Article
Political Storytelling in Digital Culture: a Tool for Post-Truth Politics?
The following article presents the results of an individual academic research, dedicated to the analysis of structure, functions and effects of political storytelling in terms of so-called “era of post-truth politics”.
The author would like to introduce some concepts and approaches to storytelling from the points of view of Russian literary studies and comparative literary criticism, which includes ideas and insights of major literary historians of Russian Empire and Soviet Union. The author claims these ideas important, adaptable and relevant for the key ideas about storytelling that were drawn by Western social studies, as literature has a unique position and approach in Soviet Unioin, being regarded as “ideological add-on of society”.
The following analysis leads to schemas of deconstruction of the acts of political communication worldwide through the lens of so called “shared narratives” (in Western tradition) and “wandering (migrating) plots” (in tradition of Russian Empire and Soviet Union literary studies` tradition).
The last part of the article presents narrative analysis of three cases of modern political communication in Europe, Russia and U.S.A. The intention of the author was to show three of so called “wandering plots” elements in political communications of international leaders. Case of Europe covers political communication of Iens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway, during the election rally in 2013. Case of Russia covers political communication of current president Vladimir Putin during the reconstruction of his biography in 2015. Case of U.S.A. covers political communication of Donald Trump, the elected president of U.S.A., during the election rally in 2016.
The paper considers linguistic and cross-cultural features of speech strategy and tactics in political texts.
For the first time since World War II, the U.S. seem to lose leadership at the multilateral trade talks shifting accents to bilateral and regional trade cooperation. The main reason for the shift is a deadlock at the WTO Doha-round negotiations where the U.S. face opposition of the steadily growing economies of India, China and Brazil.
Торговые переговоры, ГАТТ, ВТО, США, многосторонняя торговая система, ЕС, Япония, ИНДИЯ, КИТАЙ, Бразилия, Дж. Буш-мл., Б. Обама, М. Баррозу, Р. Зеллик, П. Лами, Р. Кирк, Л. да Силва, Карел де Гюхт, АТЭС, НАФТА, АСЕАН, трансатлантическое партнерство, "двадцатка", trade talks, GATT, WTO, U.S., Multilateral Trading System, Eu, Japan, India, China, Brazil, G.-W. Bush, B. Obama, M. Barrozo, R. Zoellick, P. Lamy, R. Kirk, L. da Silva, Karel de Gucht, APEC, NAFTA, ASEAN, Transatlantic Partnership, G 20
The article examines special politically-legal and social status of Muslim community in the USA. Not only positive experience of ethnopolitical integration is described, but also a number of problems connected to this situation.
This article analyses media representations of LGBT social movements, taking the case of Saint Petersburg LGBT pride parades. The analysis is developed through the use of framing theory, which views the media as an arena where interest groups promote their own interpretations of particular issues. Frames juxtapose elements of the text in such a way as to provide the audience with a scheme within which to perceive the message. Social movements are viewed as interest groups that introduce new frames in public debate. Two types of frames can be distinguished: collective action frames and status quo frames. In this study, the usage of two collective action frames (equality frame and victim frame), and two status quo frames (morality frame and propaganda promoting homosexuality frame) were examined. Additionally, the sources of quotes used in news stories were analyzed. The study focuses on articles dedicated to Saint Petersburg LGBT pride marches in the years 2010–2017 in the most popular local Internet websites. The analysis shows that the coverage of LGBT pride marches can be divided into two distinct periods: 2010–2013 and 2014–2017. In the first period, LGBT activists dominated the coverage, quoted about twice as much as government officials. Equality and victim frames were prevalent. In the second period, activists were cited significantly less often, with the propaganda promoting homosexuality frame dominating the discourse. However, contrary to findings of previous studies on social movement representation, across the whole period under consideration, LGBT activists were quoted more often than government representatives. This finding calls for a further exploration of the conditions which allowed for such coverage in the context of political heterosexism and homophobia.
The article substantiates the dualistic approach to media education – a combination of socio-humanitarian and technical-technological blocks. Despite the fact, that there is a stable understanding of media activities, based on the philological, historical, sociological, philosophical, cultural, political and psychological basis, that shapes the personal and professional worldview, analytical thinking, critical (verifying) position in the perception of social reality and objectification data, modern communication realities force specialists to master new information technologies – not only to receive, but also to distribute content on more advanced multimedia and media platforms. This approach is productive both in the training of future specialists in the field of media, and in the retraining of professionals, as well as in the implementation of the media education program in secondary and higher schools.
Of course, the above arguments can in many ways be of a debatable nature. However, most representatives of the academic community and the media industry themselves will certainly agree, that there is a need for changes in the traditional media education system today. In turn, the form and degree of these transformations should be the subject of collegial discussion.
This article combines Media Studies' and Fan Studies' approaches to such phenomenon as global manga spread, highlighing the role of participatory cultures and fan communities in the distribution, translation and interpretation of manga in Russia. The first part of the article is dedicated to participatory cultures as a concept and cultural reality in Russia, to differences between such notions as "otaku" (manga and anime fans), fan practices, fan cultures and participatory cultures. The article stresses the productive transformative potential of participatory cultures as cultural agents, their ability to cross national and cultural borders on their own terms and to influence the development of global phenomena within local contexts, even when national cultural industries, including the mass market, are not capable for some reasons to fulfil this task properly. The second part of the article is dedicated to the international reception of a controversial manga and anime title "Made in Abyss". This case demonstrates the ability of participatory cultures to become a space for open discussions of problematic questions, for production of knowledge and thinking about Japan as well as about local cultures.
The author teaches to awaken creativity in oneself, using emotions as a factor of motivation, explains the concept of critical thinking, gives the reader tools to add / edit publications to increase the clarity and rationality of their own judgments, and also shows where a particular theory is applicable