • Peace journalism—journalistic practice attempting to critique and correct war journalism—arises from structuralist analysis, has culturalist aims, and emerges as an ethical media frame. 42 recent articles and books about peace journalism’s theory, praxis, and practice indicate both its failure to fully consider its own discursive structure and epistemological and professional problems paralleling those of war journalism. To support peace journalism’s admirable ethical aims, proponents should attend to refining and strengthening its theoretical bases.
A Watchdog to Reckon With: Delivering WikiLeaks in the Israeli and Australian Press • Robert Handley, University of Denver; Amani Ismail, American University in Cairo • By examining how Israeli and Australian news media treated the WikiLeaks phenomenon in the last few months, this study interrogates how news discourses on this so-called “”whistleblower”” inform us about how journalists handle professional versus national narratives, especially when the newsbreaker (WikiLeaks) is a non-national news entity. Analysis indicates that the WikiLeaks factor may well complicate the traditional “”their news”” and “”our news”” dichotomy, particularly because nation-states’ secrets are revealed on the global landscape.
Spaces for Feminist (Re)articulations: The Blogosphere and the Sexual Attack of Journalist Lara Logan • Dustin Harp, University of Texas School of Journalism; Jaime Loke, University of Oklahoma; Ingrid Bachmann, University of Texas at Austin • This discourse analysis explores traditional and feminist articulations of rape in online mediated discourse of the sexual attack of journalist Lara Logan in Egypt. Examination of 175 stories and links in the top ten news blogs showed that the blogosphere contested traditional rape narratives that blamed Logan for the attack. In doing so, bloggers engaged in a struggle for meaning and mainstreamed feminist understandings on sexual violence within the online public space.
I Tweet, You Tweet: Journalists’ Use of Twitter and the Individualization of Participation • Kristen Heflin, University of Alabama • This study analyzes journalistic use and evaluation of Twitter and the implications for addressing journalism’s present crisis in credibility. It argues that Twitter serves as a conduit for individualized empiricism, which journalists comfortably accommodate as a supplement to traditional reporting, a move that preserves their professional status without critically reflecting on the practices that perpetuate the crisis of credibility. This study also discusses journalism’s crisis of credibility as a crisis of epistemology.
Television’s spectacle of autism: Metaphors of a popular network program • Avery Holton, University of Texas-Austin • This study explored the metaphor of autism as fear, oddity, and disease in the discourse of a popular American television program, arguing that the public was exposed to multiple metaphorical presentations of autism that are not necessarily representative of the culture of autism. While autism as a diagnosis is characterized largely by cognitive and behavioral characteristics, the discourse presented through the program may have inflated such characteristics for the viewing public.
Mediating identities: Taiwanese migrants’ readings of Chinese news • Shuling Huang • Using the case of Taiwanese migrants in China, this paper demonstrates that news reception involves three levels of readings: information evaluations, meaning construction and identity negotiation. These readings are cross-referred to each other and associated with migrants’ lived experiences. Three news events of China in 2008 invite various readings. Mostly, migrants distrust China’s official discourse and struggle over their Chineseness. Through the reception of Chinese news, paradoxically, a kind of Taiwanese consciousness is reinforced.
Selling the Post-Communist Female Body: Portrayals of Women and Gender in Bulgarian Advertising • Elza Ibroscheva, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville • The study examines hypersexualization of the female body in Bulgarian advertising to explore how the trend of what media scholars call “”porno chic”” might normalize and glorify the process of turning the female body into a commodity. This paper examines images of women in the Vodka Flirt campaign to trace the construction of female sexuality and the role of ideology in controlling these images and their expressions in advertising as one form of cultural production.
Girlfriends & Sex and the City: an intersectional analysis of race, gender, & commodity feminism in two TV shows • Camille Kraeplin • In intersectional theory, gender and race have been referred to as super-ordinate groups. People think about themselves in terms of membership in these groups and are likely to be categorized and stereotyped by others based on these affiliations. Discourse analysis was used to examine these group identifications in Sex and the City and Girlfriends. Three discursive themes were found to connect the two shows: the Desperation Theme, the Networks of Care theme, and the Consumption and Class theme.
Double Burdens of Sexuality and Gender on Women: How Queer Texts Marginalize Female Queers • Jungmin Kwon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • This paper explores how gender translates into sexuality, or specifically, how lesbians are situated within queerness. To illuminate this blind spot, in which queer discourses contribute to the double-marginalization of lesbians, I examine prominent scholarly queer texts and the acclaimed queer media content, Queer as Folk. Through a critical approach to academic and queer cultural products, this study points out that women are constructed as minorities not only in gender, but in sexuality as well.
An Historical Overview of Philanthropy in Rock:1950s-2000s • Ji Hoon Lee • This study presents a brief historical overview of rock music’s philanthropic efforts in the latter half of the 20th century. A key contention in this study is that rock music has worked to educate and enlighten the public to raise awareness over the course of its history and to present similar possibilities in the new millennium.
Better at Life Stuff: Consumption, Identity, and Class in Apple’s “”Get a Mac”” Campaign • Randall Livingstone, University of Oregon • Apple’s “”Get a Mac”” advertising campaign highlights the differences between the casual, confident, creative Mac user and the formal, frustrated, fun-deprived PC user through a series of comical television spots. Utilizing close reading and ideological criticism, this study considers the campaign as a popular culture text with embedded implications about consumption, identity, and class, revealing thematic dichotomies that obscure these issues while promoting the spectacle of consumption and the myth of self-actualization through commodities.
The Wild West of 1911 (or 2010?): Red Dead Redemption’s Past/Present Conflation• Ryan Lizardi • With video games’ growing cultural legitimacy and the increasing reliance on visual histories as primary sources of collective knowledge, it is important to examine what information and ideologies are learned through experiencing video games’ histories. Analyzing Red Dead Redemption (2010), the default contemporary video game historical representation is shown to conflate the past/present and reduce “”history”” to individualistic, simple interpretations. Red Dead Redemption indexes present concerns and ideologies more than its setting, the Wild West.
Money as Speech: An Ideological Analysis of how Corporate Speech Rights Influence the Political Process • Nneka Logan, Georgia State University • This article explores the implications of corporate speech rights on the democratic political process. It draws upon critical, ideological and rhetorical approaches to analyze the key Supreme Court cases on corporate speech rights – Buckley v. Valeo (1976) and Citizens United (2010). I argue that corporate speech rights create conditions where corporate influence can overtake citizen participation.
A Critical Analysis of Facebook Hate Groups Targeting President Barack Obama • Mia Moody, Baylor University • This exploratory analysis of hate groups on Facebook looks at historical representations of black men, in general, and hate groups targeting President Barack Obama, specifically. Findings indicate most groups fall into one of four categories: race-based, political, humor and love-hate. Such analyses are important because media influence the construction of the racialized condition in which we live, and it is often through media images that people negotiate identities, ideas, and relationships.
Media Construction of Global Natural (or Not-so-natural) Disasters: A Critical Discourse Analysis • Siho Nam, University of North Florida • Through critical discourse analysis, this article uncovers the forces underlying the homogenous, sensational, and formulaic media coverage of global natural disasters. Focusing on the intersection between the political economy of global media institutions and the discursive formation of disaster discourses, the article unearths the recurring logics, themes, and patterns of the media discourses of global natural disasters, and it then analyzes the roles these hegemonic discourses play in reinforcing unequal, exploitative world system.
Remembering the Korean Past: Sandglass, the Kwangju Democratization Movement, and the 386 Generation • Sang Hwa Oh, University of South Carolina • A Korean television drama, Sandglass represented and explored tumultuous political and social events in Korea from the 1960s to 1980s. Using Benedict Anderson’s concept of “”imagined communities,”” this study of the role of the televised drama Sandglass in Korean social life provides valuable insight into how a media text can help a common people construct a usable history out of a hidden, traumatic past. This study also introduces the concept of “”generational imagined community.””
Media conduction: Festivals, networks, and boundaried spaces • Robert Peaslee, Texas Tech University • This paper is a report on extended qualitative fieldwork regarding the phenomenon of media festivals, including those related to both film and comic book culture. It is also an initial attempt at forming the trends and patterns suggested by this fieldwork into something like a theory of media conduction. Media conduction brings with its semantic play a subtle exploration of power relationships often assumed to be transcended in the more emancipatory notions of consumer power.
Disrespecting the Doxa: The Daily Show Critique of CNN’s Struggle to Balance Detachment and Connectedness • Burton St. John, Old Dominion University • CNN operates with a deep connection to traditional journalistic values and their associated “”rules of the game,”” or doxa. Not surprisingly, CNN attempts to balance established doxa against pressures brought about by changing news-media technologies, consumer patterns and operation business models. This study examines how TDS’s points to major dysfunctions within such a journalistic doxa and what the show’s critiques reveal about the need for a more reflexive journalism.
“”It’s better than blaming a dead young man:”” Creating mythical archetypes in local coverage of the Mississippi River drownings • Erica Salkin, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Robert Gutsche Jr, The University of Iowa • This study provides a glimpse at myth within newswork (Lule, 2001) in smaller communities dealing with unexpected trauma. An analysis of news coverage of the drownings of 10 young men in Wisconsin over 15 years provides evidence that the values and needs of a given community drive both the creation and use of mythical news archetypes. The archetypes’ value appears to reflect the community’s assessment of the magnitude of its own loss.
Katrina’s power: A critical political economic communication analysis of the intersection of government and media institutions • Loren Saxton, University of Georgia; Elli Lester-Roushanzamir • Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, and news media flooded the Gulf Coast immediately after to report the disaster. This analysis, through critical political economy, examines how structures of interconnection between news media and government institutions reorganized public discourse immediately after Katrina. Ultimately, this research suggests that economic structures mask the structural variables of race and class and therefore serve the interests of industrial and corporate blocs.
The sovereignty of the Republic of Korea shall reside in the people • Wooyeol Shin, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; Ji Yun Ryu, Yonsei University • This study explores strategic use of newspaper advertising by the 2008 Korean Candlelight Vigil. In the ads, the protestors’ collective identities functioned as vehicles to link the vigil’s issues to shared values, including the protection of democracy and the Korean way of life. The movement was also symbolically connected with the Constitution of South Korea. The underlying message was that the constitutional rights resided with the vigil, not with the opponents, including the Korean government.
What is free? Cooperation, collaboration, and the essential dilemma of the Fourth Estate • Edgar Simpson, Ohio University • This study examined the most recent federal Shield Law debate, state Shield Laws, and the statutes of all fifty states and the District of Columbia through a prism of press independence. Thirty-nine states provide a variety of exemptions, exclusions, and privileges for comment and news gathering by established media, in contradiction to longheld notions of independence embodied in First Amendment theory and industry ethical codes. Government has tightened its embrace with journalism and this presents the essential dilemma: Does journalism serve its sources or its audience?”
Then and Now, Free Speech v. Free Elections • Shea Smock, Florida State University • This study provides a qualitative content analysis from the political economic perspective of Network and Public Broadcasting Discourse Surrounding McConnell v. Federal Election Commission and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission . This paper is part of a larger study that serves as my Master’s thesis at Florida State University. The thesis also includes a historical analysis of Supreme Court cases and legislation leading up to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Heroines under control: Unexpected news portrayals of women in the organ of the Bulgarian Communist Party • Miglena Sternadori, University of South Dakota • This is a rhetorical analysis of the news coverage of women’s issues in Rabotnichesko Delo, the organ of the Bulgarian Communist Party, over three non-consecutive years. The analysis illustrates an ideologically constructed reality, in which women’s limited career fulfillment co-existed with oppressive expectations, such as the importance of having sons over daughters, maintaining physical attractiveness, and shouldering household chores.
The World Cares: What Fantasy Themes Appear on Facebook Status Updates? • Edson Jr. Tandoc, University of Missouri-Columbia; Heather Shoenberger • Studies on self-presentations on social networking sites have focused on biographical data, contact details and multi-media contents and comments that people share. But self-presentation, particularly on Facebook, transcends these pieces of information: Users can tell the online world their thoughts, feelings and opinions through their status updates. Guided by the symbolic convergence theory and the uses and gratifications approach, this study focused on the disclosure of these intimate details through a public and real-time feature.
Is it the Audience? A Comparison of Framing of Turkey’s EU Membership in the International Herald Tribune and in the New York Times • Nur Uysal, University of Oklahoma • This study examined news framing of Turkey’s accession to the European Union in the coverage of the International Herald Tribune and in the New York Times following the 2005 Luxembourg summit. As the first Muslim country seeking membership in the EU, Turkey represented a challenging test. A content analysis of news stories revealed that the IHT framed the issue as a conflict between Muslim Turkey and Christian Europe, a culturally congruent theme for European publics.
The Politics of Authenticity: A Dilemma for Campaign Consultants • James Wittebols, University of Windsor • Promotional culture techniques have permeated political campaigns for some time, bringing the techniques of advertising, marketing and PR into politics. Recently, the promotional culture industry has begun to appropriate the human value of authenticity as a means to promote, sell or persuade. This paper reports the results of interviews with political campaign consultants on the importance of having the public regard a candidate as authentic and how that authenticity is conveyed in an election campaign.
Discourses about Distant Suffering and Benefactors on the Fox-Affiliated Teen Kids News Show • Anne Golden Worsham, BYU • This critical discourse analysis examines stories about distant suffering and benefactor representations on the Fox-affiliated Teen Kids News show. This paper demonstrates how Chouliaraki’s (2006) theory on the mediation of distant suffering can be used when analyzing features about benefactors and distant suffering on a teen-oriented news program. Four discourses are identified concerning benefactor representations: militaristic, corporatized, technological, and development discourse. This paper explores the negative societal implications of these discourses.
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