Critical Considerations
Asynchronous Session
Tháydëné Yatı̨́ Hóneneltën — Ancestral Dene Language Pedagogies: Communications and Technologies to Support Dëné Dédlıné Reclamation and Acquisition View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kyle Napier
Dëné Dédlıné Yatı̨́ is an ancestral Dene language spoken in Tu Nedhé which has so far not been acknowledged as an Indigenous language from the wider linguist community. Because of this lack of recognition, there are less available supports for this language. Most material and resource support provided for instruction of Dëné Dédlıné Yatı̨́ is instead written in Dëné Sųłınë́ Yatı̨́ — a newer Indigenous language in the region. Tools are available to create content in Indigenous languages, although Indigenous languages written in roman orthographies or syllabics require Unicode-accessible typographic tools. Conversely, digital resource building for Indigenous languages remains inaccessible, as socio-cultural limitations in digital technology development disproportionately favour English and other dominant languages. This paper addresses the un-doing of typographic bias to instead prioritize Indigenous language pedagogies, inherent within the land, the environment, and non-colonial technologies and communications methodologies in order to best support Dëné Dédlıné Yatı̨́ reclamation and acquisition.
Let It Go: A Critical Comparative Analysis of the Modern-day Female Protagonist Based on Disney's Frozen and Frozen II View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hannah Scheffer Wentz
This thesis is a comparative content analysis of the modern-day female protagonists represented in Disney’s newest and highest grossing film series, Frozen and Frozen II. As one of the few major media companies that have captivated a global audience, Disney has supplied fantasy princess narratives for over 80 years. With the new addition of Disney+, classic and modern princess films alike are now available for instant streaming. As the sample represents the newest films in the post-transitional wave of the Disney Princess line, this study aims to reveal what messages are being projected to young, impressionable audiences around the world. Between the third wave of feminism and rising conversations of gender roles and communication, Disney Princess films in particular have been the subject of many conversations and criticisms. Using content analysis methodology with each film, the data identifies gender roles, conflict resolution, and common themes between the six main characters: Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, the King, and the Queen.
Featured The Impact of Radio in Achieving Rural Development in Nigeria: A Case Study of Ikeduru Local Government Area View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Izuchukwu Raphael Onwusonye
This study examines the impact of radio in achieving rural development in Nigeria and Ikeduru local Government Area of Imo State was the focus. Finding out the factors that limit radio broadcasting aimed at improving the cultural, political and economic living standards of the rural people in Ikeduru is the course of study. Various literature relevant to this topic were reviewed, theories were also reviewed that shed more light on the research topic. The findings however, indicate that radio is the most referable, available, and accessible medium for development programmes for Ikeduru inhabitants and for rural communities. It was observed that radio is the only medium 95% of the people listen to; and the rural people who reside in the remote areas could be reached through radio as they use batteries to operate in the absence of electricity.
The Pink Screen : A Category to Analyse Feminism in Publicity and Media View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Natalia Stengel
The pink screen is a qualitative category with which I analyse the feminist content on media. The term arises from the analysis of the postmodernity concept developed by Jean Baudrillard in his book 'The Transparency of Evil' (1991), and it is deeply related to the idea of Pink Capitalism. With this term, it is also possible to criticise from an intersectional feminist perspective like that presented by Olufemi (2020) and Arruza, Bhattacharya and Fraser (2020); hence, I also used the category to question if minorities are considered or included. The analysis I present is based on a previous article I published this year in the Journal Revista Arista Crítica. However, in that case, I qualitatively studied media content for Mexico. What I focus on for this occasion is to apply the same methodology to analyse international media content.
"Shooting Season": #NeverAgain, March For Our Lives, and the "Reoccurring Illness" of the School Shooter Era View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mason Brooks
When "Shooting Season" began on April 20, 1999, Columbine High School was the first school shooting to contribute to widespread discourses of fear, domestic terror, and the protection of children in American schools. Subsequent mass-media coverage of school shootings rarely linked one shooting to another, and frequently failed to link the events at Columbine to other school shootings over a twenty-year “School Shooter Era." American mass-media institutions were also criticized by shooting victims and others for failing to put pressure on stakeholders including politicians, school boards, and the National Rifle Association to take action to prevent future mass school shootings, instead favouring to pursue script-like coverage and "media spectacle." Almost twenty years after the Columbine shootings, the Parkland, Florida shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, sparked the #NeverAgain movement on Twitter, and March For Our Lives marches across the world. These online and offline movements, and the protests against gun violence that followed, can be seen as marking the intersection of developments in three distinct fields. These fields include the historical and theoretical study of social media platforms such as Twitter; the political, social, cultural, and critical theorization of online and offline social movements; and, investigation of a shift in contemporary coverage by North American media institutions of mass violence and school shootings. The fields will then be analyzed individually and in concert with one another, using the Twitter movement #NeverAgain and March For Our Lives as a case study demonstrating the combination and intersection of all three.
Like, Share, and Comment: Gen-Z and Political Memes on Social Media View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Namit Vikram Singh, Dr. Durgesh Tripathi, Surbhi Tandon
This paper focuses on identifying the usage patterns amongst Gen-Z in regard to political memes on social media platforms in India. Memes have been observed as unconventional ways of expressing political dissent with the rise of the networked society. With the growth in the use of social media platforms as forums for public dialogue and sharing of political opinions, memes are seen to be extensively used not just for creative expression but also in regard to sensitizing a larger virtual community about various political discourses. Memes which are commonly known as ‘idea viruses’ have garnered greater acceptability and virality on different social media platforms. They too have evolved from the biological definition given to it by Richard Dawkins back in 1970’s to the concept of ‘cultural artifacts’ on the internet. Political memes as a sub-category have acquired a popular status and are extensively shared on different social networking sites. They are often considered as a part of the participatory political culture on the internet and are associated with ‘networked individualism’. In the case of India, especially in regard to Gen-Z, the use of social media is evolving complementary to the different ways of experimenting and engaging with political discourses.The study, therefore, seeks to understand the usage patterns of political memes by Gen-Z on social media and whether it complements the model of Data-Knowledge-Action in a networked setup. It also aims to understand the kind of sensitization it is shaping within a larger virtual community of Gen-Z in India.
Accentuating Class and Ethnicity in the Global Sitcom Derry Girls: Irish as Minority Whites View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session June Deery
This paper examines a now globally popular sitcom set in 1990s Northern Ireland. My analysis underlines its innovation in the comic dramatization of political history, in its representation of Irish working-class identity, private versus public memory, and the link between pronounced ethnicity and class. In portraying the suppression of whites by other whites within a colonial hierarchy, Derry Girls encourages us to think about the power dynamics beyond a white versus non-white binary and within a strongly class-contoured patriarchy. My aim is to contribute to cultural studies of the media: first, to complicate notions of racial subordination and representations of Irishness in British media, and second, to theorize how class and ethnicity are foregrounded and mutually exaggerated in the comic mode. I will predominately employ textual analysis, with occasional auto-ethnographic contextualization based on my own experience growing up in the sitcom’s setting. A close reading of this series helps reconceptualize some theoretical stances regarding the dramatization of ethnicity, class, history, and politics. Specifically, I discuss how and why working-class characters are portrayed as more identifiably ethnic and comic than middle-class characters and how this series successfully contains ethnic conflict and violence within the comic mode. Another insight is that strong fictional localization can produce real-life validation for those being represented: specifically, Northern Irish Catholic females and the economically starved Derry City. Overall, this analysis suggests the sitcom’s potential for popular political expression and the global viability of comic settings that are highly localized, politically informed, and historically situated.
Visual Depictions of Refugee Narratives of European and Middle Eastern Non-governmental Organizations' Design Strategies View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ilze Eklsa (Loza)
The globalisation processes have fostered the synthesis of visual communication systems’ appearance on the social media linked to the mass migration phenomenon. Visual communication of the migration crisis emerges from the increasing numbers of refugees. The flow of advertisements related to the refugee crisis is an indicator of the shifting identity and an acknowledgment of the growing diversity of the European population. Today, advertising is a global phenomenon with critical impacts on commercial, political, and intercultural communications. This paper takes the reality of visual communication systems’ appearance on the social media linked to the mass migration phenomenon as result of 21st-century globalisation and migration. The methodology used in this study is based on the visibility of the refugee crisis, as shown in the empirical materials from European and Middle Eastern advertisements’ portrayal of the migration phenomenon, utilising the approach of ‘Qualitative and Mixed Method’ methodology.
