Studies of the Publishing Industry’s Cultural Quality

Publishing belongs to the information content industry in essence, where “the content is the king, the brand brings success”. Whether the content of the publication is appealing, accessible, attractive and influential depends on its cultural content. That is why we pay special attention to the research on cultural quality in relation to online publishing technology and information systems transmission. This article presents an in-depth research on this issue from three aspects: why should the research on cultural quality be emphasized; how to understand culture and cultural quality; what are the principles and conditions to form the cultural quality.     

Thinking Culture and Cultural Studies—from/of the Global South

ABSTRACT

This essay invites us to consider the need to rethink culture and some theoretical/intellectual assumptions in Cultural Studies when we bring up the issue of the “Global South.” The essay makes a case for “going South” in Cultural Studies. It advances a notion of the South that is based on a frame of dispossession. The first section offers a historical overview of the Global South and considers where the Global South is today. The second section attempts to rethink the notion of ‘culture’ and some intellectual orientations in Cultural Studies when we move to the Global South.     

“Cultumization?” The Impact of Cultural Priming on Customized Communication

This study examined the impact of cultural priming on the effects of customized communication. Two existing customization approaches (tailoring and targeting) were tested with 102 participants in an experiment. It was found that when participants were primed with individualistic meanings, they tended to generate a more favorable attitude toward tailored messages than targeted messages. In contrast, when participants were primed with collectivist meanings, they formed a more favorable attitude toward targeted messages than tailored ones. Based on the study findings, the conceptualization of customization needs to incorporate the cultural factor.     

Radio's influence in the Alaska Bush: Cultural transmission or diffusion?

Isolated radio stations serve predominately Native American populations in the Alaska Bush. This study sought to ascertain radio's influence on local cultures and its ability to serve local needs. Issues relating to control and staffing of stations were also examined. Clearly there is a growing push for Bush radio to help preserve Alaska's native cultures and languages. Stations differed in their approaches to some common problems, but all appeared to be moving in the direction of increasing native involvement in station operations.     

Soft-Core in TV Time: The Political Economy of a “Cultural Trend”

This essay deconstructs popular notions that “sex sells” in an increasingly sexualized U.S. popular culture by examining the specific political, social, and economic forces behind the creation and expansion of Girls Gone Wild, a home video series marketed through television infomercials. The crackdown on hard-core pornography, followed by the opening of television infomercial markets, paved the way for the series’ creator to bring together the structural organization of a new soft-core video industry with the marketing aims of a cable industry eager to sell young, male ratings.     

WTF was Kony 2012? Considerations for Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (CCCS)

This article discusses the (in)famous Kony 2012 (Kony) viral video, which had a record-100 million views in six days. It discusses its unique status as a viral advocacy video by NGO Invisible Children (IC) to make Joseph Kony “famous.” Theorizing Kony's eventfulness entails insights for twenty-first-century communication and critical cultural studies, which note the obsolescence of past critical trends in CCCS: especially regarding virality, imitation, attention, affect, citizenship, subjectivity, power, control, participation, and protest.     

“Hello,How May I Offend You Today?” NBC's Outsourced and the Discourse of Cultural Authenticity

Cultural authenticity is a fluid construct in an era in which globalization is celebrated and vilified. The author examines how cultural authenticity is discursively ascribed, legitimized, and negotiated among creators and viewers of the short-lived NBC series Outsourced within the overlapping contexts of globalization, outsourcing, and fake Indian accents. Findings indicate that authenticity materialized around country of origin, and the author explores whether cultural artifacts conformed to iconic signifiers. The implications are contextualized within Arjun Appadurai's globalization framework.     

Fighting the Prison–Industrial Complex: A Call to Communication and Cultural Studies Scholars to Change the World1

Collectively authored by the members of Prison Communication, Activism, Research, and Education (PCARE), an NCA-based group of scholars and activists, this essay argues that the prison–industrial complex has grown into a dire threat to the practices of US democracy. The essay “maps” the crises spawned by the prison–industrial complex and then offers a comprehensive action plan for pursuing new forms of scholarship, pedagogy, and activism. The essay therefore hopes to launch nothing less than a revolution in communication and cultural studies scholarship and a new wave of peace-and-justice activism.     

Expanding Television’s Cultural Forum in the Digital Era: Prime Time Television,Twitter, and Black Lives Matter

Twitter updates and expands television’s cultural forum model by letting viewers speak to current events such as the Black Live Matter (BLM) movement. This article analyzes 1,985 tweets in response to three television episodes (Law & Order: SVU, The Good Wife, and Scandal) that dramatized BLM, and identifies five common themes in how viewers address these representations: thematic appropriateness, timing, producers’ qualifications, institutional critiques, and the purpose of entertainment television. This study concludes that Twitter facilitates a meta-commentary, which expands traditional discussions of entertainment programming, and that these programs transcend “mere” entertainment to become critiques of larger social movements.     

Métissage on the Airwaves: Toward a Cultural History of Broadcasting in French Colonial Algeria, 1930–1936

This article explores the methodological challenges and possibilities of writing a cultural history of broadcasting in French colonial Algeria during the tumultuous decades between the two world wars. In a diverse, multi-ethnic colonial society, how can historians and media scholars evaluate audience reception? What meanings did radio broadcasting acquire in the colonial context? To answer these questions, this article considers the controversies surrounding two culturally hybrid broadcasts produced by Radio-Algiers during the 1930s. A careful examination of the remaining historical record concerning these broadcasts, from newspaper accounts to archival sources, exposes the cultural fluidity that typified everyday colonial life and reveals how radio broadcasting politicized music and oral language in novel ways. Broadcasting—as a purely sonic medium—challenged the classificatory mechanisms of the French colonial state and the racial and ethnic boundaries that undergirded colonial society. In consequence, historical memories of Radio-Algiers and its role during the waning years of the French empire deny the sonic cultural hybridity that flourished over the interwar airwaves.     

‘The State is Me.’ My Role as a Conservator: Do Conservators Have Power Within the Cultural Structure?

ABSTRACT

Preventive conservation plans must include the collaboration of all the different departments within an institution to be able to diagnose the situation, provide proper maintenance, and allocate a budget. Preventive conservation entails understanding the collection’s needs, organizational culture, institutional priorities, and risk factors. Beyond the intervention of objects, the conservator is the creator of guidelines and the implementer of solutions. In this paper, need-based approaches are provided showcasing how tailor-built preventive conservation plans became merged into the backbone of everyday activities. In the Louis C. Morton Auction House in Mexico City, diagnosis tools were adapted, redefining conservation terms within a business-oriented model to guarantee success. In the National Museum of Art in Mexico, the sustainable preservation plan categorized actions within their realization capability. Tasks were allocated to different departments and suppliers; outsourcing, not the responsibility, but the commitment of continuity with service providers via contracts. At the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the complex conservation projects have focused on high standard continuity. Motivating people to participate in the steady innovation, an encyclopaedic museum must have not only to conserve its collections, but also to serve as an international example.