A Ventsel
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 39831 |
|---|---|
| NOME | A Ventsel |
| PRENOMES | A |
| SOBRENOME | Ventsel |
| ASSINATURA | VENTSEL A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Tartu |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8414-0163 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 34 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 33 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 33 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2007 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Identity through Discrimination? Responses by Russian Speakers in Estonia to Kremlin ‘Russophobia’ Narratives
The Kremlin’s use of media to engage with the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia and promote a narrative of Russophobia has raised questions about its effects on identity consolidation and perceived discrimination. This study sought to replicate earlier research conducted in Latvia and understand the potential psychological responses to this narrative by Russian speakers in Estonia. In contrast to the earlier research, exposure did not lead to …
The Echoes of the Russo-Ukrainian War in Estonia
In this article, we discuss how the ongoing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine transformed Estonia's attitudes toward material legacy of the Soviet past. Our nodal points for research are the Estonian government’s policies of relocations of monuments semantically associated with the communist power. Such a perspective allows us to demonstrate how these practices of de-glorification triggered new narratives aimed to legitimize or delegitimize, as well a…
Power of Emotions: On the Affective Constitution of Political Struggle
On semiotics of monument removal
History interpretations have long shaped national identities, yet they also serve to legitimize (geo)political agendas and deepen societal divisions. This article investigates the cases of Estonia and Latvia, where Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has rekindled contestations over Soviet-era symbols (monuments, symbolic decoration, etc.) in public spaces. Through a semiotic analysis of the removal of Soviet, or so-called “red” monuments, we…
Mobilising through fear
Hirmudiskursuse ilmingud vandenõuteooria- ja uhhuu-vastastes meediatekstides
This article focuses on the fear discourse prevalent in the Estonian media and investigates how critical positioning toward so-called quackery and conspiracy theories is constructed within this context, with particular attention to meaning-making processes. Drawing on the framework of fear semiotics and Arlie Hochschild’s concepts of feeling rules and deep stories, we explore the cultural mechanisms underpinning (alleged) fear and suggest ways of…
Building Resilience Against Hostile Information Influence Activities
Modern societies are characterized by unprecedently broad and fast diffusion of various forms of false and harmful information. Military personnel’s motivation to defend their country may be harmed by their exposure to disinformation. Therefore, specific education and training programs should be devised for the military to systematically improve (social) media literacy and build resilience against information influence activities. In this article…
Semiotic approach of strategic narrative
Crucial components of strategic communication include the audience, which plays a decisive role in how any conflict plays out. Strategic narratives are seen as means by which political actors attempt to construct a shared meaning of international politics to shape the behaviour of domestic and international actors. The article analyzes the news discourse of the Russian media sources RT , Pervyj Kanal , and NTV on Russia’s coronavirus aid to Italy…
Discourses of blame in strategic narratives
Governments spread strategic narratives via media to influence foreign audiences and policy makers. A frequent but understudied feature of strategic narratives is the discursive construction of blame. In this article, we use the coverage of the adoption of 5G cellular technology in Russian state-funded news portals as an example to show how to interpret blame narratives about international security issues. We combine methods and insights from the…
On semotics of war
Review of War and Semiotics: Signs, Communication Systems, and the Preparation, Legitimization, and Commemoration of Collective Mass Violence. (Jacob, Frank, ed.) London, New York: Routledge, 336 pp
Cultural semiotics as the foundation of political semiotics
Our paper relies on the cultural semiotics of Lotman which we bring to bear on political theory in order to develop a methodological framework that we have referred to as “political semiotics” in our previous work during the past decade. In our first section, we synthesize the core categories of the Essex school (Laclau, Mouffe, and others) of political analysis and the Tartu-Moscow school of cultural semiotics. In the next section, we move furth…
Introducing Relational Political Analysis
Strategic Conspiracy Narratives
Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Determining the theoretical framework -- The structure of the book -- Note -- Part I: Theoretical framework -- Chapter 1: Semiotic conflicts in strategic communication -- Conceptualising the conflict of meanings -- On the specificity of the informational influencing on social media -- Information conflicts and strategic n…
What is political semiotics and why does it matter? A reply to Janar Mihkelsaar
In view of the recent criticisms of Janar Mihkelsaar the authors explicate their position on what political semiotics is and why it is important for both semiotics and the social sciences. Some further research trajectories are also discussed in moving from semiotic theory of hegemony to fully developed subdiscipline of political semiotics that would be part of the “relational turn” in political analysis more generally
Discourse of fear in strategic narratives
Modern military training exercises often include an information warfare component. Combat manoeuvres and weapon tests may be combined with large-scale information operations, including attempts at mass deception and cultivation of fear via strategic uses of narratives in media. The ways in which fear is constructed in strategic narratives deserve more detailed discursive analysis. In this article, the authors use the largest recent Russian war ga…
Semiotics of threats
This article analyses various e-threats that were expressed in media texts that focused on e-threat discourses concerning the Estonian identity card’s security risk in 2017. The discourse of cyberthreats contains strong and controversial meanings because the peculiarities of cyberspace remain intangible for average readers who do not possess expert knowledge regarding ICT. The wider aim of the paper is to suggest how the topic of e-threats could …
Paremäärmuslikud kajakambrid ja autokommunikatsioon
Teesid
On the analysis of power and politics from the perspective of Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture
Review of Juri Lotman’s Cultural Semiotics and the Political [Series Reframing the Boundaries: Thinking the Political] by Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, 228 pp
Groupuscular identity-creation in online-communication of the Estonian extreme right
For explaining the dispersed extreme right movements that are presently flourishing in the online sphere, British historian and political theorist Roger Griffin has elaborated the concept of groupuscular right . The groupuscular right can be characterized by the non-hierarchic and the rhizomatic structure of intra-groupuscular communication. Our study on Estonian groupuscular right complements it with the ideas of cultural semiotics that help to …
Biopolitics Meets Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics and the analysis of biopower have not yet been explicitly brought together. This article attempts to find their connecting points from the perspective of biosemiotics. It uses the biosemiotic understanding of the different types of semiosis in order to approach the practices of biopower and biopolitics. The central concept of the paper is that of the 'semiotic threshold'. We can speak of (1) the lower semiotic threshold, signifying t…
Grupuskulaarne identiteediloome paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluses / The Formation of Groupuscular Identity in the Web Communication of the Estonian Extreme Right
Teesid: Artikli eesmärgiks on avada eesti paremäärmuslaste tähendusloomet hüpermeedias. Roger Griffini teooria järgi iseloomustab paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluse väikeste mitteparteiliste üksuste – grupuskulite (nt veebilehed, blogid) paljusus ja suhteline marginaalsus, rahulolematus praeguse maailmakorraga, ideede revolutsioonilisus ning risoomne ehk mitte-hierarhiline kommunikatsioonistruktuur. Täiendame Griffini teooriat kultuurisemiootika idee…
Autocommunicative meaning-making in online communication of the Estonian extreme right
This article analyses the online communication of the Estonian extreme right that appears to be characterized by an echo-chamber effect as well as enclosed and hermetic meaning-making. The discussion mainly relies on the theoretical frameworks offered by semiotics of culture.One of the aims of the article is to widen the scope of understanding of autocommunicative processes that are usually related to learning, insight and innovation. The article…
Rhetorical transformation in Estonian political discourse during World War II
This article considers the transformations of political rhetoric in Estonian public discourse from the eve of World War II to the retreat of German troops from Estonia in August 1944. Thus, the period under analysis contains the 1940 coup d’état in June, Estonia’s “accession” or “acceptance” to the Soviet Union, and the German occupation of Estonia. The article will analyze how the Estonians’ political and cultural public identity was shaped in p…
Freedom of speech’ in the self-descriptions of the Estonian extreme right groupuscules
This article analyses the processes of identification that prevail on the websites of the Estonian extreme right. The extreme-right activists tend to articulate their nationalist ideas by relying on the signifiers adopted from the generally accepted discourses of multiculturalism. In order to explain this seemingly incompatible meaning generation, we employ the concepts of the hegemonic logic of signification and the empty signifier, as elaborate…
Paremäärmuslik sõnavabadus eesti rahvusradikaalide veebisuhtluses
The article focuses on the processes of identification in hypermedia, trying to explicate the strategies of self-description that prevail on the websites of the activists of the Estonian extreme rights. The extreme right movements tend to use generally accepted discourses for the purpose of legitimising their own ethnocentric media practices. Extreme nationalist ideas form equivalences with concepts from the discourse of multiculturalism (‘justic…
Discourse of fear in strategic narratives
Modern military training exercises often include an information warfare component. Combat manoeuvres and weapon tests may be combined with large-scale information operations, including attempts at mass deception and cultivation of fear via strategic uses of narratives in media. The ways in which fear is constructed in strategic narratives deserve more detailed discursive analysis. In this article, the authors use the largest recent Russian war ga…
Towards a semiotic theory of hegemony
The article concentrates on the possibilities of bringing into dialogue two different theoretical frameworks for conceptualising social reality and power: those proposed by Ernesto Laclau, one of the leading current theorists of hegemony, and Juri Lotman, a path breaking cultural theorist. We argue that these two models contain several concepts that despite their different verbal expressions play exactly the same functional role in both theories.…
Biopolitics Meets Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics and the analysis of biopower have not yet been explicitly brought together. This article attempts to find their connecting points from the perspective of biosemiotics. It uses the biosemiotic understanding of the different types of semiosis in order to approach the practices of biopower and biopolitics. The central concept of the paper is that of the 'semiotic threshold'. We can speak of (1) the lower semiotic threshold, signifying t…
The construction of the ‘we’-category
The article asks, how one of the basic notions of cultural-political identity — we — is constructed in mass media, viz. which kind of semiotic and linguistic facilities are used in constructing a political unity. The approach used in this article is based on Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture and on the analysis of pronouns in political texts, using Emil Benvenist’s theory of deixis. Our case study concentrates on the years 1940–1941 which mark …
Semiotics of threats
This article analyses various e-threats that were expressed in media texts that focused on e-threat discourses concerning the Estonian identity card’s security risk in 2017. The discourse of cyberthreats contains strong and controversial meanings because the peculiarities of cyberspace remain intangible for average readers who do not possess expert knowledge regarding ICT. The wider aim of the paper is to suggest how the topic of e-threats could …
Visualization of “people” in Soviet Estonian public photographs of the Stalinist era
The main purpose of this article is to elaborate some conceptual tools for clearer analysis of social reality, power relations and their visual representations. One of these instruments through which power relations are established in society is photography. The paper focuses on different strategies by which, in photography, the "people" are constructed as a homogeneous whole of specific historical self-reflection of culture. The first part of th…
Grupuskulaarne identiteediloome paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluses / The Formation of Groupuscular Identity in the Web Communication of the Estonian Extreme Right
Teesid: Artikli eesmärgiks on avada eesti paremäärmuslaste tähendusloomet hüpermeedias. Roger Griffini teooria järgi iseloomustab paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluse väikeste mitteparteiliste üksuste – grupuskulite (nt veebilehed, blogid) paljusus ja suhteline marginaalsus, rahulolematus praeguse maailmakorraga, ideede revolutsioonilisus ning risoomne ehk mitte-hierarhiline kommunikatsioonistruktuur. Täiendame Griffini teooriat kultuurisemiootika idee…
Autocommunicative meaning-making in online communication of the Estonian extreme right
This article analyses the online communication of the Estonian extreme right that appears to be characterized by an echo-chamber effect as well as enclosed and hermetic meaning-making. The discussion mainly relies on the theoretical frameworks offered by semiotics of culture.One of the aims of the article is to widen the scope of understanding of autocommunicative processes that are usually related to learning, insight and innovation. The article…
Rhetorical transformation in Estonian political discourse during World War II
This article considers the transformations of political rhetoric in Estonian public discourse from the eve of World War II to the retreat of German troops from Estonia in August 1944. Thus, the period under analysis contains the 1940 coup d’état in June, Estonia’s “accession” or “acceptance” to the Soviet Union, and the German occupation of Estonia. The article will analyze how the Estonians’ political and cultural public identity was shaped in p…
Freedom of speech’ in the self-descriptions of the Estonian extreme right groupuscules
This article analyses the processes of identification that prevail on the websites of the Estonian extreme right. The extreme-right activists tend to articulate their nationalist ideas by relying on the signifiers adopted from the generally accepted discourses of multiculturalism. In order to explain this seemingly incompatible meaning generation, we employ the concepts of the hegemonic logic of signification and the empty signifier, as elaborate…
Lenin Is the Stalin of Today”
The cult of the leader was one of the main characteristics of Soviet culture —it marked its strict hierarchical structure, and, more importantly, the head of that structure. In this article I elucidate the mechanisms of the cult of leadership from the point of view of language theory. In the first part I will focus on the development of the cultural origins of the cult of leadership in Russia. The second part, drawing on Émile Benveniste’s theory…
The construction of the ‘we’-category
The article asks, how one of the basic notions of cultural-political identity — we — is constructed in mass media, viz. which kind of semiotic and linguistic facilities are used in constructing a political unity. The approach used in this article is based on Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture and on the analysis of pronouns in political texts, using Emil Benvenist’s theory of deixis. Our case study concentrates on the years 1940–1941 which mark …
Towards a semiotic theory of hegemony
The article concentrates on the possibilities of bringing into dialogue two different theoretical frameworks for conceptualising social reality and power: those proposed by Ernesto Laclau, one of the leading current theorists of hegemony, and Juri Lotman, a path breaking cultural theorist. We argue that these two models contain several concepts that despite their different verbal expressions play exactly the same functional role in both theories.…
The Role of Political Rhetoric in the Development of Soviet Totalitarian Language
Scientific discourse is characterised by attempts to minimise the ambiguity of the lexicon, which should ideally halt the drift of signifiers in relation to the signified. One would assume that the scientific nature of the reconstruction of society would have an impact on communication and natural language. The characteristics of totalitarian language reveal, however, that it is not in fact describable by a rigid connection between the signifiers…
Visualization of “people” in Soviet Estonian public photographs of the Stalinist era
The main purpose of this article is to elaborate some conceptual tools for clearer analysis of social reality, power relations and their visual representations. One of these instruments through which power relations are established in society is photography. The paper focuses on different strategies by which, in photography, the "people" are constructed as a homogeneous whole of specific historical self-reflection of culture. The first part of th…
An outline for a semiotic theory of hegemony
There are basically three main problems that this article tries to address. First, it aims to elaborate and take to a more general level the main principles of the semiotic theory of hegemony that has been proposed recently. It takes as a starting point the discourse-theoretical approach to political analysis developed most notably by Ernesto Laclau and the Essex School, and tries to complement this with the insights provided by the semiotics of …
Lenin Is the Stalin of Today”
The cult of the leader was one of the main characteristics of Soviet culture —it marked its strict hierarchical structure, and, more importantly, the head of that structure. In this article I elucidate the mechanisms of the cult of leadership from the point of view of language theory. In the first part I will focus on the development of the cultural origins of the cult of leadership in Russia. The second part, drawing on Émile Benveniste’s theory…
Hegemonic signification from cultural semiotics point of view
This paper attempts to integrate discourse theories, mainly the theory of hegemony by Essex School, and Tartu–Moscow School’s cultural semiotics, and sets for itself the modest task to point to the applicability of semiotic approach in political analysis. The so-called post-foundationalist view, that is common for discourse theories, is primarily characterized by the rejection of essentialist notions of ground for the social, and the inauguration…
On the independence of the humanities
Review: Maxim Waldstein, Soviet Empire of Signs: A History of the Tartu School of Semiotics
Paremäärmuslik sõnavabadus eesti rahvusradikaalide veebisuhtluses
The article focuses on the processes of identification in hypermedia, trying to explicate the strategies of self-description that prevail on the websites of the activists of the Estonian extreme rights. The extreme right movements tend to use generally accepted discourses for the purpose of legitimising their own ethnocentric media practices. Extreme nationalist ideas form equivalences with concepts from the discourse of multiculturalism (‘justic…
Hegemonic signification from perspective of visual rhetoric
The present paper asks tackles questions that can be briefly formulated as follows: 1) how to visualize power or hegemonic relationship? and 2) does visual rhetoric have anything to offer to research on the visualization processes of hegemony? One of the instruments through which power relations are established in society is photography. The following paper discusses the relationship between the theory of hegemony as elaborated by Ernesto Laclau …
Freedom of speech’ in the self-descriptions of the Estonian extreme right groupuscules
This article analyses the processes of identification that prevail on the websites of the Estonian extreme right. The extreme-right activists tend to articulate their nationalist ideas by relying on the signifiers adopted from the generally accepted discourses of multiculturalism. In order to explain this seemingly incompatible meaning generation, we employ the concepts of the hegemonic logic of signification and the empty signifier, as elaborate…
Autocommunicative meaning-making in online communication of the Estonian extreme right
This article analyses the online communication of the Estonian extreme right that appears to be characterized by an echo-chamber effect as well as enclosed and hermetic meaning-making. The discussion mainly relies on the theoretical frameworks offered by semiotics of culture.One of the aims of the article is to widen the scope of understanding of autocommunicative processes that are usually related to learning, insight and innovation. The article…
Rhetorical transformation in Estonian political discourse during World War II
This article considers the transformations of political rhetoric in Estonian public discourse from the eve of World War II to the retreat of German troops from Estonia in August 1944. Thus, the period under analysis contains the 1940 coup d’état in June, Estonia’s “accession” or “acceptance” to the Soviet Union, and the German occupation of Estonia. The article will analyze how the Estonians’ political and cultural public identity was shaped in p…
Grupuskulaarne identiteediloome paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluses / The Formation of Groupuscular Identity in the Web Communication of the Estonian Extreme Right
Teesid: Artikli eesmärgiks on avada eesti paremäärmuslaste tähendusloomet hüpermeedias. Roger Griffini teooria järgi iseloomustab paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluse väikeste mitteparteiliste üksuste – grupuskulite (nt veebilehed, blogid) paljusus ja suhteline marginaalsus, rahulolematus praeguse maailmakorraga, ideede revolutsioonilisus ning risoomne ehk mitte-hierarhiline kommunikatsioonistruktuur. Täiendame Griffini teooriat kultuurisemiootika idee…
Paremäärmuslikud kajakambrid ja autokommunikatsioon
Teesid
On the analysis of power and politics from the perspective of Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture
Review of Juri Lotman’s Cultural Semiotics and the Political [Series Reframing the Boundaries: Thinking the Political] by Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, 228 pp
Groupuscular identity-creation in online-communication of the Estonian extreme right
For explaining the dispersed extreme right movements that are presently flourishing in the online sphere, British historian and political theorist Roger Griffin has elaborated the concept of groupuscular right . The groupuscular right can be characterized by the non-hierarchic and the rhizomatic structure of intra-groupuscular communication. Our study on Estonian groupuscular right complements it with the ideas of cultural semiotics that help to …
Biopolitics Meets Biosemiotics
Biosemiotics and the analysis of biopower have not yet been explicitly brought together. This article attempts to find their connecting points from the perspective of biosemiotics. It uses the biosemiotic understanding of the different types of semiosis in order to approach the practices of biopower and biopolitics. The central concept of the paper is that of the 'semiotic threshold'. We can speak of (1) the lower semiotic threshold, signifying t…
What is political semiotics and why does it matter? A reply to Janar Mihkelsaar
In view of the recent criticisms of Janar Mihkelsaar the authors explicate their position on what political semiotics is and why it is important for both semiotics and the social sciences. Some further research trajectories are also discussed in moving from semiotic theory of hegemony to fully developed subdiscipline of political semiotics that would be part of the “relational turn” in political analysis more generally
Discourse of fear in strategic narratives
Modern military training exercises often include an information warfare component. Combat manoeuvres and weapon tests may be combined with large-scale information operations, including attempts at mass deception and cultivation of fear via strategic uses of narratives in media. The ways in which fear is constructed in strategic narratives deserve more detailed discursive analysis. In this article, the authors use the largest recent Russian war ga…
Semiotics of threats
This article analyses various e-threats that were expressed in media texts that focused on e-threat discourses concerning the Estonian identity card’s security risk in 2017. The discourse of cyberthreats contains strong and controversial meanings because the peculiarities of cyberspace remain intangible for average readers who do not possess expert knowledge regarding ICT. The wider aim of the paper is to suggest how the topic of e-threats could …
Introducing Relational Political Analysis
Strategic Conspiracy Narratives
Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Determining the theoretical framework -- The structure of the book -- Note -- Part I: Theoretical framework -- Chapter 1: Semiotic conflicts in strategic communication -- Conceptualising the conflict of meanings -- On the specificity of the informational influencing on social media -- Information conflicts and strategic n…
On semotics of war
Review of War and Semiotics: Signs, Communication Systems, and the Preparation, Legitimization, and Commemoration of Collective Mass Violence. (Jacob, Frank, ed.) London, New York: Routledge, 336 pp
Cultural semiotics as the foundation of political semiotics
Our paper relies on the cultural semiotics of Lotman which we bring to bear on political theory in order to develop a methodological framework that we have referred to as “political semiotics” in our previous work during the past decade. In our first section, we synthesize the core categories of the Essex school (Laclau, Mouffe, and others) of political analysis and the Tartu-Moscow school of cultural semiotics. In the next section, we move furth…
Political science (25 obras) · Sociology (24 obras) · Law (22 obras) · Philosophy (22 obras) · Semiotics (21 obras) · Epistemology (20 obras) · Politics (19 obras) · Linguistics (18 obras) · Philosophy (15 obras) · Law (12 obras)