Cultural Studies
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National Conversations
More Less[Public service broadcasting is in the process of evolving into 'public service media' as a response to the challenges of digitalization, intensive competition and financial vulnerability. While many commentators regard public service as being in transition, a central dimension of its mission - to integrate and unify the nation while respecting and representing plurality - is being reemphasized and re-legitimated in a political climate where the politics of migration and cultural diversity loom large in public debate. Through a series of thematic chapters and in-depth national case studies, National Conversations examines the reshaping of public service media and the concomitant development of new guiding discourses, policies, and program practices for addressing difference and lived multiculturalism in Europe.
,Public service broadcasting is in the process of evolving into 'public service media' as a response to the challenges of digitalization, intensive competition and financial vulnerability. While many commentators regard public service as being in transition, a central dimension of its mission - to integrate and unify the nation while respecting and representing plurality - is being reemphasized and re-legitimated in a political climate where the politics of migration and cultural diversity loom large in public debate. Through a series of thematic chapters and in-depth national case studies, National Conversations examines the reshaping of public service media and the concomitant development of new guiding discourses, policies, and program practices for addressing difference and lived multiculturalism in Europe.
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Negotiating Spain and Catalonia
More LessWhat is Spanish identity? The stereotype conjures up images of 'temperament', 'passion' and 'difference' from the rest of Europe. But, within Spain, is there a single image all Spaniards identify with?
The two case studies included in this book (dealing with the Football World Cups of 1994 and 2002, and the general elections of 1996 and 2000) examine competing discourses of Spain, Catalonia and their national identities, as constructed in the Spanish press. The conservative discourse offers traditional and unified images of Spain close to the stereotype, whereas more liberal visions of the country regard 'Europeanism' and 'reason' (not 'passive') as the values Spain should aspire to. From a peripheral perspective, Catalan self-definition is of a people that is hardworking, thoughtful, truly European, and different from the rest of the Spaniards.
However, these differences between the discourses are not always so clear-cut. Central to Negotiating Spain and Catalonia is the idea of the constant renegotiation of Spanish and Catalan identities in order to adapt them to the political circumstance: both case studies show how radically different narratives of Spanishness and Catalanicity offered in the turbulent political past tend to merge into the more tranquil present.
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NanoCulture
More Less"Nano" denotes a billionth; a nanometer is a billionth of a meter. New instrumentation and techniques have for the first time made possible materials research and engineering at this level, the scale of individual molecules and atoms.
Extraordinary visions of material abundance, unprecedented materials, and powerful engineering capabilities have marked the arrival of nanotechnology, as well as dystopian scenarios of self-replicating devices running amok and causing global catastrophe. Largely a future possibility rather than present actuality, nanotechnology has become a potent cultural signifier.
NanoCulture explores the ways in which nanotechnology interacts with, and itself becomes, a cultural construction. Topics include the co-construction of nanoscience and science fiction; the influence of risk assessment and nanotechnology on the shapes of narratives; intersections between nanoscience as a writing practice and experimental literature at the limits of fabrication; the Alice-in-Wonderland metaphor for nanotechnology; and the effects of mediation on nanotechnology and electronic literature.
NanoCulture is produced in collaboration with the nano art exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (December 2003-September 2004), created by an interdisciplinary team led by media artist Victoria Vesna and nanoscientist James Gimzewski. NanoCulture is richly illustrated with images from the nano exhibit, which also provides the basis for an ethnographic analysis of collaborative process and an exploration of changing concepts of museum space.
The dynamic uniting these diverse perspectives is boundary crossing: between art, science, and literature; cultural imaginaries, scientific facts, and technological possibilities; actual. virtual, and hybrid spaces; the science of fictions and the fictions of science; and utopian dreams, material constraints, and dystopian nightmares.
The first book-length study focus on cultural implications of nanotechnology, NanoCulture breaks new ground in showing the importance of the new technoscience to contemporary culture and of culture to the development, interpretation, and future of this technoscience.
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