N Carpentier
Biographic Data
| ID | 15329 |
|---|---|
| NAME | N Carpentier |
| GIVEN NAMES | N |
| FAMILY NAME | Carpentier |
| SIGNATURE | CARPENTIER N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Charles University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8996-4636 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 57 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 411 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 57 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Gendered constructions of migration in Europe: An intersectional analysis of inclusionary and exclusionary discourses on social media platforms
This article explores intersectional discourses of migration and gender in the social media environments of three different European countries – Belgium, Greece, and Italy. For the analysis, we retrieved a dataset of 1000 posts per country about migration from Facebook and Twitter (now X) and we selected posts with a gender dimension. The article shows how the discursive struggle over migration and gender takes shape across inclusionary and exclu…
Media and the Public Sphere
Reflections on media and the public sphere draw heavily on Habermas's definition of the concept. Alternative models have been developed, that build on the Habermasian approach, such as Nancy Fraser's counterpublics, although the concept is declining in popularity. This entry argues that how the field of communication and media studies uses the concept to make sense of the role of communication in noninstitutionalized politics is characterized by …
Articulations of the institutional and the popular in the construction of Europe: A discourse-theoretical analysis of Czech social media content
This article focuses on how Europe is discursively constructed across its institutional and popular dimensions, in content published on social media, in the Czech Republic. The research combines quantitative content analysis and discourse-theoretical analysis to explore both broader patterns and varied nuances of the institutional and the popular in the discursive construction of Europe. The analysis shows the hegemonic presence of institutional …
Discursive constructions of the home after homelessness: A case study of the Turkish YouTube channel Kadir’s Eye
The Construction of Palestinian Identity in Bashar Alhroub's Video Art: Moving Beyond the Hegemonic Palestinian Identity Discourse
Introduction to urban places, technologies and people: The importance of urban communication for communication and media studies
Behind the narratives of climate change denial and rights of nature: Sustainability and the ideological struggle between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism in two radical Facebook groups in Sweden
In this article, we study two Facebook groups in Sweden that address environmental issues, which adopt opposingly radical positions as it regards sustainability: one Facebook group supports climate change denialism, aligning with anthropocentrism, and one promotes the rights of nature movement and its ideas, embedded in ecocentrism. Employing discourse analysis, we exemplify how the radical positions that the two Facebook groups adopt demarcate t…
The Discursive Construction of Childhood in Three Turkish Children’s Books about the Cyprus Problem
This research analyses the construction of childhood in three children’s books related to the Cyprus Problem through the lens of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The discourse on childhood, deployed in books whose narratives are related to an armed conflict, is seen to have four nodal points: innocence, citizenship, savagery, and otherness. Our discourse-theoretical analysis, which uses a retroductive approach (Glynos and Howarth), demonstra…
Bridging the Discursive and Material Dimensions of Europeanity and Europeanisation: A Participatory Semantic Map Approach
The article aims to capture the significatory diversity of the concepts of Europeanity and Europeanisation, through the development of a semantic map in order to visualize the different concepts that define Europeanity and Europeanisation, and their interconnections. Embedded in the field of Communication and Media Studies, this semantic map combines 19 different approaches, structured through one main dimension, the discursive versus the materia…
A social mapping of Swedish environment-focussed Facebook groups: The principles, methods and implementation of a mapping project
The vertical and horizontal dimensions in the social construction of leadership: A case study on the social media followers of the Croatian politicians Zoran Milanović and Miro Bulj
This research examines the social construction of political leadership by social media followers of two Croatian politicians, president Zoran Milanović, and the mayor of Sinj, Miro Bulj, within the context of celebrity politics and populism. Through the interaction between theory and analysis, we integrate elements that construct leadership into what we distinguish as vertical (extraordinary) and horizontal (ordinary) dimensions, adding populism …
Unpacking the discursive assemblages of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism: Articulations of space, place and time in the documentary film Gállok
This article analyses, through a case study approach, the environmental documentary film Gállok , which narrates the struggles over the proposal to operate an iron ore mine in Gállok (Sámi) or Kallak (Swedish), in Northern Sweden. The analysis is transdisciplinary, anchored in the environmental studies work on anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, combined with discourse theory, geography and the scholarly work on space, place and time. These differe…
The Dislocation of the Empty Signifier Freedom as a Tool in Global Political Struggles: A Case Study on RT’s Mini-Series How to Watch the News
Freedom is approached in this article as an empty signifier and as an object of discursive struggle, from a discourse-theoretical perspective. The hegemonic centrality of freedom in Western discourse and identity construction is acknowledged, but at the same time the article argues that hegemony is never total and all-encompassing. In other words, hegemonic constructions are seen as always particular, with their universal claims displaying cracks…
First forced displacements, then slaughter: Discursive regulations of nature by the state and Sami in a Swedish TV documentary
This article examines the discursive construction of nature as represented by the Swedish TV documentary Tvångsförflyttningar – Bággojohtin, which narrates the history of forced displacements of the indigenous people of Sami in northern Sweden in the early 20th century. Our discursive-material analysis highlights the role of nature in these displacements, and how, in these tragic historical developments, nature was regulated by the antagonistical…
The European Assemblage: A Discursive-Material Analysis of European Identity, Europaneity and Europeanisation
Different academic disciplines have deployed a diversity of approaches to European identity, Europeanism and Europeanisation, with often a strong emphasis on their material-structural components. This article uses a discursive-material analysis, that acknowledges the importance of the material, but places it in a non-hierarchical relation with the discursive. Grounded in an extensive literature review on European identity, Europeanism and Europea…
Beyond the Meaning of Zines: A Case Study of the Role of Materiality in four Prague-Based Zine Assemblages
This article studies the role of the material in four Prague-based zines. The analysis is theoretically embedded in the model of the discursive-material knot, which is a non-hierarchical articulation of the discursive and the material, and it is contextualized by a reflection on post-digital culture, which allows revalidating the role of the material in zine production and distribution more. The case study combines the analysis of personal interv…
Beyond the state as the ‘cold monster’: The importance of Russian alternative media in reconfiguring the hegemonic state discourse
The article brings Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory into the empirical context of contemporary Russia to analyse the complex relationships between the state and alternative media. In contrast to the mainstream narrative that paints the picture of a strong authoritarian state with a grip over democratic liberties and civil society, we suggest a more nuanced perspective on the subject that focuses on the struggle over the articulation of the id…
Conflicting and entangled human–nature relationships: A discursive‐material analysis of the documentary film Kiruna ‐ A Brand New World
Kiruna ‐ A Brand New World (2019) is a documentary film directed by Greta Stocklassa, and produced by the Czech company Analog Vision. It analyses the move of (part of) Kiruna, a north‐Swedish mining city, which is threatened by destruction because of the operations of the state‐owned ore mining company, Luossavaara‐Kiirunavaara (LKAB). The film focusses on the lives of a number of inhabitants, including Timo, a local activist opposing the move, …
Doing justice to the agential material: A reflection on a non-hierarchical repositioning of the discursive and the material
Discourse theory has always paid explicit attention to the material dimension of social reality, with, for instance, the dislocation concept attributing an active role to the material. Still, it lacks attention for the specificity of the material-as-material, and tends to attribute a privileged position to the discursive as provider of meaning to these materials. This article argues that there is a need for a critical dialogue between discourse t…
Moving discourse theory forward: A five-track proposal for future research
This article assesses the current state of play of the poststructuralist and post-Marxist discourse theory associated with Laclau and Mouffe and the ‘Essex school’, and identifies ways forward at the level of theory development, research practice and critique. The article starts by disentangling the different meanings of the notion of ‘discourse’ in ‘discourse theory’, clarifying the specificities of discourse theory as a theoretical and analytic…
An introduction to the special issue on ‘Discourse Theory: Ways forward for theory development and research practice
This article introduces the special issue of the Journal of Language and Politics on ‘Discourse Theory: Ways forward for theory development and research practice.’ In this introduction we discuss the aims and structure of this special issue focused on the development of the poststructuralist and post-Marxist discourse theory originally developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe
Comunicando o conhecimento acadêmico além do texto acadêmico escrito: Uma análise autoetnográfica do experimento da instalação Mirror Palace of Democracy
O artigo discute inicialmente cinco abordagens que visam transcender, complementar ou desestabilizar a hegemonia do texto acadêmico escrito. Na segunda parte, o experimento da instalação Mirror Palace of Democracy, que tinha o objetivo explícito de ir além do texto acadêmico escrito, permanecendo no domínio da comunicação do conhecimento acadêmico, é analisada autoetnograficamente. A experiência permitiu refletir sobre o caráter integrado e itera…
The Particularity of Objectivity: A Poststructuralist and Psychoanalytical Reading of the Gap between Objectivity-as-a-Value and Objectivity-as-a-Practice in the 2003 Iraqi War Coverage
The Construction of the Homeless as a Discursive-Political Struggle: A Discursive-Theoretical Re-reading of the Homeless Subject Position
Within the literature on homelessness, the attention for what is often called ‘homeless identity’ is slowly increasing, and within this body of knowledge, the complex, contingent and contested nature of this identity also becomes more visible. This article aims to contribute to this discussion, by deploying Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) discourse theory to produce a (discursive-) theoretical re-reading of the homeless identity, or, in discourse-theo…
Enriching discourse theory: The discursivematerial knot as a non-hierarchical ontology
Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory has played a significant role in thinking through the political role of knowledge and ideology, without ignoring the significance of the material, also in relation to its post-Marxist agenda and the de-essentialisation of class relations. At the same time, there is a need to enrich discourse theory, by finding a better balance between the discursive and the material, and by providing a better theoretisation of…
Media and Participation: A site of ideological-democratic struggle
In chapter 1, the discussion on the Soviet theory of the press was published in an article entitled 'Reading back beyond the "post" pre x. e politics of the signi er "post-socialism", and its opportunities for the enrichment of participatory media theory' , in Mediální studia, 1/2010: 7-30.e theoretical discussion on power was published as the introduction of the book chapter 'Policy's hubris.Power, fantasy and the limits of (global) media policy…
Bringing Discourse Theory into Media Studies: The applicability of Discourse Theoretical Analysis (DTA) for the Study of media practises and discourses
When Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe published an elaborate version of their discourse theory inHegemony and Socialist Strategy(1985), they were met with fierce resistance by a unified front of traditional Marxists and anti-poststructuralists. The debates on post-Marxism dominated much of the book’s reception. This focus, combined with discourse theory’s rather abstract nature, its lack of clear methodological guidelines, and its more natural h…
Identity, contingency and rigidity: The (counter-)hegemonic constructions of the identity of the media professional
This article uses key notions of the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe to analyze the identity of the media professional. Within their post-structural framework, this identity is seen as over-determined, contingent and constructed but at the same time subjected to a hegemonic articulation, based on four nodal points: objectivity, autonomy, management of resources and employee-employer relations. Combined with a theoretical discussion on the (…
The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation
Community Media: Muting the democratic media discourse
Focuses on the concept of community media. Components that construct the identity of community media; Multi-theoretical approaches for analysis of community media; Definition of community media based on the concept of alternative media; Link between community media and civil society; Problems faced by community media organizations in European countries
The BBC’s Video Nation as a Participatory Media Practice: Signifying Everyday Life, Cultural Diversity and Participation in an Online Community
The Video Nation project is one of the BBC’s recent major contributions to stimulating audience participation within mainstream media. This project (cl)aims to maintain a balanced power relationship between participants and members of the production team. Despite its transformation from a television setting to a web-based ‘online community and archive’ (although Video Nation partially returned to television in 2003), this project still has the am…
Managing Audience Participation: The Construction of Participation in an Audience Discussion Programme
In this article the theoretical notions of power developed by Giddens and Foucault are combined to serve as a framework for the analysis of the participation of 20 `ordinary people' in Jan Publiek, an audience discussion programme on north Belgian public service television (VRT). In this analysis the positive/generative and negative/repressive aspects of power - united in the Giddean `dialectics of control' - and especially the management of the …
Moving discourse theory forward: A five-track proposal for future research
This article assesses the current state of play of the poststructuralist and post-Marxist discourse theory associated with Laclau and Mouffe and the ‘Essex school’, and identifies ways forward at the level of theory development, research practice and critique. The article starts by disentangling the different meanings of the notion of ‘discourse’ in ‘discourse theory’, clarifying the specificities of discourse theory as a theoretical and analytic…
Hegemony, Democracy, Agonism and Journalism: An interview with Chantal Mouffe
Chantal Mouffe's political philosophy has been influential in a variety of domains, including sociology, cultural studies, media studies, law, art, literary criticism, and journalism studies. By combining Gramsci's focus on hegemony with post-structuralist theory she has developed—in collaboration with Ernesto Laclau—a sophisticated perspective on the political that intersects with all aspects of society, including the role and functioning of jou…
Contesting the populist claim on “the people” through popular culture: The 0110 concerts versus the Vlaams Belang
Although they belong to different spheres, popular culture and populism can in some cases become intertwined and interlocked because they are both built around the antagonism between people and elite. Populist parties are often happy to associate themselves with popular culture as this allows them to strengthen their bond with the (signifier) people. This article looks at an inverse movement: the contestation of a populist party's claim on the pe…
Alternative mainstream media in the Czech Republic: Beyond the Dichotomy of Alterative and Mainstream Media
The notion of alternative media is confronted with endless discussions about its key features and practices, which allow academics and media practitioners to differentiate alternative media from mainstream media. This article critically contributes to this debate by deconstructing and complicating the dichotomy between alternative and mainstream media. In a first part, the defining components of alternative media are discussed, looking at their r…
On the contingency of death: A discourse-theoretical perspective on the construction of death
Death is frequently seen as the ultimate manifestation of materiality. Without denying this materiality, this article will investigate the discursive character of death and its contingent nature, through the lens of Laclau and Mouffe's [(1985). Hegemony and social strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. London: Verso] discourse theory. First, the core elements of the (Western) discourse of death, such as end/cessation/termination, negati…
The discursive construction of the good death and the dying person: A discourse-theoretical analysis of Belgian newspaper articles on medical end-of-life decision making
The concept of a good death is central to contemporary discourses on death and dying; it is also frequently used in contexts of end-of-life decision-making. We argue that in and through the medical-revivalist discourse, which challenges the idea that curative treatment is necessary beneficial and constructs death as something familiar, a good death is discursively organised around two nodal clusters: control, autonomy and dignity, and awareness a…
Participation Is Not Enough: The Conditions of Possibility of Mediated Participatory Practices
■ The popularization of ‘new’ Internet-based media has generated much optimism about the social and participatory-democratic potentialities of these media, leading to predictions about the demise of the mass communication paradigm, and its replacement by a many-to-many communicative paradigm. But as happened before, the reappraisal of participation also produced a number of theoretical, conceptual and empirical problems. Participation became (at …
Resgatar a participação: Para Uma Crítica Sobre O Lado Oculto Do Conceito
Este artigo regressa a uma teorização aprofundada sobre o conceito de participação, com o objetivo de refletir sobre a natureza da participação e demonstrar alguns dos problemas inerentes às publicações que distinguem entre formas de participação claras e escuras. O ponto de partida do artigo é uma discussão sobre três limites inscritos no conceito de participação. O primeiro limite leva-nos a uma discussão antiga sobre a natureza da participação…
Doing justice to the agential material: A reflection on a non-hierarchical repositioning of the discursive and the material
Discourse theory has always paid explicit attention to the material dimension of social reality, with, for instance, the dislocation concept attributing an active role to the material. Still, it lacks attention for the specificity of the material-as-material, and tends to attribute a privileged position to the discursive as provider of meaning to these materials. This article argues that there is a need for a critical dialogue between discourse t…
An introduction to the special issue on ‘Discourse Theory: Ways forward for theory development and research practice
This article introduces the special issue of the Journal of Language and Politics on ‘Discourse Theory: Ways forward for theory development and research practice.’ In this introduction we discuss the aims and structure of this special issue focused on the development of the poststructuralist and post-Marxist discourse theory originally developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe
Constructing the Czech nation: A discursive-theoretical analysis of the articulation of the nation in the cultural magazines produced by Czech WWII London exiles
The article’s objective is to analyse the discursive construction of the Czech nation in three cultural magazines, produced by Czech exiles in London during WWII. The theoretical backbone for this analysis is provided byLaclau and Mouffe’s (1985)discourse theory, which in turn supports a discourse-theoretical re-reading of the literature on the nation, first in general and then in relation to the Czech nation. These three theoretical components s…
First forced displacements, then slaughter: Discursive regulations of nature by the state and Sami in a Swedish TV documentary
This article examines the discursive construction of nature as represented by the Swedish TV documentary Tvångsförflyttningar – Bággojohtin, which narrates the history of forced displacements of the indigenous people of Sami in northern Sweden in the early 20th century. Our discursive-material analysis highlights the role of nature in these displacements, and how, in these tragic historical developments, nature was regulated by the antagonistical…
Conflicting and entangled human–nature relationships: A discursive‐material analysis of the documentary film Kiruna ‐ A Brand New World
Kiruna ‐ A Brand New World (2019) is a documentary film directed by Greta Stocklassa, and produced by the Czech company Analog Vision. It analyses the move of (part of) Kiruna, a north‐Swedish mining city, which is threatened by destruction because of the operations of the state‐owned ore mining company, Luossavaara‐Kiirunavaara (LKAB). The film focusses on the lives of a number of inhabitants, including Timo, a local activist opposing the move, …
Enriching discourse theory: The discursivematerial knot as a non-hierarchical ontology
Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory has played a significant role in thinking through the political role of knowledge and ideology, without ignoring the significance of the material, also in relation to its post-Marxist agenda and the de-essentialisation of class relations. At the same time, there is a need to enrich discourse theory, by finding a better balance between the discursive and the material, and by providing a better theoretisation of…
Behind the narratives of climate change denial and rights of nature: Sustainability and the ideological struggle between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism in two radical Facebook groups in Sweden
In this article, we study two Facebook groups in Sweden that address environmental issues, which adopt opposingly radical positions as it regards sustainability: one Facebook group supports climate change denialism, aligning with anthropocentrism, and one promotes the rights of nature movement and its ideas, embedded in ecocentrism. Employing discourse analysis, we exemplify how the radical positions that the two Facebook groups adopt demarcate t…
The vertical and horizontal dimensions in the social construction of leadership: A case study on the social media followers of the Croatian politicians Zoran Milanović and Miro Bulj
This research examines the social construction of political leadership by social media followers of two Croatian politicians, president Zoran Milanović, and the mayor of Sinj, Miro Bulj, within the context of celebrity politics and populism. Through the interaction between theory and analysis, we integrate elements that construct leadership into what we distinguish as vertical (extraordinary) and horizontal (ordinary) dimensions, adding populism …
Beyond the Meaning of Zines: A Case Study of the Role of Materiality in four Prague-Based Zine Assemblages
This article studies the role of the material in four Prague-based zines. The analysis is theoretically embedded in the model of the discursive-material knot, which is a non-hierarchical articulation of the discursive and the material, and it is contextualized by a reflection on post-digital culture, which allows revalidating the role of the material in zine production and distribution more. The case study combines the analysis of personal interv…
Beyond the state as the ‘cold monster’: The importance of Russian alternative media in reconfiguring the hegemonic state discourse
The article brings Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory into the empirical context of contemporary Russia to analyse the complex relationships between the state and alternative media. In contrast to the mainstream narrative that paints the picture of a strong authoritarian state with a grip over democratic liberties and civil society, we suggest a more nuanced perspective on the subject that focuses on the struggle over the articulation of the id…
Managing Audience Participation: The Construction of Participation in an Audience Discussion Programme
In this article the theoretical notions of power developed by Giddens and Foucault are combined to serve as a framework for the analysis of the participation of 20 `ordinary people' in Jan Publiek, an audience discussion programme on north Belgian public service television (VRT). In this analysis the positive/generative and negative/repressive aspects of power - united in the Giddean `dialectics of control' - and especially the management of the …
Community Media: Muting the democratic media discourse
Focuses on the concept of community media. Components that construct the identity of community media; Multi-theoretical approaches for analysis of community media; Definition of community media based on the concept of alternative media; Link between community media and civil society; Problems faced by community media organizations in European countries
The BBC’s Video Nation as a Participatory Media Practice: Signifying Everyday Life, Cultural Diversity and Participation in an Online Community
The Video Nation project is one of the BBC’s recent major contributions to stimulating audience participation within mainstream media. This project (cl)aims to maintain a balanced power relationship between participants and members of the production team. Despite its transformation from a television setting to a web-based ‘online community and archive’ (although Video Nation partially returned to television in 2003), this project still has the am…
Identity, contingency and rigidity: The (counter-)hegemonic constructions of the identity of the media professional
This article uses key notions of the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe to analyze the identity of the media professional. Within their post-structural framework, this identity is seen as over-determined, contingent and constructed but at the same time subjected to a hegemonic articulation, based on four nodal points: objectivity, autonomy, management of resources and employee-employer relations. Combined with a theoretical discussion on the (…
Hegemony, Democracy, Agonism and Journalism: An interview with Chantal Mouffe
Chantal Mouffe's political philosophy has been influential in a variety of domains, including sociology, cultural studies, media studies, law, art, literary criticism, and journalism studies. By combining Gramsci's focus on hegemony with post-structuralist theory she has developed—in collaboration with Ernesto Laclau—a sophisticated perspective on the political that intersects with all aspects of society, including the role and functioning of jou…
Understanding Alternative Media
What are alternative media? What roles do alternative media play in pluralistic, democratic societies? What are the similarities and differences between alternative media, community media, civil society media and rhizomatic media? How do alternative media work in practice? This clear and concise text offers a one-stop guide through the complex political, social and economic debates that surround alternative media and provides a fresh and insightf…
Bringing Discourse Theory into Media Studies: The applicability of Discourse Theoretical Analysis (DTA) for the Study of media practises and discourses
When Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe published an elaborate version of their discourse theory inHegemony and Socialist Strategy(1985), they were met with fierce resistance by a unified front of traditional Marxists and anti-poststructuralists. The debates on post-Marxism dominated much of the book’s reception. This focus, combined with discourse theory’s rather abstract nature, its lack of clear methodological guidelines, and its more natural h…
The Belly of the City: Alternative Communicative City Networks
In contrast to the informational city, the communicative city model is characterized by a normative stance on a series of social, political, ethical and spatial dimensions. Building on an expanded version of Kunzmann's description of the communicative city, this article emphasizes the importance of alternative media organizations for developing the (concept of the) communicative city, both at the discursive and the practice-based level. In other …
To be a common hero: The uneasy balance between the ordinary and ordinariness in the subject position of mediated ordinary people in the talk show Jan Publiek
This article looks at the articulations of the subject position ‘ordinary people’ by analysing focus group discussions with audience members, and interviews with participants in a north Belgian audience discussion programme called Jan Publiek. In this talk show ordinary people are granted access to a prime-time, live television programme, in order to discuss one specific issue each broadcast. This feature positions Jan Publiek among what have bee…
Participation Is Not Enough: The Conditions of Possibility of Mediated Participatory Practices
■ The popularization of ‘new’ Internet-based media has generated much optimism about the social and participatory-democratic potentialities of these media, leading to predictions about the demise of the mass communication paradigm, and its replacement by a many-to-many communicative paradigm. But as happened before, the reappraisal of participation also produced a number of theoretical, conceptual and empirical problems. Participation became (at …
Contesting the populist claim on “the people” through popular culture: The 0110 concerts versus the Vlaams Belang
Although they belong to different spheres, popular culture and populism can in some cases become intertwined and interlocked because they are both built around the antagonism between people and elite. Populist parties are often happy to associate themselves with popular culture as this allows them to strengthen their bond with the (signifier) people. This article looks at an inverse movement: the contestation of a populist party's claim on the pe…
New Configurations of the Audience? The Challenges of User‐Generated Content for Audience Theory and Media Participation
This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Core Structural Components of Audience Theory The Active-Passive Dimension in the Articulation of Audience The Micro-Macro Dimension in the Audience Articulation UGC and Participatory Media Practices Conclusion References
Contextualising Author-Audience Convergences: ‘New’ technologies' claims to increased participation, novelty and uniqueness
New media discourses are often engulfed by a variety of claims that emphasize their specificity. We can find the formulation of strong claims of novelty and uniqueness, in combination with processes of forgetfulness in relation to the societal roles of old media technologies. This article starts with a discussion on (new) audience theory, mapping and structuring the diversity of audience articulations with a focus on two of its main dimensions: t…
Facing the death of the Author. Cultural professional’s identity work and the fantasies of control
This article takes Barthes’ concept of the death of the Author as a starting point to organize a reflection on the role of Author-related discursive structures (termed subject positions here) in participatory processes within cultural institutions, focusing on cultural professional and audience subject positions. The theoretical assumption in this text is that identities (and subject positions) are not stable or homogenous, but contingent and div…
Media and Participation: A site of ideological-democratic struggle
In chapter 1, the discussion on the Soviet theory of the press was published in an article entitled 'Reading back beyond the "post" pre x. e politics of the signi er "post-socialism", and its opportunities for the enrichment of participatory media theory' , in Mediální studia, 1/2010: 7-30.e theoretical discussion on power was published as the introduction of the book chapter 'Policy's hubris.Power, fantasy and the limits of (global) media policy…
The concept of participation. If they have access and interact, do they really participate
Participation is a concept that is being used in a wide variety of fields, and that has obtained an evenly large range of meanings. This article attempts first to ground participation in democratic theory, which allows introducing the distinction between minimalist and maximalist forms of participation. In the second part of the article, a broad definition of the politics will be used to transcend to logics of institutionalized politics, and to e…
Articulating the visitor in public knowledge institutions
This article analyses visitor articulations used by managers and key documents of three Estonian public knowledge institutions. Three visitor articulations were identified in the analysed material, namely visitors as the people, as target groups, and as stakeholders, each related in this article to a specific body of literature. These articulations are co-existent semantic tools, used by public knowledge institutions to make sense of the complex …
On the contingency of death: A discourse-theoretical perspective on the construction of death
Death is frequently seen as the ultimate manifestation of materiality. Without denying this materiality, this article will investigate the discursive character of death and its contingent nature, through the lens of Laclau and Mouffe's [(1985). Hegemony and social strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. London: Verso] discourse theory. First, the core elements of the (Western) discourse of death, such as end/cessation/termination, negati…
Bastard Culture! How User Participation Transforms Cultural Production
The discursive construction of the good death and the dying person: A discourse-theoretical analysis of Belgian newspaper articles on medical end-of-life decision making
The concept of a good death is central to contemporary discourses on death and dying; it is also frequently used in contexts of end-of-life decision-making. We argue that in and through the medical-revivalist discourse, which challenges the idea that curative treatment is necessary beneficial and constructs death as something familiar, a good death is discursively organised around two nodal clusters: control, autonomy and dignity, and awareness a…
Theorizing participatory intensities: A conversation about participation and politics
This conversation started in Prague, the Czech Republic, during a panel moderated by Irena Reifová at the symposium ‘On Empowered and Impassioned Audiences in the Age of Media Convergence’. The event was organized by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University. The text contains a series of discussions. First, there is a conversation about the nature of the participatory democratic utopia and participatory culture and how groups take (or…
Introduction: Rethinking journalism: the structural transformation of a public good
The first decades of the twentieth century led to a period of high modernism1 in (American) journalism because of the increasing professionalization of journalists and the consolidation of a shared occupational ideology, as authors such as Hallin (1992; 2006) and Zelizer (2004a) have argued. Hallin shows that both political and economic factors contributed to the virtually uncontested status of journalism in providing what was accepted as truthfu…
‘Fuck the clowns from Grease!!’ Fantasies of participation and agency in the YouTube comments on a Cypriot Problem documentary
The article aims to contribute to (and deepen) the debates on participatory theory through the usage of the psychoanalytical concept of fantasy. Its starting point is that participation is defined as a process where power relations are equalized. As a society with totally balanced power relations is both a real and impossible desire – given society’s diversity and complexity – there is a need to theorize how situations of ‘full’ (or maximalist) p…
Facebook democracy: The architecture of disclosure and the threat to public life
In his 2012 book, Jose Marichal, an associate professor of political science at the Californian Lutheran University (USA), provides us with an evaluation of the democratic potential of Facebook. On
Alternative mainstream media in the Czech Republic: Beyond the Dichotomy of Alterative and Mainstream Media
The notion of alternative media is confronted with endless discussions about its key features and practices, which allow academics and media practitioners to differentiate alternative media from mainstream media. This article critically contributes to this debate by deconstructing and complicating the dichotomy between alternative and mainstream media. In a first part, the defining components of alternative media are discussed, looking at their r…
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