Stream - Inspiring Critical Thought (E-Journal)
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Don't 'Axe' Don't Tell: A Critical Commentary on Axe's 'Chocolate Man'
Get PDFWhat’s behind the success of Unilever’s line of Axe toiletries for men? It’s not a secret ingredient for concocting sprays with “woodsy overtones†and “oriental spice†– Axe is notorious for its commercials depicting the instant, uncontrollable attraction of young, good-looking, thin and scantily clad women who happen upon any pasty, scrawny teenage boy doused in the sexual scents of Axe body spray. Axe’s marketing strategy for increasing the popularity of the line amongst their target demographic – young, white, heterosexual men – capitalizes on the perpetuation of masculine, sexist, and racist stereotypes and heterosexist sentiments. Indeed, Axe’s recent commercial, the “Chocolate Man,†reeks of a nasty tradition in North American entertainment
Memories, Identity and Mother Russia: A Study of the Russian-Chechen Conflict
Get PDFToday’s Russian-Chechen conflict is based upon a long history of colonization and domination. Although the historic conflict relies upon an underlying mentality of “us†versus “them,†this assumption does not serve as the core identity marker of Chechen identity. Instead, the 1944 deportations, in which Stalinist Russia deported and exiled half a million Chechens, has become the primary national identity marker. This suggests that when an ethnic group has experienced deportations, their historic memories will serve a greater role in collective identity construction than any other relationship they have with that adversary
Does Rotten Tomatoes Spoil Users? Examining Whether Social Media Features Foster Participatory Culture
No full textParticipatory culture, as conceived by Henry Jenkins, existed prior to the advent of the World Wide Web. Now, due to the increasing popularity of social media tools, participatory culture is flourishing online as well. One popular movie review website, Rotten Tomatoes, demonstrates this trend. The website includes a suite of interactive, social media tools. Based on an ethnographic observation, participatory culture was seen to be occurring on the site. The power of the website to provide an open and accessible means of cultural dialogue and to encourage civic participation can be observed particularly when online user activity moves beyond discussions of film aesthetics to encompass larger societal and cultural issues. However, despite the site’s intriguing potential, there are various flaws observed that prevent a greater flourishing of participatory culture
Government Imposition of Sustainable Business Practices in the Arts: A Saving Grace?
Get PDFThe paper examines how the Alberta Foundation for the Arts has prioritized economic measures of sustainability and best business practices by including economic language and demands into arts funding applications. Analyzing ten years of granting documents from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts the research explores how the gradual inclusion of business language increases the demand on arts organizations to operate as sustainable organizations. The paper also considers how the very imposition of economic priorities onto non-profit arts organizations may, ironically, be the saving grace for such organizations in the face of global economic crisis. Forced to operate under the rigid fiscal demands of granting programs, arts organizations in Alberta are accustomed to efficient operation with limited resources. Therefore they may actually be poised to weather the economic storm better than other arts organizations in Canada
“I Started out as a Social Constructionistâ€: A Conversation with Myra J. Hird, Part 1
No full textAs a student of Communication, I have come to understand the field as being principally concerned with the symbolic world. Thus we see cultural studies, news and media studies, and language studies and linguistics as defining traditions; discourse and textual analysis as defining methods; and social construction as a defining theoretical approach. Yet the field has been defined in a number of ways which can vary drastically or conflict with one another. Rather than seeing this as a serious problem of identity, I suggest that, quite possibly, this is Communication’s most productive feature. Being interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, or whatever you would like to call it, Communication has the distinct advantage of being relatively free from the binding constrictions of older, more established disciplines. This means the field is at the forefront of producing novel research
The Line Between Methodology and Praxis
Get PDFI would like to begin by disclosing that the overall purpose I have ventured to extend in the writing of my report has been to address the question: How do we, as researchers, as scholars, as students, as teachers, and perhaps also then feasibly as activists, effectively bridge the gap between theory, methodology, and praxis? This report contains both epistemological and methodological discussions, examining potential strengths and problematic uses of oral history as an alternative to traditional empirical social science research
Prisoners of the Media: Television in Russia Since the Collapse of Communism
Get PDFIn 1991 one of the most oppressive regimes in history collapsed and millions of people were set free. Following the implementation of glasnost and perestroika Soviet communism proved untenable and was consigned to the trash heap of history. The Soviet media itself played a tremendous role in facilitating the collapse. After Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev removed censorship from the Soviet press they began looking into the past transgressions of their nation and reported it aggressively. Thus, as the Soviet state and its Russian successor became a much weaker power agent, other agents of power appeared to challenge the power of the state with regards to the media. Television, as the most important medium in Russian society came to be a special case. The power relations in Russian television are essentially a historical map of power relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Power in Russian media is made up of a complex set of relationships that is worth exploring
Social Movement Phenomena and the Emergence of Communities of Becoming
Get PDFThis paper will provide an overview of several noted social movement theories. This will be followed by an examination of the legacy of Habermas’s public sphere and Castells’s network theory. I will explore how the former excludes peripheral actors from societal dialogue while linking the tenets of the latter to recent movement trends. The analysis will then shift to an examination of the orientation of engaged social movement actors. How have their internetworked activities contributed to the development of identity or communities of “becoming.†Are they replicating the hegemonic behaviors within the established societal structures they repudiate? How can conceptual and practical developments inform us of the potential of movement actions within altered spaces? Overall, I hope to provide an effective analysis that clearly captures the potential pitfalls and openings for movement actors – both theoretically and practically – in their attempt to effect change and enhance their sense of community through ephemeral networks
Yet Another September: AOL, World of Warcraft, and Niche Markets
Get PDFSince it’s introduction in November 2004, World of Warcraft (WoW) has exploded in popularity within the sphere of Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMOs), dominating the field with over 11.5 million monthly subscribers, an order of magnitude larger than its nearest competitor (Woodcock, 2008). It has become a pop-culture phenomenon, parodied in South Park, promoted by William Shatner, and fiercely defended by its proponents. However, much of the current analysis of the game itself has been on the activities and functions that occur within its virtual space (Ducheneaut, et. al., 2006). The exogenous processes by which WoW came to dominate in its sphere have been under-explored, and the effect their marketplace entry had on established groups within that sphere has been neglected. In this paper, I propose that similarities to what WoW has accomplished in the MMO market can be found in the rise of America Online (AOL) in the early 1990’s, and its effect on the existing service providers and systems of the nascent internet. Exemplifying this is the opening of UseNet to its users in 1993, the infamous “September That Never Ended.â
Guest Editorial
Get PDFoai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/1The launch of Stream is a significant event for Communication scholarship in Canada. This new and highly innovative e-journal has been conceived, designed, and directed in its entirety by graduate students in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, and it represents a bold and creative approach to the dissemination of new and emerging Communication research in communities of graduate scholars