Stream - Inspiring Critical Thought (E-Journal)
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Identity VS E-dentity
Get PDFIn our current technologically-mediated environment there is in fact a fourth dimension that needs to be taken in to consideration which plays an equally vital role in shaping our identity: that of technology. What happens when experience takes place outside the realm of traditional reality and shifts virtually into cyber-space? Does our identity become free-floating? In other words, because experience relies on our senses and perceptions, when our experiences become mediated what happens to the process of identity creation
Global and local media dynamics in identity construction among British Muslims after September 11
Get PDFThe terrorist attacks of September 11 have become a defining moment not only in the history of the US where they took place, but also in the history of Muslims around the world, particularly those living in Western countries. Muslim diasporas in the West have found themselves at the heart of global events and networks: a global war on terrorism, global flows of images and ideas, and a global Muslim community or Umma. Central to these various processes is undoubtedly the role played by new media and communication technologies, mainly transnational TV channels. Thus, based on an ethnographic study conducted in the city of Leeds, this paper explores the dialectic between local and transnational media, particularly British media and Arab satellite television channels, and the extent to which they have shaped identity building among British Muslims after September11. It argues that the use, appropriation and consumption of these media do certainly have a significant impact on how British Muslims define themselves. However, it demonstrates also that this role is far from being deterministic and it is only one among many other factors that condition identity building among British Muslims
Introducing "Surveylady": A Case for the Use of Avatars as Part of Gaming Research
Get PDFThe popularity explosion of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMOs) such as World of Warcraft provides researchers with a venue to reach a wider research subject base than ever before. But what is the best way to collect data about these virtual worlds? This paper illustrates the rich potential of using an avatar to interact with MMO participants while players are immersed in the game’s virtual environment. Rather than observing from the periphery, this paper makes the case for the researcher to ‘dive right in’ and interview gamers within their (virtual) environment. This paper will argue that this methodology acts as a means for collecting rich, nuanced data about the gaming community
Subculture Theory and the Fetishism of Style
Get PDFSubculture theory, a paradigm most closely associated with British cultural studies, promised to provide a Marxian sociology of the connections between social-structural determinants and their expression in the relatively autonomous sphere of culture. This promise has remained largely unfulfilled. The more recent, so-called “post-subcultures†literature has decisively demonstrated the limitations of the model elaborated by the scholars of the Birmingham School. However, in abandoning its class-based critique, they have tended to fall back upon a single-minded concern with the emancipatory potential of lifestyle and consumption. In neither of these “moments†is the issue of style itself opened up as an arena of social and cultural reproduction. That is to say, subculture theory has tended to fall prey to a fetishism of style. In this paper, I will briefly outline post-subculture critiques of “classical†subculture theory and, drawing on Jean Baudrillard’s theory of consummativity, point towards the need for a defetishizing study of subcultures as an integral part of a critical cultural studies project. I will also outline a typology of cultural formations as an analytical model for future subculture research
Ambivalence and Cultural Industrialization in Canada
Get PDFIf Canadian culture can be said to have a master narrative, it is surely one of ambivalence. It is a concept that is laced implicitly throughout Canadian popular culture, as well as Canadian cultural studies. Although Canadianists frequently grapple with the issue of cultural industrialization, especially in relation to cultural nationalist fears about Americanization, it is my contention that these analyses do not adequately consider Canadian popular culture as a process of ambivalent industrialization which allows certain non-industrial practices to be preserved. This process is particularly evident in the subject of my doctoral dissertation the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival (JFL) where carnival and industry collide in very public ways
Stars versus Rainbows: Walt Disney’s and Jim Henson’s “Philosophies of Childhoodâ€
No full textThe television special The Muppets go to Walt Disney World (1990) provides an unique opportunity to discuss the differences between two influential producers of children’s media culture, Jim Henson and Walt Disney. Several scholars highlight distinctive differences between Disney and Henson’s products, including Jack Zipes. The film was created both as promotional material for the park and the new Muppet 3D adventure ride; it also marked the merger of Jim Henson Productions within the Walt Disney Corporation. With the sudden death of Henson, the deal was called off. The special still demonstrates many of the important ideological differences between the Henson and Disney conception of childhood and family.
Drawing on Karal Ann Marling, Peter Stevens, and Virginia Salamone’s work on the constructed nature of the park experience, this paper examines how the Muppet’s visit breaks and bends both the expected behavior of visitors and their expected pleasure. Central to the examination become the distinctions between social and moral transgression, and biological versus found families. Disney theme parks and films focus on the importance of social conformity as way to protect of childhood innocence, which is opposed by Henson’s characters experimentation and self discovery. Henson’s character separate experiences with the park critique Disney’s biological definition of family. These conflicting notions and satire of classic Disney values may explain why this special has not been re-released, despite Disney purchase of the Muppet franchise in 2006
(Bio)Power to the People? Harnessing Potential in the Creative and Cultural Workplace
Get PDFBy now, glamourous accounts of work in creative and new media industries are common: foosball tables, kitchens stocked with junk food, on-site laundry services, and office complexes that seem more like playgrounds than worksites. This paper considers the practices of these creative and cultural workplaces through Foucault’s notion of biopolitics. A conception of biopolitics as the maintenance and regulation of life itself (Foucault, 1978) can account for these practices as strategies designed to harness the potentiality of labour power and channel it into production for capital accumulation. Although new media workplaces may seem “fun,†some tactics of these workplaces may be better understood as strategies of control, designed to facilitate the self-governing, self-regulating, productive worker
Bringing Peace to Practice? The Need to Consider Journalism Practice When Reforming Aboriginal Media Coverage in Canada
Get PDFIn a non-binding decision concerning the Xeni Gwet’in First Nations’ aboriginal title to a large portion of their traditional territory, Justice David Vickers advised the Crown and the First Nations group to negotiate a settlement that explicitly avoided assigning blame on either of the two parties. He called for the need for both parties to avoid splitting themselves into “winners†and “losers,†a dichotomy that the judicial system tends to promote, but one that also hardens divisions and so undermines attempts at long-term reconciliation
Super Undies, Buff Bodies and Body Facism: Normative Gay Identity and the Politics of Regulation
Get PDFfab Magazine, a bi-weekly based in Toronto, is an example of a gay tabloid press that claims to provide an alternative to the traditional discourses of gay identity. Providing local coverage of Toronto’s gay community, the magazine also contains featured columnists, music and restaurant reviews, and a classified section that focuses on gay businesses and services. However the magazine’s representation of the gay community embraces and glorifies the normative images of the gay body that articulate the stereotypical conception of gay consumer identity. This creates a contradiction at the centre of the magazine: it is a text that seeks to be understood as a “for us, by us text†publication yet it deploys a normative construction of gayness in the vast majority of its image-based representations
The Western Canada Communciation Graduate Students Conference: Notes from the Organizers
Get PDFThe Western Canada Communication Graduate Students Conference (more commonly known as “The Nelson Conferenceâ€) is co-organized and co-hosted by the University of Calgary and Simon Fraser University. The conference is held annually in the spring in Nelson, BC, which is the geographic midpoint between Calgary, Alberta and Burnaby, British Columbia. Nine students from the University of Calgary and ten students from Simon Fraser University presented at the conference with topics ranging from Heath Technologies, Postmodern War, Gaming Studies to work on Transnationalism, Trauma/Memory Studies and Cultural Theory.
The breadth of topics and areas of inquiry that were represented at the conference were indicative of the scope of work being done in the field of Communication Studies. A sign that like most interdisciplinary programs, the discipline is home to a variety of innovative and interesting areas of research.
This year’s conference marked the 19th consecutive meeting between the University of Calgary and Simon Fraser University. A conference organized for graduate students by graduate students, it offers a unique opportunity for students in Western Canada to collaborate across institutional boundaries