Image Music Text
01 Jan 2016-
About: The article was published on 2016-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 519 citations till now.
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19 Nov 2015
TL;DR: This chapter focuses on one of the key processes in the ‘cultural circuit’ – the practices of representation – and draws a distinction between three different accounts or theories: the reflective, the intentional and the constructionist approaches to representation.
Abstract: In this chapter we will be concentrating on one of the key processes in the ‘cultural circuit’ (see Du Gay et al., 1997, and the Introduction to this volume) – the practices of representation. The aim of this chapter is to introduce you to this topic, and to explain what it is about and why we give it such importance in cultural studies. The concept of representation has come to occupy a new and important place in the study of culture. Representation connects meaning and language to culture. But what exactly do people mean by it? What does representation have to do with culture and meaning? One common-sense usage of the term is as follows: ‘Representation means using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people.’ You may well ask, ‘Is that all?’ Well, yes and no. Representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture. It does involve the use of language, of signs and images which stand for or represent things. But this is a far from simple or straightforward process, as you will soon discover. How does the concept of representation connect meaning and language to culture? In order to explore this connection further, we will look at a number of different theories about how language is used to represent the world. Here we will be drawing a distinction between three different accounts or theories: the reflective, the intentional and the constructionist approaches to representation. Does language simply reflect a meaning which already exists out there in the world of objects, people and events (reflective)? Does language express only what the speaker or writer or painter wants to say, his or her personally intended meaning (intentional)? Or is meaning constructed in and through language (constructionist)? You will learn more in a moment about these three approaches. Most of the chapter will be spent exploring the constructionist approach, because it is this perspective which has had the most significant impact on cultural studies in recent years. This CHAPTER ONE
1,002 citations
25 Feb 2017
TL;DR: It is found that people use Instagram to engage in social exchange and story-telling about difficult experiences, and personal narratives, food and beverage, references to illness, and self-appearance concerns are more likely to attract positive social support.
Abstract: People can benefit from disclosing negative emotions or stigmatized facets of their identities, and psychologists have noted that imagery can be an effective medium for expressing difficult emotions. Social network sites like Instagram offer unprecedented opportunity for image-based sharing. In this paper, we investigate sensitive self-disclosures on Instagram and the responses they attract. We use visual and textual qualitative content analysis and statistical methods to analyze self-disclosures, associated comments, and relationships between them. We find that people use Instagram to engage in social exchange and story-telling about difficult experiences. We find considerable evidence of social support, a sense of community, and little aggression or support for harmful or pro-disease behaviors. Finally, we report on factors that influence engagement and the type of comments these disclosures attract. Personal narratives, food and beverage, references to illness, and self-appearance concerns are more likely to attract positive social support. Posts seeking support attract significantly more comments. CAUTION: This paper includes some detailed examples of content about eating disorders and self-injury illnesses.
242 citations
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that attending to the complexity of the MOOC teacher's experience and identity will ultimately support productive dialogue about retention, access, and the meaning and purpose of MOOCs.
Abstract: The way teachers are represented in relation to massive open online courses (MOOCs) has created a limited and unhelpful characterization of an important role. The key argument put forward in this position paper is that attending to the complexity of the MOOC teacher’s experience and identity will ultimately support productive dialogue about retention, access, and the meaning and purpose of the MOOC – dialogue that, at present, typically focuses on the student or the technology, but is silent on the matter of the teacher. The paper begins by exploring how common constructions of “the teacher” – as the charismatic celebrity professor, the co-learner or facilitator, or the automated response – have emerged in the MOOC literature, and challenges the underlying assumptions about teaching. Its central section comprises an account of a team of MOOC teachers’ reflections on designing and teaching a MOOC – E-learning and Digital Cultures, on the Coursera platform – and an exploration of how their experiences problematize common perceptions of the MOOC teacher. Finally, taking as an alternative starting point the higher education literature on academic identities, the
175 citations
Cites background from "Image Music Text"
...However, one of the biggest challenges in evaluating EDCMOOC for course development purposes was how extremely varied the feedback was....
[...]
...However, different does not mean we start with a blank canvas, nor that understandings of academic identity, the specificity of disciplinary knowledge, or the contexts of higher education are irrelevant to the MOOC project....
[...]
...(p. 194, emphases in original) This is one conception of what it means to teach, which Barthes (1977) relates directly to speech (as opposed to writing)....
[...]
...A striking description of what the teaching experience can be like was given nearly four decades ago in an essay by Roland Barthes (1977) called "Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers," in which he explores matters of power, communication, and position in the act of speaking as a teacher: Imagine that I…...
[...]
...(p. 205, emphasis in original) However, Barthes (1977) goes on to say that "The problem is not to abolish the distinction in functions ... but to protect the instability and, as it were, the giddying whirl of the positions of speech" (p. 206)....
[...]
TL;DR: This article examined how the body is both conceptualized and enacted on three US-based "body positive" websites and examined how narratives of authenticity, identity, and revelation are negotiated when the body was performed and disseminated online.
Abstract: Under the auspices of the “body positive movement” there has, in recent years, been a proliferation of websites dedicated to nurturing bodily acceptance. Responding to the barrage of media images reflecting a narrow bodily ideal, the movement and its related sites provide a space to showcase bodies of all shapes and sizes. There has already been significant engagement with the question of whether these sites are helpful or harmful, asking whether they fulfill their mission of combating the very narrow definition of the ideal body with which we are constantly bombarded. Yet this project addresses an aspect of these sites that is less readily interrogated—the kinds of bodily performances actually facilitated. Looking at three US-based “body positive” websites, this work explores how the body is both conceptualized and enacted on these sites and examines how narratives of authenticity, identity, and revelation are negotiated when the body is performed and disseminated online. What it finds is that body posit...
111 citations
Cites background from "Image Music Text"
...Following Barthes (1981), it acknowledges the power of images to both reflect and incite a diversity of responses, all informed by the complex assemblage of forces from which they emerge and in which they are engaged....
[...]
...Images, as Barthes (2010) reminds us, can “prick” us swiftly and powerfully (p....
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...More than three decades ago, Barthes (1981) wrote in Camera Lucida of “a photograph’s punctum....
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...rises from the scene, shoots out like an arrow, and pierces” (Barthes, 1981, p. 26) the “punctum” attends to the immediate, carnal effect a photograph has on its viewer, beyond the “studium” as the reasoned (and reasonable) inclination one has towards photographs of one genre or another. There is historically some slippage between the terms affect and emotion, even within affect studies- the terms are often used interchangeably. But in his introduction to Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus, Massumi (2005) reminds us...
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TL;DR: It is proposed that an interdisciplinary framework allows for more precise manipulations and measurements of identification, which will ultimately advance the understanding of the antecedents and nature of this process.
Abstract: Current research on identification with narrative characters poses two problems. First, although identification is seen as a dynamic process of which the intensity varies during reading, it is usually measured by means of post-reading questionnaires containing self-report items. Second, it is not clear which linguistic characteristics evoke identification. The present paper proposes that an interdisciplinary framework allows for more precise manipulations and measurements of identification, which will ultimately advance our understanding of the antecedents and nature of this process. The central hypothesis of our Linguistic Cues Framework is that identification with a narrative character is a multidimensional experience for which different dimensions are evoked by different linguistic cues. The first part of the paper presents a literature review on identification, resulting in a renewed conceptualization of identification which distinguishes six dimensions: a spatiotemporal, a perceptual, a cognitive, a moral, an emotional, and an embodied dimension. The second part argues that each of these dimensions is influenced by specific linguistic cues which represent various aspects of the narrative character’s perspective. The proposed relations between linguistic cues and identification dimensions are specified in six propositions. The third part discusses what psychological and neurocognitive methods enable the measurement of the various identification dimensions in order to test the propositions. By establishing explicit connections between the linguistic characteristics of narratives and readers’ physical, psychological, and neurocognitive responses to narratives, this paper develops a research agenda for future empirical research on identification with narrative characters.
108 citations
Cites background from "Image Music Text"
...Although stories have long been recognized as the dominant mode in which people exchange information (e.g., Barthes, 1977; Gottschall, 2012), the question remains what it is exactly that makes their use so attractive and their impact so powerful (e.g., Green, 2008; see also Dixon and Bortolussi,…...
[...]
References
More filters
19 Nov 2015
TL;DR: This chapter focuses on one of the key processes in the ‘cultural circuit’ – the practices of representation – and draws a distinction between three different accounts or theories: the reflective, the intentional and the constructionist approaches to representation.
Abstract: In this chapter we will be concentrating on one of the key processes in the ‘cultural circuit’ (see Du Gay et al., 1997, and the Introduction to this volume) – the practices of representation. The aim of this chapter is to introduce you to this topic, and to explain what it is about and why we give it such importance in cultural studies. The concept of representation has come to occupy a new and important place in the study of culture. Representation connects meaning and language to culture. But what exactly do people mean by it? What does representation have to do with culture and meaning? One common-sense usage of the term is as follows: ‘Representation means using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people.’ You may well ask, ‘Is that all?’ Well, yes and no. Representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture. It does involve the use of language, of signs and images which stand for or represent things. But this is a far from simple or straightforward process, as you will soon discover. How does the concept of representation connect meaning and language to culture? In order to explore this connection further, we will look at a number of different theories about how language is used to represent the world. Here we will be drawing a distinction between three different accounts or theories: the reflective, the intentional and the constructionist approaches to representation. Does language simply reflect a meaning which already exists out there in the world of objects, people and events (reflective)? Does language express only what the speaker or writer or painter wants to say, his or her personally intended meaning (intentional)? Or is meaning constructed in and through language (constructionist)? You will learn more in a moment about these three approaches. Most of the chapter will be spent exploring the constructionist approach, because it is this perspective which has had the most significant impact on cultural studies in recent years. This CHAPTER ONE
1,002 citations
25 Feb 2017
TL;DR: It is found that people use Instagram to engage in social exchange and story-telling about difficult experiences, and personal narratives, food and beverage, references to illness, and self-appearance concerns are more likely to attract positive social support.
Abstract: People can benefit from disclosing negative emotions or stigmatized facets of their identities, and psychologists have noted that imagery can be an effective medium for expressing difficult emotions. Social network sites like Instagram offer unprecedented opportunity for image-based sharing. In this paper, we investigate sensitive self-disclosures on Instagram and the responses they attract. We use visual and textual qualitative content analysis and statistical methods to analyze self-disclosures, associated comments, and relationships between them. We find that people use Instagram to engage in social exchange and story-telling about difficult experiences. We find considerable evidence of social support, a sense of community, and little aggression or support for harmful or pro-disease behaviors. Finally, we report on factors that influence engagement and the type of comments these disclosures attract. Personal narratives, food and beverage, references to illness, and self-appearance concerns are more likely to attract positive social support. Posts seeking support attract significantly more comments. CAUTION: This paper includes some detailed examples of content about eating disorders and self-injury illnesses.
242 citations
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that attending to the complexity of the MOOC teacher's experience and identity will ultimately support productive dialogue about retention, access, and the meaning and purpose of MOOCs.
Abstract: The way teachers are represented in relation to massive open online courses (MOOCs) has created a limited and unhelpful characterization of an important role. The key argument put forward in this position paper is that attending to the complexity of the MOOC teacher’s experience and identity will ultimately support productive dialogue about retention, access, and the meaning and purpose of the MOOC – dialogue that, at present, typically focuses on the student or the technology, but is silent on the matter of the teacher. The paper begins by exploring how common constructions of “the teacher” – as the charismatic celebrity professor, the co-learner or facilitator, or the automated response – have emerged in the MOOC literature, and challenges the underlying assumptions about teaching. Its central section comprises an account of a team of MOOC teachers’ reflections on designing and teaching a MOOC – E-learning and Digital Cultures, on the Coursera platform – and an exploration of how their experiences problematize common perceptions of the MOOC teacher. Finally, taking as an alternative starting point the higher education literature on academic identities, the
175 citations
TL;DR: This article examined how the body is both conceptualized and enacted on three US-based "body positive" websites and examined how narratives of authenticity, identity, and revelation are negotiated when the body was performed and disseminated online.
Abstract: Under the auspices of the “body positive movement” there has, in recent years, been a proliferation of websites dedicated to nurturing bodily acceptance. Responding to the barrage of media images reflecting a narrow bodily ideal, the movement and its related sites provide a space to showcase bodies of all shapes and sizes. There has already been significant engagement with the question of whether these sites are helpful or harmful, asking whether they fulfill their mission of combating the very narrow definition of the ideal body with which we are constantly bombarded. Yet this project addresses an aspect of these sites that is less readily interrogated—the kinds of bodily performances actually facilitated. Looking at three US-based “body positive” websites, this work explores how the body is both conceptualized and enacted on these sites and examines how narratives of authenticity, identity, and revelation are negotiated when the body is performed and disseminated online. What it finds is that body posit...
111 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that an interdisciplinary framework allows for more precise manipulations and measurements of identification, which will ultimately advance the understanding of the antecedents and nature of this process.
Abstract: Current research on identification with narrative characters poses two problems. First, although identification is seen as a dynamic process of which the intensity varies during reading, it is usually measured by means of post-reading questionnaires containing self-report items. Second, it is not clear which linguistic characteristics evoke identification. The present paper proposes that an interdisciplinary framework allows for more precise manipulations and measurements of identification, which will ultimately advance our understanding of the antecedents and nature of this process. The central hypothesis of our Linguistic Cues Framework is that identification with a narrative character is a multidimensional experience for which different dimensions are evoked by different linguistic cues. The first part of the paper presents a literature review on identification, resulting in a renewed conceptualization of identification which distinguishes six dimensions: a spatiotemporal, a perceptual, a cognitive, a moral, an emotional, and an embodied dimension. The second part argues that each of these dimensions is influenced by specific linguistic cues which represent various aspects of the narrative character’s perspective. The proposed relations between linguistic cues and identification dimensions are specified in six propositions. The third part discusses what psychological and neurocognitive methods enable the measurement of the various identification dimensions in order to test the propositions. By establishing explicit connections between the linguistic characteristics of narratives and readers’ physical, psychological, and neurocognitive responses to narratives, this paper develops a research agenda for future empirical research on identification with narrative characters.
108 citations