International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics - Volume 14, Issue 2, 2018

Our collective future largely depends on the ways in which we frame climate change. It is argued, however, that the dominant frames are only superficially environmental and keep reproducing the (anthropocentric) hegemonic ideology. Real change, contrariwise, requires ideological transformation (biocentrism). As one frame can promote various ideologies, familiar frames like ‘Cycles of Nature’ or ‘Environmental Justice’ can provide convenient contexts for hegemonic struggles. However, little is known yet about the nature of the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic ‘subframes’. Therefore, we have conducted a qualitative framing analysis on a corpus of Belgian mainstream and alternative news articles. The results demonstrate the strong similarities among the two exemplary frames and striking contrasts within the frames. The anthropocentric ‘subframes’ foreground an external fight with a largely external enemy (carbon dioxide). The biocentric ‘subframes’ highlight internal problems within human society. However, being quantitatively and qualitatively underdeveloped, the latter still lack the potency to truly inspire. Hence, they require further (collaborative) scrutiny and development.

This interdisciplinary article proposes a framework for the employment of augmented reality (AR), informed by spatio-narrative data drawn from literary texts on the basis of architectural elements, as a means of remediation that can provide rich opportunities for a creative re-contextualization of narrative contents within the urban space, thus reinforcing cultural memory as part of the collective memory. The article focuses on the dynamic of literary texts in visitor/inhabitant engagement with the cultural memory of a specific urban tissue. It then proceeds to present the theoretical background on the notions of urban space, cultural memory, collective memory, narrative theory and spatialization, before discussing the capabilities of AR applications in expressing aspects of cultural memory and enhancing the role of spatialization in the understanding of cultural memory. Finally, in a case study, the first part of the proposed framework is implemented on Heraklion, Crete, an insular metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean. The relevant spatio-narrative elements of cultural memory are drawn from eight literary texts by six native writers, generating eight distinct conceptual maps of the city to be utilized by the AR medium.

This article focuses on the tension extant in the ways in which Tatanka, a Native American wrestler (person), assumes the identity of another tribesperson (persona) to generate both economic and social capital. We address Tatanka’s narrative as an example of internal colonization and commodification, given that he had to ‘play Indian’ to pass as an authentic Native American. We discuss these two critical concepts and then provide some analysis of the public fragments that surround Tatanka’s narrative.

We present the results of an exploratory study framed within a large film literacy project carried out simultaneously in five European Union countries (Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom). The study looks at students’ responses to an educational project on cinema designed to be implemented regionally for five months in high schools to increase film literacy and to favour more positive attitudes towards European cinema. The results show that students’ film preferences remain stable after the programme and vary only slightly. Major changes occur in their knowledge about film production and expression. The aspects that change the least are their conceptions about cinema and their preferences. Moreover, the student attitudes towards national and European cinema are more positive. However, the results also show that the implementation of a film literacy programme at a cross-cultural level can affect different aspects depending on the cultural context (country) in which it occurs. Indeed, they provide data about the specific impact of the programme in each country. The information offered by this study could enhance film literacy programmes, inform theory, and nurture the debates about the common European identity and the particular traits of the diverse cultures of the European Union.

Ireland’s ‘Celtic Tiger’ economic boom ended with the 2008 global financial crisis. There followed a series of severe ‘austerity’ budgets and public service pay deals involving cuts in public service provision and employment reform. These were accompanied by approving Irish media narratives of atonement for Celtic Tiger ‘excess’ and, more recently, of corresponding ‘recovery’ through collective and individual discipline and entrepreneurial endeavour. This article focuses on the interplay between Irish media narratives of austerity and recovery and constructions of gender, class and national identity in representations of rugby players as celebrities. It explores how elite players have been presented as exemplary of the neo-liberal management of physical and economic risk, and how the repeated focus on successful struggles with diet and injury and post-career educational and business investments highlights their optimizing of the physical and social capital afforded by celebrity status. The emphasis on discipline and ‘smart’ economic management chimes with the hegemonic political and media discourse of ‘no alternative’ government austerity, and with economic recovery through individual acceptance of responsibility.

Forging the World: Strategic Narrative and International Relations, Alister Miskimmon, Ben O’Loughlin and Laura Roselle (eds) (2018) 1st ed., Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 340 pp., ISBN: 978 0 472 12250 9, e-book, $39.95, ISBN: 978 0 472 13021 4, h/bk, $85.00, ISBN: 978 0 472 03704 9, p/bk, $39.95

Zombies, Migrants and Queers: Race and Crisis Capitalism in Pop Culture, Camilla Fojas (2017) 1st ed., Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 184 pp., ISBN: 978 0 252 04092 4, h/bk, $95.00, ISBN: 978 0 252 08240 5, p/bk, $24.95, ISBN: 978 0 252 09944 1, e-book, $22.46

Decoding the Social World: Data Science and the Unintended Consequences of Communication, Sandra González-Bailón (2017) 1st ed., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 256 pp., ISBN: 9780262037075, h/bk, $30.00