Contemporary Media Practice Research Articles

Формирование «новой зрелищности». Как устроен современный стриминг (на примере Netflix и др.)

The paper aims to identify the characteristics of the “new spectacle” in the context of screen digitization. The author’s focus on identifying the stages of screen digitization and the emergence of new cultural practices when viewing content on streaming services is crucial. The scientific novelty of the study lies in its multifaceted analysis of media consumption and media production transformations in the digital age, particularly emphasizing the significant role of streaming services in these processes. The author investigates the interactive aspects of streaming services where viewers can influence the plot, which is a significant contribution to understanding contemporary media practices. As a result, the author emphasizes that streaming services have become catalysts for numerous changes in the media industry, leading to democratization of content access and production. The work notes the possibility of a functional differentiation of modern media consumption culture under the influence of screen culture before the streaming era and during the streaming era. The emergence of new demands for content creation in the context of the “new spectacle” is highlighted.

Navigating work integrated learning (WIL) pathways for learners through creative media production: the Yagan Square digital tower WIL project

ABSTRACT Work-integrated learning (WIL) environments are designed to assist students in consolidating their acquired knowledge and skills, apply them to real-world settings and develop a professional identity. Promoting industry engagement and assisting students make links between what they are learning and how it applies to professional practice is one of our key roles as educators. Studies in the relationship between well-being and learning confirm the need for tertiary educators to consider how personal values, health and behaviours radically interact with skills development in the designing and implementation of our teaching and learning programs. It is an imperative we keep abreast of contemporary media practices, but also build effective networks with community and industry and generate partnerships to assist students as they navigate their way through the academy in an increasingly complex world. Informed by studio and project-based learning and experiential methodologies that facilitate student centred approaches with high levels of self-directed learning we discuss our respective pedagogical approaches to the Yagan Square digital tower project, Perth Australia, to promote student engagement with their own communities and how to work with an external organisation who also act as a client and mentors to students .

The Wancho Animation Workshop: Interpreting Local Folklore for Animation in North-East India

This article reviews the topic of indigenous knowledge, addressing the ethical and knowledge gaps in Eurocentric education, research, and scholarship based on examples from a participatory media venture in collaboration with people of the Wancho community of North-East India. The objective of the project is to represent the cultural insights that are integral to the local traditions through contemporary media practices and to engage a group of people from various disciplines, outlooks, and ways of life in the decolonization of indigenous representation and media practice.

Transmedia discourse in the digital age: exploring radical intertextuality, audiovisual hybridization, and the "aporia" of homo medialis

This article explores the evolution of transmedia discourse, a trend that emerges from the interplay between technological advancements and the modern individual's worldview, and its impact on contemporary media practices. The study focuses on the principles of radical intertextuality in convergent and television journalism, demonstrating how these principles contribute to the development of performativity, extraction, media symbiosis, and hybridization processes in screen arts. Additionally, the article delves into multimodal storytelling techniques, shedding light on the increasing demand for non-linear narratives and aesthetic models. The analysis concludes with an examination of the "aporia" of homo medialis within the context of digital anthropology, emphasizing the need for a better understanding of the human experience and identity in an increasingly interconnected digital landscape. The results of this investigation provide valuable insights for media scholars, industry professionals, and educators, with a focus on adapting to and leveraging the ever-shifting media landscape.

Attitudes of the Diyala Government audience towards the misleading news of the formation of the Iraqi government for 2022

This study aims to find out “the attitudes of the Diyala government towards the misleading media of the formation the Iraqi government". Also, disinformation in the midst of the growing contemporary political bets is one of the contemporary media practices, based on lying, misinformation, deception and manipulation of facts. Through these bases, these facts are fabricated and alternative facts are presented to the existing reality and published in systematic forms in the public domain until they turn over time into a real tangible reality.The researcher expanded, by drawing a sample using a sample, the snowball, which is one of the 400 non-probable samples to identify the attitudes of the Diyala governorate public towards the misleading media to form the Iraqi government. The study questionnaire was prepared from theoretical literature and previous studies, and the validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by apparent honesty. Also, the stability of the scale was confirmed by the Cronbach's alpha equation. The study found that the reasons for the spread of misleading news about the formation of the government are the lack of public confidence in the government, due to the poor conditions within society, and the wrong understanding of information and lack of knowledge of it.

From the exchequer to the editorial suite: Dilating the intra-professional mutations of Onyema Ugochukwu

This study seeks to dilate the professional enterprise of Onyema Ugochukwu, one of the most respected practitioners and influencers of contemporary media practice and specialised journalism in Nigeria. It investigates his professional background as an economist and banker, through his detour into the media as progenitor of a new genre of technicalized reportage, and a seasoned manager in one of Nigeria’s most important newspapers in its time, the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc. It also scrutinises his later undertakings in political communication and public information management in his polyvalent media career over a period of five decades. Deploying the historic-method, this article probes the career course of Ugochukwu as a reporter, writer, editor, editorial director, political publicist and presidential communicator. This is to appropriately define his contributions to these aspects of the gamut of media practice, and to national growth. It successfully establishes that Ugochukwu has contributed immensely to the elevation and standardization of media practice and its repositioning as a profession which commands scholarship and intellectualism in the furtherance of national development.

Staging the other: Orientalism in contemporary media practice

The so-called “oriental” has always been a subject for “western” fascination. Today, the staging of the “orient” in (hobby) model photography is among the most popular themes: costumes and props from various cultural contexts are combined to form a new whole. Based on participant observation and interviews, the article traces back possible individual motivations for embodying the “oriental,” among them nostalgia, corresponding with the description of the orient as “timeless,” the need for spirituality, the wish to express femininity, and to work on identity with regard to identity trials and the definition of the own identity through the help of its imagined opposite. Considering society as a whole and its zeitgeist, the phenomenon is interpreted using the concepts of escapism and kitsch, which can be observed in mainstream culture as well. Furthermore, cultural appropriation is discussed as a way to prevent getting to know other cultures, but at the same time, the “oriental” photoshoot is also seen as a chance to generate interest and to practice creativity. The article shows that the analysis of staged photographs offers a base for understanding the cultural context in which they have been taken and/or circulate, and that the photo motifs can be seen as expressions of psychological motivations.

Letting the Fascists Speak for Themselves: The Enabling of Authoritarians and the Need for a Partisan Press

This article analyzes the historical media practices and conditions during the rise of the worst authoritarian movements—namely, fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. It then compares these to contemporary media practice during and since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, considering the impact of sociotechnical systems that increasingly penetrate and govern media discourse. It argues the press should not double down on journalistic objectivity but rather embrace a “little-p partisan” press—interested and invested in political outcomes. The press must engage in vociferous criticism and earnest argumentation, and such journalistic practice must not be perceived as a deviation from the false ideals of “normal times.” The perception of such deviation, and strategies to avoid these conventions like irony or satire, only leave the press more vulnerable to accusations of bias and weakened against liberal society’s greatest threats.

Concepts of the database in contemporary media practice

Abstract Contemporary remix practices in online video have flourished, due to the unprecedented access to our shared media culture that has been made possible by the databases underpinning online space. The technological and functional specificities of the database intercede our experiences in digital culture and influence how we understand our culture that increasingly occupies the database. They also influence how we express ideas about that culture through creative practices. The technological and, correspondingly, cultural significances of the database are articulated in the digitally specific remix video sub-genre, YouTube Poop. YouTube Poop relies on the database for the existing media content that it appropriates. Moreover, it narratively and aesthetically responds to the database by articulating the concepts of technological error, ahistoricism, multi-temporality, media abundance, the constant availability and the achronological, non-hierarchical, unclassified nature of media that the database has introduced to contemporary culture. In this article, the audio-visual narratives of three recent YouTube Poop videos are analysed in order to establish how they articulate the conceptual implications of the database in contemporary digital culture.

Rhetoric appropriateness in view of contemporary media communication and journalism

In the article, I present deliberations on the theme of the rhetorical category of appropriateness in the context of its original sources and contemporary media practice. Upon presenting the theory formed in line with the understanding developed in antiquity, I accept as a functional division for the purpose of the discussion the prépon/aptum (decorum) division, i.e. into the historical and literary notion, and appropriateness as a general principle of rhetorical communication to subsequently present a discussion organised on the basis of three theses: 1) The major factor defining the rhetorical model of appropriateness is the mass nature of media communication in the presence of freedom of speech, a democratic system of authority, and economic liberalism; 2) The on-going presence of disputes regarding the appropriateness of public behaviour is a manifestation not as much of its norm-building potential as of the functional approach – of senders, participants of the reported events, and message receivers – towards media communication, which inevitably results in a distinct over-representation of messages the content of which applies to the manifestations of inappropriateness; 3) The appropriateness principle is associated with the difficult task for the receiver to understand her/his role in the world of the media, and its various consequences. I posit that the principle does, in fact, indicate certain criteria which can become a basis for classifying specific messages as those which do or do not meet the requirements of rhetorical tact, yet it does not enable one to define an a priori applicable borderline between appropriateness and inappropriateness in contemporary media. Therefore, it seems that the settlement of any doubts and dilemmas associated with appropriateness ought to be founded on a good upbringing-based social stance and a system of values, i.e. maturity achieved regardless of the influence of the media.

Taking time between g-string changes to educate ourselves: Sinéad O’Connor, Miley Cyrus, and celebrity feminism

This article examines the feminist response to a 2013 online “feud” between singers Miley Cyrus and Sinéad O’Connor that began when Cyrus connected the video for her single “Wrecking Ball” to O’Connor’s video for “Nothing Compares 2 U.” O’Connor’s response criticised Cyrus’ sexualised image, and the exchanges that followed sparked debate among feminists over the limits of sexual “agency,” and the sexual politics of feminism. This took place within a wider media context that has seen an apparent increase in female celebrities explicitly identifying themselves as feminist. Critics of this “celebrity feminism” argue that the sexualised star systems of its proponents are at odds with the aims of feminist politics. This article draws on post-structuralist feminist theory to question the positioning of celebrity feminism as exterior to an imagined “feminist movement.” Using the Cyrus/O’Connor feud, I argue that such a binary potentially reaffirms the structures of power that feminism seeks to oppose, and ignores the ways celebrity culture and contemporary media practice might combine to produce new understandings of the field of feminism.

Opening Pandora's Box: pleasure, consent and consequence in the production and circulation of celebrity sex videos

The celebrity sex video is now a well-established part of contemporary audiovisual culture, although it attracts little attention as a phenomenon in itself. Any attention is primarily generated by the profile of the individuals involved, in terms of their relative degrees of celebrity and previously established public persona. Despite the increasing ubiquity of the phenomenon, issues concerning the production and dissemination of these videos are more complex than may first appear. Indeed, celebrity sex video production and distribution constitutes a contemporary media practice with distinct ethical and legal implications. This article provides an analysis of celebrity sex video production as a subset of personal sexual representation and attempts to characterize some of the ethical issues involved. A range of examples is used to illustrate the intertextual and broader contextual issues arising from the material's production and circulation.

Beyond Metropolitanism and Nativism: Re-grounding Media Theory

AbstractWhile de-Westernisation is an interesting political intervention in media theory, analytically it offers little. We critique this approach through six inter-related arguments. The first point of critique challenges the putative singularity of the West. The second line of enquiry raises questions about the emergence of new academic disciplines and their intellectual offerings. Our third point is that the call to de-Westernise Media Studies is naïve, ignores history and the long patterns of global interconnectedness that have mutually formed the West/Rest. The fourth argument is that “de-Westernisation” suggests that the theory and methods of Media Studies offer nothing of use outside their original birthplaces, while the fifth argument is the conceptual danger of nativism. The sixth critique centres on the problem of essentialising culture as a determinate object. Examining the contemporary media practices of the Islamic Republic of Iran, we suggest that the true alternative to a repressive theocracy is its internal challenge by women, students and other parts of civil society that offers a critical third way beyond the binary divide.

San o objektivnosti - mit jedne profesije

Reporting is usually seen as a process in which different facts get sense and specific meaning in a society. The complex nature of media discourse turns occurrences, conflicts, processes and individuals into news, reports, interviews an other genres. The whole process was for a long time followed by a conception of objectivity as one of the most crucial postulates in journalism. During the centuries, a specific myth of good journalism was developed, that promoted honesty, balance, fair play, impartiality, in a word - objectivity. However, globalization and the digital revolution, supported by corporate capital, pointed out the manipulative context and ideological construct of contemporary mediapractice, one that subordinated the structuring and distribution of information to the interests of the ruling elites. In that new journalism, visible and invisible are blended in a convincing narrative, constructed images make critical thinking impossible, and ideological concepts are hidden by lexical meaning. Between an archaic desire to transmit the truth, with full consideration of professional standards, and clientelistic journalism, which develops a close relationship with advertisers and media owners, grows an unbridgeable gap, which significantly changes the character of journalism across the globe.

Color-Coding Politics

During the 2000 Presidential election between George H. W. Bush and Al Gore, journalists often used the terms blue states and red states to describe the political landscape within the United States. This article studies the framing of these terms during the years 2004 through 2007. Using latent and manifest qualitative content analyses, six different news media frames were found in a sample of 337 newspaper articles. Two hypotheses were also tested indicating that framing patterns varied slightly by time period and article types. However, the argument that increased levels of political polarization in the United States have been created by predominantly conflict-oriented coverage may not be true. Instead, these terms became journalistic heuristics that were used to organize how people think about politics in a way that fit with contemporary media practices, and there is no single agreed upon interpretation of these terms within this reporting.

Ecology and Collaboration

Ecology and Collaboration

Untimely Bollywood: globalization and India's new media assemblage

Known for its elaborate spectacle of music, dance, costumes, and fantastical story lines, Bollywood cinema is a genre that foregrounds narrative rupture, indeterminacy, and bodily sensation. In Untimely Bollywood , Amit S. Rai argues that the fast-paced, multivalent qualities of contemporary Bollywood cinema are emblematic of the changing conditions of media consumption in a globalizing India. Through analyses of contemporary media practices, Rai shifts the emphasis from a representational and linear understanding of the effects of audiovisual media to the multiple, contradictory, and evolving aspects of media events. He uses the Deleuzian concept of assemblage as a model for understanding the complex clustering of technological, historical, and physical processes that give rise to contemporary media practices. Exploring the ramifications of globalized media, he sheds light on how cinema and other popular media organize bodies, populations, and spaces in order to manage the risky excesses of power and sensation and to reinforce a liberalized postcolonial economy. Rai recounts his experience of attending the first showing of a Bollywood film in a single-screen theater in Bhopal: the sensory experience of the exhibition space, the sound system, the visual style of the film, the crush of the crowd. From that event, he elicits an understanding of cinema as a historically contingent experience of pleasure, a place where the boundaries of identity and social spaces are dissolved and redrawn. He considers media as a form of contagion, endlessly mutating and spreading, connecting human bodies, organizational structures, and energies, thus creating an inextricable bond between affect and capital. Expanding on the notion of media contagion, Rai traces the emerging correlation between the postcolonial media assemblage and capitalist practices, such as viral marketing and the development of multiplexes and malls in India.

Usos midiáticos na constituição de circuitos culturais e comunicacionais populares urbanos

Neste artigo, analisa-se a reinvenção dos circuitos culturais populares urbanos na mediação direta com as práticas midiáticas contemporâneas. Evidencia-se especificamente o uso dos dispositivos tecnológicos de comunicação como modo de constituição das culturas populares urbanas brasileiras na contemporaneidade. Com base no documentário 100% Favela, produzido no Brasil, enfatiza-se, entre as práticas sociais, a auto-gestão dos processos culturais e comunicacionais como reinvenção dos modos de existência econômica e simbólica numa favela da cidade de São Paulo. O uso dos dispositivos midiáticos e a construção de um discurso de si na cultura da periferia demanda, nos dias hoje, novos modos de escuta social.

Are There Any More at Home Like You?: Rewiring Superman

Increasingly in contemporary media practice, texts are deployed across a range of different platforms, often simultaneously. Many theorists assume that these platforms are distinct forms, whereas theories of remediation and heteroglossia suggest more fluidity and exchange between literature, theatre, cinema, radio, television and videogames. This article examines the adaptation of the comic book character, Superman, and traces the origins of the Superman comic book narratives into their current transmedia state. Such adaptations can alter the status and authority of pre-existing versions of a text. In Superman's case, an adaptation can eventually become canonical and act as a source text, rewiring previous versions into a dialogical sphere of influence. In addition, some canonical texts can undergo a process of disconnection and can be discounted entirely. This article proposes an approach that is medium non-specific, but one that is text specific when examining the complex rewirings between parallel versions of a text.

Tv news hyper‐coverage and the representation of place: observations on the o.j. simpson case

From June 1994 until October 1995, the television news industry constructed and sustained a window of saturating hyper‐coverage surrounding the O.J. Simpson double‐murder case. Coverage of the Simpson case provides us with the opportunity to reflect on the contemporary media practice of hyper‐coverage and its possible effects on the frequency and manner in which places are reported and hence represented in television news broadcasts. Drawing from published critiques and statistics of the Simpson coverage and a preliminary content analysis of ABC World News Tonight broadcasts, this theoretical paper offers three observations: (1) the Simpson hyper‐coverage altered the frequency, prominence, and metaphorical context of news about Los Angeles; (2) the Simpson hyper‐coverage reduced the frequency of non‐Los Angeles domestic news coverage and eclipsed the prominence of international news locations; and (3) the Simpson hyper‐coverage led to the Simpsonization of domestic news (i.e. television journalists using the events in Los Angeles as a central metaphor around which to contextualize the presentation of other national news events and locations). Exploration into the Simpson media event provides insight into contemporary television journalistic conventions and how these news organization practices shape the representation of places in American popular culture.