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The dissertation, ”Coping with emergent hearing loss”, is written in English and is based on the diversity of problems connected to hearing loss and the adaptation of hearing aids. The research was carried out in Denmark and involves adults with an emergent hearing loss, who have decided to become hearing aid users. The data is analyzed through methods of cultural anthropology with focus on the following topics: How do the new users cope with the status passage towards being hearing aid users, how do they integrate the hearing aids into their lives, and what are the involved learning processes. What are the consequences of the provision by the state of free hearing aids, their free adaptation as well as free batteries, and does the state take part in the construction of the social group of new hearing aid users? The method is based on qualitative field work. Two public hospitals were helpful in identifying 24 new users, who acquired a free hearing aid through the hearing health care system. Through ENTs and private dispensers 17 further respondents joined the study – these acquired their hearing aids with a considerable state subsidy but mostly they themselves contributed financially as well. The 41 respondents between the ages of 42 to 92 years of age came from a wide range of professions and were followed throughout 2003 und 2004. After an in-depth qualitative interview, the contact to the respondents was maintained in order to follow the process of integration into their lives. When possible, the respondents were accompanied to their appointments in the private or public clinics. Moreover, interviews with experts from the public hearing health care system, politicians and user organisations were carried out, and the general public debate on the hard of hearing and hearing loss was followed and recorded. The second chapter gives an overview of the position of audiology in Denmark, of epidemiological information on hearing loss in the Danish society and statistics to the use of hearing aids. Moreover, basic information is given about the functioning of the human ear, the auditive perception and diagnosis and classification of hearing loss as well as a short introduction to the hearing aid technology. The structure of the further thesis divides the material into three pillars that make the discussion of the interaction processes possible. (1) The user’s interaction with the lifeworld concerns the meaning of hearing in relation to social participation. For some of the users, a good sense of hearing was essential to communicate freely and uphold their position in relation to others, whereas other respondents paid less attention to the information they acquired through their sense of hearing. A number of the respondents were selective and only used their hearing aids in specific situations, whereas another group discontinued the use of their hearing aids for various reasons. Status passages that hold specific challenges like a new work place or a new marriage motivate the continued everyday use. On the whole, the thesis illustrates that hearing loss is a socially dividing factor that complicates the interaction with others. In comparison to other bodily impairments or diseases, the hearing loss is rarely used as occasion to unite with fellow sufferers, join patient organisations or form self help groups. (2) The users’ interaction with the institutions The medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman conceptualises health care as a moral process in which essential issues are at stake for the users. Different factors interact in the process: the training of the experts, allocation of funds, the quality of the technology, the dispensing procedures and the motivation and individual characteristics of the new users. The integration of the hearing aid into the lifeworld can be compared to a learning process, for which reason the learning theory of the anthropologist Gregory Bateson is outlined. Susanne Bisgaard’s own theory lists the meaning creating elements that serve as motivation for the users to counteract contingency (occurrences that influence the adaptation negatively). In the interaction between individual and society, the individual can apply strategies in order to eliminate stumbling blocks. (3) The users’ interaction with the technology A number of theorists from Anthropology as well as Science and Technology Studies are discussed in order to question their validity with regard to human action autonomy vs. technological determination and test the theoretical models with regard to their usability for the thesis. Hearing aids have a supporting function in everyday life and have the capability of moderating the user’s perception of sound. The alienating experience of hearing one’s own voice amplified, of wearing a foreign body in the ear and the different strategies that emerge from the more or less successful handling of the technology is reported by way of case stories and quotes from the interviews.
This paper discusses the implications of transnational media production and diasporic networks for the cultural politics of migrant minorities. How are fields of cultural politics transformed if Hirschmann’s famous options ‘exit’ and ‘voice’ are no longer constituting mutually exclusive responses to dissent within a nation-state, but modes of action that can combine and build upon each other in the context of migration and diasporic media activism? Two case studies are discussed in more detail, relating to Alevi amateur television production in Germany and to a Kurdish satellite television station that reaches out to a diaspora across Europe and the Middle East. Keywords: migrant media, transnationalism, Alevis, Kurds, Turkey, Germany
Die vorliegende Arbeit diskutiert Auffassungen über Authentizität und Nationale Identität in Julian Barnes’ England, England und Brian Moore’s The Great Victorian Collection. Julian Barnes und Brian Moore bearbeiten postmoderne Themen in ihrer Auseinandersetzung mit Realität und Authentizität. Brian Moore diskutiert die Möglichkeit der Ununterscheidbarkeit zwischen Original und Replika, Julian Barnes verdeutlicht die Konsequenzen eines Nationalgefühls, das sich auf die Vorstellung einer verklärten Vergangenheit stützt anstatt sich den Problemen der Gegenwart zu stellen.
Die postmoderne Diskussion hinterfragt Theorien der Moderne. In der Moderne entwickelten sich Nationalstaaten zur grundlegenden politischen Struktur, die eine für den aufkommenden Kapitalismus unabdingbare Einheit und Gleichheit ermöglichte. Die postmoderne Kritik unterstreicht, dass diese Ordnung nicht natürlich ist, sondern auf ein tatsächliches Chaos von Fragmenten aufgezwungen wurde. Theorien der Postmoderne betonen die Uneinigkeit und Künstlichkeit von Nationalstaaten. Es wird aufgezeigt, dass ein Nationalstaat aus vielen verschiedenen und sogar untereinander gegensätzlichen Gruppierungen besteht. Die einheitliche Identifikation der Bürger mit einem Nationalstaat basiert auf der Vorstellung einer andauernden, geteilten Geschichte, und einer Betonung von Gemeinsamkeiten und vermeintlichen Unterschieden gegenüber Anderen. Diese Vorstellung von Einigkeit und Gemeinsamkeit wird in der Postmoderne als Konstrukt enthüllt.
In ähnlicher Weise betonen postmoderne Theorien die Konstruiertheit der Vorstellung eines einheitlichen, wahren Selbst. Das Selbst wird empfunden als eine Ansammlung von zahlreichen, untereinander teilweise widerstreitenden, Teilen.
Die Entwicklung der Industrialisierung im Kapitalismus der Moderne führte zur Auflösung bestehender lokaler Strukturen, und somit zu einer Entwurzelung der Individuen. Am Ende des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts verlangt der Konsumkapitalismus von den Menschen Mobilität und Wandelbarkeit. In dieser Phase der Globalisierung verlieren Nationalstaaten an Bedeutung. Persönliche Qualitäten wie Charakterstärke und Authentizität geraten in den Hintergrund, während die Fähigkeit zur Verstellung und ein hohes Maß an Flexibilität geachtet werden und Erfolg versprechen.
Diese Entwicklung bringt ein Gefühl des Verlustes mit sich, ein Gefühl von Heimatlosigkeit, Wurzellosigkeit, und Uneinigkeit mit sich selbst.
Die postmoderne nostalgische Sehnsucht nach einer idealisierten Vergangenheit basiert auf diesem Gefühl des Verlustes einer ehemaligen Einigkeit.
Die Besucher von Themenparks und heritage sites sehnen sich nach dem Erlebnis einer glorifizierten Vergangenheit, wobei die Authentizität der dargestellten Geschichte zweitrangig ist.
Julian Barnes und Brian Moore beschreiben die Errichtung und den Erfolg von Themenparks. Ungeachtet der Künstlichkeit der dargebotenen Shows und so mancher Ausstellungsstücke genießen postmoderne Besucher von Themenparks deren Hyperrealität, die ein Gefühl von Ganzheit und Einheit vermittelt.
Das erste Kapitel der Arbeit stellt zunächst die Gedankenwelt der Postmoderne dar. Die postmoderne Welt am Ende des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts verlangt Mobilität, Anpassung, und Verstellung. Hierin gründet das Gefühl der Nostalgie nach Ganzheit und Zugehörigkeit, welches im zweiten Kapitel untersucht wird. Das dritte Kapitel ist der Struktur des Nationalstaates gewidmet, die in einem komplexen Zusammenspiel von Politik, Geschichte, und den Bedürfnissen der Gegenwart eine Möglichkeit der Identifikation darstellt, welche Ganzheit und Zugehörigkeit verspricht. Das vierte Kapitel zeigt, dass die Identifikation mit einem Nationalstaat auf der Vorstellung einer gemeinsamen Geschichte basiert, wie sie in Museen und heritage sites bewahrt und bestimmt wird, und wie sie durch die Ausübung – oder Einführung – von Traditionen gelebt wird.
Das fünfte Kapitel diskutiert den Zusammenhang zwischen Authentizität und Erschaffung, und zeigt, dass die Grenzen fließend sind, da seit jeher Traditionen und Gepflogenheiten zugunsten der Bedürfnisse der Gegenwart abgewandelt wurden. Julian Barnes und Brian Moore demonstrieren, dass in der Tourismusindustrie Authentizität an Wert verloren hat, da postmoderne Reisende, die an Simulationen gewöhnt sind, sich mit leichter erreichbaren Nachbildungen begnügen. Abschließend lässt sich feststellen, dass die Vorstellung einer ehemaligen Vollkommenheit und Heimat in der Vergangenheit der Auseinandersetzung mit den Bedürfnissen der Gegenwart im Wege steht. Dies äußert sich letztlich politisch, wie das gegenwärtig vorherrschende Misstrauen gegenüber supranationalen Strukturen wie der Europäischen Union zeigt.
Communication in the Web 2.0 context mainly works through images. The online video platform YouTube uses this form of visual communication and makes art forms of Western societies visible through their online videos. YouTube, as cultural reservoir and visual archive of moving images, accommodates the whole range of visualising creative processes – from artistic finger exercises to fine arts. A general characteristic of YouTube is the publishing of small everyday gestures of the ‘big ones’ (politicians, stars), like small incidents and their clumsiness in everyday actions, e.g. Beyonce´s fall from the stage or Tom Cruise’s demonic pro-scientology interview. Through their viral distribution on different platforms, these incidents will never be covered up or disappear from the public view. At the same time big gestures and star images are replicated and sometimes reinterpreted by the ‘small people’ who present themselves in the poses and attitudes of the stars. Generally, a coexistence of different perspectives is possible. YouTube allows polysemic and polyvalent views on the everyday and media phenomena. This article relies on YouTube research 2 that started in 2006 at the New Media Department of the Goethe University of Frankfurt. The results of the research have already presented representative forms and basic patterns, that is to say, categories for the clips appearing here. These kinds of clips, recurring in the observation period, have an impact on the basic representation of art or artistic expression within moving images on this platform. Methodologically the focus leads to the investigation (which has to be adequate to the specifics of the medium, or ‘media adequate’) of new visual structures and forms which can create – consciously or unconsciously – an art form. After focusing on the media structures, it will be discussed whether any and, if so, which ‘authentic’ new forms were developed solely on YouTube and whether these forms are innovative and can be characterised as avant-garde. This article first takes a small step in evaluating how to get from a general communication through means of visuality in web 2.0, an often endless chatty cheesy visual noise 3 – to the special quality of a consciously created aesthetic. From where do innovative aesthetic forms emerge, related to their media structures? 4 Are they the products of ‘media amateurs’ 5 or do we have to find new specifications and descriptions for the producers? The definition of a ‘media amateur’ describes technically interested private individuals who acquire and develop technology before commercial use of the technology is even recognisable. Just as artists are developing their own techniques, according to Dieter Daniels, media amateurs are autodidacts who invent techniques, rather than just acquire knowledge about them (see for example the demo scene, the machinima, brickfilm producers as well as many areas of computer gaming in general 6). The media amateur directly intervenes in the production processes of the medium and does not just simply use the medium. What is fascinating is the media amateur’s process of self education – not the result – and the direct impact on the internal structure and the control of the medium. 7 Media amateurs open a previously culturally unformed space of experience. This only partially applies to most of the YouTube clips in the realms of the visual arts; it is here most important to look at the visual content. This article discusses all these concepts and introduces new descriptions for the different forms of production: the technically oriented media master, the do-it-yourselfer, the tinkerer, the amateur handicraftsman and the inventor. It outlines a basic research project on ‘visual media culture’ (a triangulation of research on media structure and iconography) of the presented online video platform. It is a product of the analysis of clips focusing on the media structure, analyzing the creative handling of images and the deviations and differences of pre-set media formats and stereotypes.
The Video Vortex Reader is the first collection of critical texts to deal with the rapidly emerging world of online video – from its explosive rise in 2005 with YouTube, to its future as a significant form of personal media. After years of talk about digital convergence and crossmedia platforms we now witness the merger of the Internet and television at a pace no-one predicted. These contributions from scholars, artists and curators evolved from the first two Video Vortex conferences in Brussels and Amsterdam in 2007 which focused on responses to YouTube, and address key issues around independent production and distribution of online video content. What does this new distribution platform mean for artists and activists? What are the alternatives?