Why do electro dancers also dance on YouTube? The media logic of the cultural practices in the electro dance youth style

ABSTRACT

The notion of media logic is one of relevance in the recent debates around mediatization theories. Fundamentally applied to macrolevel, institution-focused analysis, this notion has not often been applied to narrower domains of cultural practice nor used as a conceptual point of departure in this regard. This article puts forward a three-pronged analytical scheme for the discussion of the media logic underlying the cultural production of electro dance, a dance-based, urban youth style born in Paris and spread globally over the past decade under the influence of digital media. Ethnographic attention is paid to a group of electro dancers and their YouTube-based practices to empirically understand how the cultural and social dimensions of the youth group life are crucially shaped by emerging communication forms that respond to a specific (media) logic. The article concludes by suggesting the transferability of the proposed conceptual scheme to better understand other microlevel, group-related mediatized phenomena.     

The relationship of judgments of desirability and likelihood

This study attempts a new approach to the problem of “meaning.” The authors are concerned primarily with meanings as they are encountered by decoders rather than as they are devised by encoders, and they focus almost exclusively on cognitive rather than on emotional aspects of meaning. A scheme comprising three dimensions—concreteness, iconicity, and conventionality—is proposed as a model for relating symbols to their concepts and their users. Emphasis is on ease or difficulty of decoding symbols in the cognitive realm. Experimentation is recommended for testing the hypotheses advanced in this approach.     

Making Silicon Valley : Culture,Representation, and Technology at the Tech Museum

There has been much discussion of Silicon Valley, the area south of San Francisco that is home to many high-technology firms. This article explores the cultural discourse of Silicon Valley, paying particular attention to the newly-opened Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose and the strategies of commemoration, identity construction, and exhibition it uses to mirror, focus, and construct a Silicon Valley culture. The Tech Museum successfully captures the dominant ideological elements of Silicon Valley, combining celebration of technology with a fascination with what the museum s literature refers to as the gizmos and gadgets produced by Valley companies. The Tech serves as a material focal point for Valley culture, but fails to provide a coherent direction or message for it.     

The two faces of Jimmy Carter: The transformation of a presidential debater, 1976 and 1980

Brydon offers a rhetorical analysis and evaluation of Jimmy Carter's debating in two elections. He concludes that Carter reversed his strategies between the two elections, attacking in 1976 but relying upon his incumbency in 1980. The findings indicate that presidential debates are ill‐suited to strategies which rely upon symbols of incumbency.     

Bridging Service-Learning with Media Literacy: Creating Contexts for Communication Students to Educate Youth on Media Content,Consumption, and Effects

Courses: Mediated Communication Theory; Media Criticism; Media Literacy; Senior Capstone

Objectives: (a) To utilize service-learning to educate youth on media literacy; (b) to apply course materials and witness the connection between theory and practice; and (c) to promote personal and social responsibility through civic engagement     

论编辑的出版规范意识

出版规范是编者与作者、读者之间约定俗成的文化传播符号。编辑在出版规范化方面 ,起着特有的缔约者和组织创造的作用。随着科学技术的发展和现代文化交流的加速扩容 ,某些规范在不断地修订和改革。媒体的特征就是以符号为中介 ,沟通作者与读者之间的文化交流 ,符号的规范化、标准化也是编辑出版活动最基本的特征     

Exploring diversity through dialogue: avowed and ascribed identities

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Conflict and Communication, Interpersonal Communication

Objectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to (1) differentiate between the avowed versus ascribed dimensions of cultural identity construction; (2) articulate the contested nature of cultural identity, including how cultural stereotypes guide perceptions of the Other; and (3) demonstrate tolerance through active and supportive listening to facilitate a nuanced appreciation of cultural diversity.     

Changes in Public Library Youth Services: A Content Analysis of Youth Services Job Advertisements

ABSTRACT

This article investigates requirements and responsibilities for public library youth services librarians. Position advertisements were published in American Libraries in five-year increments, from 1971 to 2001. Youth services librarian positions were analyzed as to changes in position titles, education requirements, job responsibilities, and personality characteristics. Findings suggest that the number of advertised youth services positions is increasing, and job titles are changing from the specific “children's services” to the more generalized “youth services.” Advertised responsibilities of the youth services librarian have consistently emphasized collection management and administrative duties, and many advertisements place a heavy emphasis on personality traits.     

Reconstructing <equality>: Culturetypal and counter‐cultural Rhetorics in the martyred black vision

A guiding purpose of most social and political minority movements in a pluralistic society is to achieve legitimacy in the terms of the dominant ideology. In Anglo‐American liberal democracies such legitimation is located in the ideograph <equality>, an ideological commitment which promotes “sameness” and “identity.” An interesting feature of <equality> is that it functions implicitly as a rhetoric of control, requiring those who would achieve legitimacy to sublimate their “difference” from the dominant ideology. As such, it poses serious contradictions for a society that is truly interested in promoting a humanistic and pluralistic egalitarianism. In this essay the authors examine the way in which the culturetypal rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the counter‐cultural rhetoric of Malcolm X functioned together to negotiate this characteristic of <equality> as black Americans in the 1960s strove to achieve legitimacy for their struggle for civil rights, and in so doing constructed a revised and emancipatory conception of cultural <equality>.     

The Use of Generic Frames in Elite Press: Between Conflict,Neutrality, and an Empowered Journalist

ABSTRACT

We propose to submit the existence of the five generic frames advanced by Semetko and Valkenburg [2000. “Framing European Politics: A Content Analysis of Press and Television News.” Journal of Communication 50 (2): 93–109. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02843.x] to a qualitative validation test. We strive to enrich this theory, given its potential to do comparative research across borders, testing it outside the cultural context where it was created, and thus contributing to perfecting its research methods and application, with the inclusion of local frames, better adapted to the Latin American cultural space. A three-year sample of political coverage was analyzed in two Chilean mainstream newspapers often accused of uniform ideological perspective. Although the five frames are used, a simplified form of the conflict frame practically eclipses the other four in use. Two others were identified (“defense” and “informative”), as well a narrative perspective, almost like a meta-frame, which installs the perception that the journalist knows more than ordinary citizens, their colleagues and other political actors.     

Orienting Neighborhood Youth to an Academic Library

Summary

Early in 1997, full Web access was added to Babson Library's public workstations. In a few short months, library computers became a mecca for neighborhood youth. The library's “open door” philosophy and Springfield College's strategic vision to strengthen campus/community ties brought the library to the forefront of actively developing services for community youth. An outreach program for community youth was designed to address the issue of computer access. The development of the program involved the entire library and provided an opportunity for collaborative interaction among the library, related campus programs, and community agencies. Its impact on the library brought to the forefront the debate between “academic service” and “community service.”     

严肃议题的消解与重构--亚文化视域下的青少年政治社会议题传播

传统社会向信息社会转型的过程中,文化格局随之重塑。亚文化通过各种新媒体渠道广泛传播,从边缘地带走向繁荣。作为青少年群体的重要文化形式之一,亚文化对当代文化图谱有着独特的价值和贡献;但由于其政治性的局限,在政治传播议题中的论述还相对有限。青少年因大量时间被娱乐消费覆盖,政治参与呈现下降趋势。米姆作为社交媒体中流行文化的重要景观,大量出现在政治议题中,对识别和理解青少年亚文化有至关重要的作用。本文以青少年通过亚文化语言和符号参与在线公共议题的案例出发,探讨青少年在政治议题建构中的话语参与与认同构建;并探讨这种泛娱乐的参与方式中,公共性如何体现。研究认为,内容娱乐化的同时,米姆的政治功能也在逐渐凸显;亚文化参与代表了青少年对政治议题的多样化诉求,促进青少年对社会政治议题的关注和参与,融合且推进了个体表达与公共话语呈现,是兼具文化价值和政治意义的参与路径。     

Virtual Voices with Real-Life Consequences: Teaching Students about Cyber-Vetting

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Gendered Communication, Nonverbal Communication

Objectives: The aims of this single-class activity are (1) to illustrate the relationship between cultural norms and nonverbal communication, and (2) to demonstrate the impact of cultural norms on everyday life.     

Keyword: Print‐on‐demand

Abstract

This article examines the state of management in Convergence today and poses questions and potential answers for overcoming cultural problems that exist between newspaper and television newsrooms. The article scrutinizes the seeming abyss between these expected media partners and examines cultural implications through literature in organizational psychology, organizational communications and general business management practices.     

Failure of apology in American politics: Nixon on Watergate

This article is concerned with the way apologetics aids politicians in maintaining their authority. Using political systems theory, it focuses upon the three types of legitimacies of a political office holder: structural, ideological, and personal. Application of this theory is made to Nixon's 1973 Watergate apologies in an attempt to discover why, in that instance, apology failed.     

Artifacts,Identity and Youth: A Cultural Intervention with Pacific Islander Young People Who Offend in Western Sydney,Australia

This article provides information on the evaluation of a project between the Australian Museum and the Juvenile Justice department in New South Wales, Australia, where young people who offend of Pacific Islander heritage were introduced to an extensive range of Pacific Islander cultural materials. The key assumption of the project was that young Pacific Islander people who offend struggled with cultural identity issues, and that a meaningful connection with their heritage would improve cultural knowledge and pride—thereby reducing their involvement in crime. However, this assumption was not borne out by the study's results. Firstly, the twenty‐two Pacific Islander young offender study participants were already proud of their heritage, and comfortable in their cultural identities. Secondly, though they enjoyed their visit to the museum, most did not want to visit again, so there was no sustained engagement. Thirdly, the Museum program was not designed as part of a holistic approach with multiple strategies which addressed the complex reasons for youth offending. Despite eight out of the twenty‐two participants reoffending after the Museum visit, there was enough potential for the rehabilitative intervention that the Museum was granted funding to take its program to the community and make it more user‐centered. This, it is hoped, will set it on a path towards more sustained engagement, and the potential for a greater influence on Pacific Islander youth.     

Reference Services: Meeting the Needs of International Adult Learners

Summary

International adult learners constitute a very large percentage of the international student and scholar population in the United States. The ability of this adult group to use libraries is hampered not only by their language, cultural and educational barriers, but also by librarians' limited understanding of their differences in learning styles. The relationship between learning styles and the methods of instructing them in library use is addressed in this paper. Recommendations for training and instruction of librarians on meeting the needs of this culturally diverse group are also provided.     

Making the Familiar Strange: Creative Cultural Storytelling within the Communication Classroom

Courses: Public Speaking, Performance, or other communication classes, integrating performance and/or cultural studies

Objectives: After completing this activity, students will be able to look critically at an everyday experience, creating a story that re-languages this practice performatively. Additionally, students will develop confidence in presentation skills, further enhancing critical thinking and cultural awareness, by learning to creatively engage voice, gesture, and performance through “making the familiar strange” within the communication classroom     

Exploring Cultural Identities: Renewing the Family Interview Assignment

Objectives: Through an examination of their cultural and familial histories, students will develop an awareness of how they are situated within the socio-cultural landscape of the US and the global village. Students will identify how family histories assist in their construction of cultural identities.

Courses: Intercultural Communication and Family Communication     

Cultural Policy Studies and the Problem of Political Representation

Since the 1980s, writers in cultural policy studies have used Michel Foucault\rquote s writing on governmentality to rethink the relationship between intellectuals in the humanities and liberal (or neoliberal) states. One of the founding members of the Australian cultural policy studies school, Tony Bennett, has argued for a model of intellectual as a cultural technicisn who works with the state bureaucracies. This article uses Bennett\rquote s work as an entry-point into questions about the role of critical intellectual, the nature of state power and bureaucracy, and function of culture. It argues that if cultural policy studies is going to claim to be doing bureaucratic work for the sake of politics (rather than for purposes of self-interest), then it will have to supplement governmentality with other theories that help sort our relationships among intellectuals, political constituencies, and the state.