Form Of Commodification Research Articles

From commodification to entrepreneurialism: how commercial income is transforming the English NHS

IMPACT The authors explore the way in which National Health Service (NHS) organizations in England are becoming more entrepreneurial through seeking more commercial income. As a form of commodification, commercialization has become more salient because of tightened public spending and the relaxation of regulations governing the scale of commercial income that the NHS could earn (since 2012). In turn, a stronger entrepreneurial ethos and practice has developed. The purpose and impact of commercialization is examined using secondary data from six NHS organizations (narrating developments post-2012), demonstrating the extent of and their justifications for commercialization. Recent and planned changes are explained. These income-generation activities, which are often set up to support or maintain existing NHS services, may unwittingly accelerate further commercialization—particularly in post-pandemic recovery. The authors conclude that the NHS risks becoming predicated upon commercial logics, thereby undermining public service logics.

Tourist Attraction Commodification in the Wayang Topeng Performance in Malang

Wayang Topeng is a drama-shaped performance by dancers wearing masks who hide their faces, carrying essential and symbolic purposes.Wayang Topeng performances are always associated with rites as a medium of worshipping ancestral spirits. Today,Wayang Topeng is undergoing a change, from a routine event to a show for tourists held by one of the hotels in Malang city. This change in the performance’ format from a stage show to a tourism packaging show, made the Wayang Topeng experience a shift in its values and original meaning. It is suspected that it has shifted the cultural values that were once a part of traditional culture to the direction of mass culture. This phenomenon is not only seen as an adjustment to the media format, but as a form of commodification. This research seeks to uncover forms, processes, ideologies, and powers related to the commodification of the Wayang Topeng performance. This qualitative research uses interview data and observations which were analyzed using the interpertation technique.The method used was the art phenomenology research with a study of critical discourse analysis. From this analysis of the Wayang Topeng performance through interviews with several sources and combined with relevant literature, the results show that: (1) content commodification happened in the Wayang Topeng performance, and (2) the ideology behind the process of commodification is capitalism. The power behind commodification is market power.
 Keywords: commodification, mass culture, Wayang Topeng

Between transgression and tokenism: The simultaneous inclusion and exclusion of trans and gender non-conforming bodies in fashion

The fashion industry materially and symbolically contributes to our understandings of the gender binary. Its configuration of what constitutes crossing gender boundaries has also shifted through the years, including proposals of androgyny, unisex and gender-neutral collections. More recently, some of these concepts have been repackaged under the language of gender identity, as brands realize that younger customers are more likely than ever to fall under the gender non-conforming umbrella. Conflating an aesthetic preference for ‘gender fluidity’ with the language of gender identity can seem like a form of commodification when examining the barriers encountered by trans and non-binary individuals who work in the fashion industry. While the discourse of diversity is on the rise, some of the LGBTIQ inclusion in the industry stops at a tokenistic image level that does not destabilize the problematic structures beneath. Nevertheless, some designers do centre LGBTIQ inclusion and gender fluidity in their practice; but without a careful examination of privilege and access to resources, they can still reproduce exclusive and exploitative practices ingrained in the industry. This article will explore the above issues through a discursive analytical approach of online articles of the magazines Dazed and i-D, published between 2015 and 2020.

Double tap, double trouble: Instagram, teachers, and profit

This qualitative study explores the performance of teacher agency amidst national financial and professional deficits in education and sheds light on the growing utilization of Instagram in elementary school contexts. To better understand teachers’ use of this social media platform, we examined the Instagram accounts of 12 highly popular and influential pre-K–6 teachers (i.e., teacher influencers). Data sources comprised over 600 visual and textual posts, which included images, captions, hashtags, and emojis, produced over 3 months in the spring of 2019. Using qualitative coding procedures that were recursive and emphasized the emergent nature of interpretation through a critical literacies framework, we documented the neoliberal teachers’ use of Instagram as a method of participation in a virtual community of practice and as a way to produce, commodify, and possibly profit from posts presented as curricula. Findings suggest that teacher influencers primarily used Instagram as a form of commodification and commerce, as educational content was promoted to users as well as methods of purchase via personal websites, Teachers Pay Teachers and other digital stores. Overall, the teacher influencers’ Instagram use revealed a convergence of complex and multiple discourses involving curriculum, racialized and/or gendered identities, and neoliberal production.

Pakistani Anglophone Young Adult Fiction and the Art of Commodification of Culture: An Insight to Sheba Karim’s The Skunk Girl and Rukhsana Khan’s Wanting Mor

This article aims to explore the art of commodification of culture deployed in the Pakistani Anglophone Young Adult (YA) fiction with special reference to Sheba Karim’s The Skunk Girl (2009) and Rukhsana Khan Wanting Mor (2010). It has been contextualized in the postulates of the commodification of culture highlighted by Nederveen Pieterse in his work Globalisation and Culture: The three Paradigms. The term commodification has gained immense popularity in the contemporary era of globalization partly because of free trade and the economy. Culture in principle is one of the essential standpoints of globalization owing to its subtlest but the most penetrating tentacle in general and its capability to commodify in particular. Having a base in the economy, culture has been systematically commodified as a heterogeneous, homogeneous, or hybrid form to be sold either physically in galleries, museums, and tourist spots. The literature by South Asian writers has been altered to present the cultural illustration as hybrid, heterogeneous, or homogenized. Which according to Pieterse is the form of commodification of culture. It is this aspect that the present article intends to explore to assert that the success of YA Fiction is undoubtedly owed to aesthetic and academic merits but mainly due to the successful deployment of the technique of commodification of culture. Keywords: Culture Commodification, Heterogeneous, Homogeneous, Hybrid, YA Fiction

Communication of Opinion Leader in Commodifying Contract Marriage in Siri Marriage Village in Pasuruan

This study aims to analyze how the communication used by opinion leaders in Kalisat village gives rise to a form of commodification of contract marriage. The method in this research is using a qualitative descriptive method. Data collection was carried out by direct field observation in which researchers went directly to the field to find data in the field and carried out in-depth interview techniques that were carried out freely. The results of this study are, in the commodification process of this contract marriage there is a form of communication in which this communication is carried out face to face or face to face, namely a communication process carried out by the communicator to a communicant which is carried out directly without any help or intermediary of a media. The communication technique used by opinion leaders to invite and convince prospective brides and grooms, both men and women, is to use persuasive communication techniques. Where opinion leaders try to persuade and promise a number of advantages if they want to follow this practice, this is in accordance with the basic principles of commodification theory which changes something that initially only has use value and then turns it into something that can be sold and has a selling value in the market.

Komodifikasi Pantai Bali Lestari sebagai Daya Tarik Wisata di Kecamatan Pantai Cermin

This study aims to determine the form commodification of Bali Lestari Beach as a tourist attraction in the District of Pantai Cemin. Commodification is carried out by adopting Balinese culture and renewal of Bali Lestari Coast facilities, as evidenced by this commodification, can increase the number of tourist visits. The research method used is a qualitative method with an ethnographic approach, data collection techniques using participatory observation and interviews. The results of this study explain the form of commodification carried out on the Bali Lestari beach by changing the beach brand from Indah to Bali. Then adopt Balinese culture such as traditional Balinese architecture, Balinese arches, paintings of puppet figures, statues and polished saput, which are made in such a way as to be identical to the nuances on the island of Bali. To get the appropriate commodification, the manager renewed and added several supporting facilities such as, water games, photo spots, prayer rooms, bathrooms and restaurants. The increase in visitors creates new jobs for the surrounding community, many of whom are shifting jobs from farming and fishing to traders on the beach. In order to get a permit to sell in this coastal area, the manager charges a low fee to the merchant to be paid. Government participation is also very necessary to develop the Bali Lestari Coast.

Gestational surrogacy: Transnational procreative practice and work for women in contemporary society

Gestational surrogacy is spreading across the world and it is increasingly accepted as an available way to make babies: the procreative process, the procurement of gametes, the recruitment of women and the relationships between the various subjects are administered by international agencies. At the same time there are signs of resistance such as transnational mobilizations calling for the universal ban of a practice that is viewed as a form of commodification of women and children. The author introduces the articles included in this monograph issue, which is an original contribution to a sociological understanding of an unprecedented social practice with peculiar characteristics: the presence of a new social actor, the surrogate woman, and the intentional separation of the newborn from the woman he or she identifies as their mother (although they are not genetically related). Because of these characteristics, surrogacy’s impact on the social role and subjective experience of motherhood, its imaginary and narrative, as well as on the status of the child, is not comparable to other forms of assisted procreation and family formation.

Spiritual Commodification Discourse of Kanda Pat in Bali Healing Tourism

The phenomenon of Kanda Pat's spiritual commodification in Bali tourism healing is an interesting thing to look at. On the one hand, Kanda Pat in Balinese society is still a local belief, but there is also a brand that is used as a modern spiritual healing brand. The purpose of this study is to reveal the occurrence of commodification, the form of commodification, and its implications. The approach used in this study is the study of culture with a theoretical foundation based on a critical paradigm. This study reveals the causal phenomena of spiritual commodification, namely commodification requires changes in merchandise of commodities through the packaging of spiritual elements with high image values. The form of spiritual commodification includes all forms of spiritual means and practices that are packaged in such a way as to be of economic value, and in particular in this study, the spiritual Kanda Pat. The implication of Kanda Pat's spiritual commodification is the strengthening of Kanda Pat's spiritual existence, spiritual healing service competition, reproduction of local spiritual discourse, and the trend of spirituality in Bali as an international tourist destination.

RESEPSI KOMODIFIKASI HALAL PADA IKLAN JILBAB ZOYA

Giving halal certification for many products is a guarantee that products is safe for consumption by a Muslim people. But media tend to using religion value to get a big commodity that profitable for company, or change the using value of religion to economic value. This research is a study about audience of television advertisement with the reception approach. This research is for knowing how are the Solo Hijabers community members meaning to Zoya Hijab advertisement. This research is using a qualitative method. Data analysis that using is Reception by Stuart Hall (encoding-decoding) with using three kind of analysis, dominant hegemonic position, negotiated position, and oppositional position. The result that researcher get is just showing two types, that is hegemonic dominant and negotiation. While the opposite position not happen to Hijabers Solo Community. In this research also found interesting something, although informant nothing have an attitude, meaning, and act the same way. They are still agree of hijab Zoya distribution in the market. Even they want to buy or using that hijab. Without they realize, they agree halal value to the Zoya hijab advertisement is a form of commodification.

Promises and pitfalls of ecotourism: patterns from a literature review

Ecotourism theoretically consists of responsible travel to natural areas that confers environmental and social benefits. Despite those positive aims, there has been a scholar emphasis on the uneven results of ecotourism development, highlighting the gaps between its promised and observed outcomes. A growing number of academics assigns those failures to the capitalist nature of ecotourism and its role in sustaining neoliberalism expansion. They are calling for more research on this relationship, which this study is concerned with. The aim of the present paper is to understand and identify mechanisms preventing a fair and even application of ecotourism principles. In order to do so, case studies issued from the literature review have been selected and a cross-case study search for pattern methodology has been conducted, helping to assess ecotourism development in different contexts and scales as to identify common obstacles to the achievement of positive outcomes. According to the results, patterns of ecotourism implementation are intertwined with neoliberal policies and practices and follow three main mechanisms: 1) extension of neoliberal governance to the detriment of local population self-determination, 2) modification of local culture towards market-driven logics and 3) increased neoliberalization of nature under the form of commodification. In turn, those mechanisms ensue the studied negative social, political and environmental effects. To reduce those, locals should be empowered towards the decision to enter ecotourism and the way to conduct it, excluding dependency on external actors to avoid neoliberal hegemony.

Tarantism: The Italian Pizzica from Music Therapy to New Formsof Performance

Far from being a mere historical reconstruction of the complex and culturally conditioned zymology of tarantism, the aim of this paper is to highlight its dynamic diachronically. Originally came from Italy, tarantism and its dynamics couldn’t be disjoined from its ancient concepts: cults, ritual possession, choral-music exorcism, that can be understood as a music therapy. In ethnomusicology standpoints, the particular significance would join the analysis of its from and its cultural aspect to elaborate the preservation of its choral nature or even its original ritual use in some maintained tarantellas. Through a cultural approach, this paper showed how, in the next period, political and economic development of these processes of capitalization resulting form of commodification focused in the aspects of dance and music. This lead to a decontextualization of the tarantula’s symbol into ideological discourse that transformed into cultural heritage in order to give it the status of capital goods, to be launched in cultural market.

PENANGANAN PENGUNGSI DI INDONESIA

that true religious and social solidarity is a supporting factor in the handling ofrefugees in Indonesia. The groups are voicing solidarity keumatan Islam as thecornerstone of refugee protection in Indonesia, either by the strengthening of thecivil society as well as with the approach of religious behavior such as infaq,zakat, sadaqah, sacrificial, and pegumpulannya used to fund the protection andhandling of refugees in Indonesia, even some group voiced that the oppressedMuslim Rohingya refugees to be recognized as part of the citizens of Indonesia,this is all a form of commodification of religion in handling the issue of refugees inIndonesia. Although there are no clear synchronization between communitysolidarity with national interests, even precisely tend paradox, but unconsciouslycommoditization of religion in handling the issue of refugees is preciselystrengthen the role of the international regime to intervene against the nationalinterests of the handling of refugees in Indonesia.

Agriculture as an asset class: reshaping the South African farming sector

According to portfolio managers, agriculture in general, and farmland in particular, can be considered an emerging asset class. Specialized financial vehicles, such as private equity and mutual funds, are emerging and competing to attract potential investment in this asset class. In recent years, there has been significant development of such vehicles targeting South Africa’s farming sector. These innovations are led by a group of market intermediaries (e.g. asset managers or consultants) who endeavour to “re-shape” South African farmland as an opportunity for institutional investors. These “pioneers” engage in a multifaceted mediation process between global financial investors on one hand, and the South African agricultural sector on the other. Drawing upon an empirical study of such intermediaries in South Africa, this paper analyses the concrete mechanisms that facilitate this particular form of commodification. The paper presents and compares the intermediaries, giving particular attention to their structure, governance mechanisms and asset allocations within this “market in the making”. It describes how intermediaries develop different paths of asset valorization to unlock the “financial value” of South African farmlands (i.e. “liquifying”, standardizing, neutralizing, and depoliticizing agriculture as an asset). But, it also highlights some of the difficulties faced in the process of translating between international investors and local managers, questioning the “land-asset fiction” that is materializing through the subordination of farmland to the needs of financial society.

KOMODIFIKASI BUDAYA LOKAL DALAM TELEVISI: STUDI WACANA KRITIS KOMODIFIKASI PANGKUR JENGGLENG

Pangkur Jenggleng is a kind of Macapat, traditional song of Java. It was packaged as a cultural art program in RRI Nusantara II Yogyakarta in the era of 1960S-1970S. Then, it was repackaged by TVRI Yogyakarta and sponsored by Amien Rais Information Center using stage comedy format in 2003. The changing of media format from audio to audiovisual -with any adjustment- make a shift in the value of the meaning of Pangkur Jenggleng. Accentuation of humor in Pangkur Jenggleng TVRI changes cultural value from traditional to mass culture. This phenomenon is not only seen as a media format adjustment, but also as a form of commodification. The research attempts to seek form, process, ideology, and power behind the commodification of Pangkur Jenggleng.

Some Current Publications

Some Current Publications Hilary Menges Individuals Mary Astell Apetrei, Sarah. “‘Call No Man Master Upon Earth’: Mary Astell’s Tory Feminism and an Unknown Correspondence.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 41 (2008): 507–23. Interrogating Mary Astell’s paradoxical position as a “Tory feminist,” the article identifies this position as Astell’s simultaneous ideological commitment to gender equality and to a defense of the church against the “tide of toleration.” Approaching this conundrum by way of a previously unknown correspondence between Astell and the cleric George Hickes, Apetrei argues that Astell’s own doctrine of passive obedience is more provisional that we have hitherto acknowledged, and proposes that Astell’s feminist writings betray an anticlerical instinct that leads her into conflict with her High Church convictions. See also: GENDER & SEXUALITY (Miller, Stanton). Aphra Behn Coppola, Al. “Retraining the Virtuoso’s Gaze: Behn’s Emperor of the Moon, The Royal Society, and the Spectacles of Science and Politics.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 41 (2008): 481–506. Proposing that Behn’s oft-neglected 1687 play is “not just an attack on misguided natural philosophy, nor merely an excuse to capitalize on the fads for opera,” Coppola suggests that Behn’s play interrogates the nature of spectacle itself. As a satiric restaging of John Dryden’s Albion and Albanius, Behn’s farce deliberately stimulates her audience’s uncritical wonder in order to retrain it. Coppola argues that in her lampoon of the credulous virtuoso, [End Page 63] Behn warns her audience of the debased nature of the theater, of the “irrational credulity” prompted by the Exclusion Crisis, and of the threats posed by enthusiasm to civil harmony. Figlerowicz, Marta. “‘Frightful Spectacles of a Mangled King’: Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and Narration Through Theater.” New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation 39 (2008): 321–34. Intervening in the genre debates about Oroonoko that have sought to explain the peculiar hybrid nature of Behn’s novella, this article reads Oroonoko in relation to the theater. Arguing for “a deeper, structural affinity” between Behn’s plays and her prose fiction, Figlerowicz analyzes the novella as a “highly creative, consistent attempt at recreating in the medium of prose fiction the dramatic effects generated by the interactions between an actor and his audience.” Highlighting the gap between the introspection of the character and the reactions he inspires in his audience allows Behn to underscore the “cultural opacity” of Oroonoko while maintaining our sympathy for him. In arguing for the intimate relationship between theater and prose fiction, Figlerowicz seeks to reorient our understanding of the evolution of the novel as a literary genre. Yang, Chi-ming. “Asia Out of Place: The Aesthetics of Incorruptibility in Behn’s Oroonoko.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 42 (2009): 235–53. Focusing on two key moments in which the Orient figures in Behn’s Oroonoko, this article suggests that the romanticization of African slave labor in the novel “takes place through a particular form of commodification, that of early modern orientalism.” This early modern orientalism valued and idealized practices such as japanning and tiger hunting, as well as the decorative sensibility of chinoiserie. Yang situates the novel in the context of global commerce between East and West, and clarifies that Behn draws on Orientalized practices to “construct a new myth of immortality…that memorializes and objectifies slave labor through the commodity culture of the East Indies trade.” Robert Boyle Dumsday, Travis. “Robert Boyle on the Diversity of Religions.” Religious Studies 44 (2008): 315–32. Dumsday summarizes and comments on Robert Boyle’s little-known treatise “On the diversity of religions,” which was unpublished during his lifetime (but was probably composed before 1684) and which comments on the difficulty of determining the true faith given the plurality of religious doctrines. The author notes that Boyle avoids discussions of soteriology and theodicy; his “concern lies not in why God would allow diversity, or in how exactly salvation is played out in such a world,” but rather in how anyone “could rationally believe himself correct in choosing a particular religion…when faced with such a vast throng of competitors.” John Bunyan Stevens, Paul. “Bunyan, The Great War, and the Political Ways of Grace.” Review of English Studies 59 (2008...

Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative

Ordinary Enchantments investigates magical realism as the most important trend in contemporary international fiction, defines its characteristics and narrative techniques, and proposes a new theory to explain its significance. In the most comprehensive critical treatment of this literary mode to date, Wendy B. Faris discusses a rich array of examples from magical realist novels around the world, including the work not only of Latin American writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but also of authors like Salman Rushdie, Gunter Grass, Toni Morrison, and Ben Okri.Faris argues that by combining realistic representation with fantastic elements so that the marvelous seems to grow organically out of the ordinary, magical realism destabilizes the dominant form of realism based on empirical definitions of reality, gives it visionary power, and thus constitutes what might be called a remystification of narrative in the West. Noting the radical narrative heterogeneity of magical realism, the author compares its cultural role to that of traditional shamanic performance, which joins the worlds of daily life and that of the spirits. Because of that capacity to bridge different worlds, magical realism has served as an effective decolonizing agent, providing the ground for marginal voices, submerged traditions, and emergent literatures to develop and create masterpieces. At the same time, this process is not limited to postcolonial situations but constitutes a global trend that replenishes realism from within. In addition to describing what many consider to be the progressive cultural work of magical realism, Faris also confronts the recent accusation that magical realism and its study as a global phenomenon can be seen as a form of commodification and an imposition of cultural homogeneity. And finally, drawing on the narrative innovations and cultural scenarios that magical realism enacts, she extends those principles toward issues of gender and the possibility of a female element within magical realism.