MEDIA, CULTURE and POWER:
European cultural perspectives
PROGRAM
DAY 1: April 3rd
“Media and power: Shifting forms of power in variable media landscapes”
Göran Bolin,
Södertörn University, Stockholm
​
The last couple of decades have seen dramatic shifts in media technologies, and how media production, distribution and consumption have been organised. In this introductory lecture will be given an overview over such changes, and their consequences will be discussed. The focus will be on the ways in which the digitization process have affected the media landscapes – both as material and symbolic structures – and led to new organisational forms, shifts in business models, etc., but also how this has affected the ways in which media users orient in this new landscapes. Ultimately these shifts concern shifts in power relations within various societal spheres.
​
“The powerless elite? Celebrities as instigators of social change”
Sofia Johansson,
Södertörn University, Stockholm
​
This lecture discusses celebrity culture as an arena for contemporary forms of power relations, focusing on the role of celebrities in instigating, as well as representing, social change. Examining case studies of celebrity activism, celebrity politicians and ‘micro-celebrities’ with a basis in social media, the lecture questions Alberoni’s well-established idea of stars as ‘a powerless elite’, and instead asks what kinds of power celebrities – as mediated phenomena – may hold today, and why.
DAY 2: April 4th
DAY 4: April 6th
“Media activism as practices”
Tina Askanius,
Lund University
​
Recent years have seen a theoretical turn towards practices within both media studies and social-movement studies. At the intersections of these two fields, scholars have probed social movement media activism as media (-related) practices within and as part of these movements. In this lecture, I propose a practice approach to the study of media activism as a means of bringing a non-media-centric framework into the analysis of the role of media (its production, circulation and consumption) in social movement politics. I draw on the concept of ‘activist media practices’ as a theoretical orientation for further developing a holistic understanding of media activism as practices that are intertwined in and across the entire media ecology in ways that transgress online and offline sites of analysis.
“Push-pull dynamics: the performance of power in television production and reception practices”
Annette Hill
Lund University
​
Push-pull dynamics is a concept that encapsulates the complicated power relations in the transactions between television industries and audiences. There is a way cultural production pushes audiences into content, for example through distribution and branding; and there is a way audiences are pulled into the here and now of storytelling, for example through strong characterisation and multi-layered narratives. Push-pull dynamics works both ways, as restless consumers and users push back as participants in television, through alternative fan practices, or disengaging with content. Such push-pull dynamics offer insights into broader changes in the industry where producers have shifted from addressing analogue to digital audiences, and are working within commercial and creative constraints. This concept highlights how power is performed in television itself, referring to work in cultural studies on performance of power and the experience of media. The concept is developed through empirical and theoretical analysis of digital television production and audience research, drawing on interviews, focus groups, and participant observations in Northern Europe. The research examined drama and reality entertainment formats, including the original and its adaptations, and the findings underscore the particularities of power for media industries and audiences: this is not a tale of surrender to global industrial forces, rather this is a story of the reality of power and the struggle over how producers and audiences make sense of global television.
"Media, taste and symbolic power: habitus and temporality in changing media landscapes"
Stina Bengtsson,
Södertörn University, Stockholm
​
This lecture takes Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic power as departure for a discussion of the way the media is involved in shaping our taste preferences, and thus different kinds of power plays among people, on a structural as well as an individual level. Departing from a diachronic analysis of media use and taste preferences in societies marked by contemporary similarities and historical differences (Estonia and Sweden), this lecture will also discuss the temporal dimensions of symbolic power and how it may change over time.
DAY 5: April 7th
DAY 3: April 5th
“Media and politics: dynamics of mutual dependency”
Rita Figueiras,
Universidade Católica Portuguesa
​
This lecture addresses the media-politics relationship, which, for a long time, has been characterised by mutual dependency as both parts need each other’s resources to meet their own specific goals. This mutual dependency has taken a number of forms throughout time and throughout changing political contexts. This ranges from media partisanship to varying degrees of control which alternate between journalists and politicians in an ever-shifting power balance concerning the shaping of political news and public perception. This lecture also discusses more recent literature that has challenged this perspective by arguing that politics is progressively more dependent on the media as a consequence of mediatisation.
​
“Celebrity, Media and Audiences: Who has the power, who has charisma?”
Eduardo Cintra Torres
Universidade Católica Portuguesa
​
Celebrity is today an established cultural industry, centered in a large number of individuals (a pluralistic celebrity) who are transformed in cultural commodities by the media in celebrimages. As any cultural industry, celebrity functions in a triangular foundation: celebrities, institutions and audiences. These three spheres enter in power relations that can be systematized in the following areas: First, as a cultural industry, celebrity is an economic activity; power is where the money is. Second, celebrity is a totally mediated activity, thus putting media institutions in its centre. The media have the power to create, impose and exclude celebrities. The possibilities that the Internet introduced to the pluralistic celebrity will be discussed along the strong remaining power of “traditional” media. Third, celebrity exists through some sort of charismatic relation between celebrities and audiences. Charisma involves power relations. The charismatic power is exerted by celebrities, audiences but also by the media, to whom can be assigned an important part of the charisma attributed to celebrities (a charismedia). Charisma is also a form of ideological power over people’s wishes, choices, thoughts and actions.
The Spring School 2017 will thematise different forms of power in relation to the media during an intense week, combining a mixture of lectures and seminars from leading researchers in the field, with student presentations of ongoing research.
Original and high quality submissions are expected. Participants will have 15 minutes to deliver their presentations, after which there will be 30 minutes for questions and discussion of each presentation with the chairs and the other participants.
