Hey there. If you’re reading this then you know I usually release episodes every two weeks on Fridays. Thanks for noticing! I will be back to that schedule again soon, after a brief mid-season hiatus!I’ll take a short break here to gather my thoughts, and given the current world climate, I think I need to. I hope you do too.
I am planning, though, to take on several more critical topics in season one connected in particular to media strategies and power. The fifth episode of this season will focus on the politics of language and dialect, and future episodes will explore modes of engagement in social media and the alienated personhood in the space of corporations and global capitalism.
While I’m on break, I hope you can find some time to connect here and through discord. I look forward to being back here again in a short while. Until then, I hope you’re safe and healthy, and I will talk to you soon!
I hope everyone is staying as safe as possible during this global pandemic. This episode’s main focus is on media representations and how they are more complicated than just the reflections of subjects. This is primarily because the more we home in on a subject, the more we see the many multifaceted ways that subjects exist in dialogue with their surroundings. The dynamic potential of subjects is often reduced by way of how they are mediated, since there is no one fixed subjective reality, which reveals that recognizing the power over that mediation is crucial to understanding how subjects are constituted in society. Along the way, we’ll talk about the unraveling of the global pandemic and highlight with music from fónes.
Welcome to our third episode! This episode’s main focus continues the conversation of media narrative analysis from episode 2, focusing on the internal negotiation of subjectivity and the process of reading and engaging with subjects. Primarily I confront narrative simplifications. Narrative simplifications of subjects are the mediated frameworks that can enforce hegemonic, linear, and binary presumptions of existence as subjective points of reference. Queering subjectivities dismantles these presumptions.
Also today, I highlight a band from Seattle, NAVVI, who released an EP and album this past August, and I briefly introduce #QueerCinemaForPalestine, the group spearheading the boycott of this year’s TLVFest.
Our second episode’s main focus centers around media analysis, particularly the type of analysis that facilitates a more diverse approach toward understanding and framing media subjects within various narratives. To that end, I explore the concept of the “chronotope,” offering some origins, definitions, and uses of the term, qualifying its use in media narratives and offering a contrasting comparison with the concept of the “archetype,” which is somewhat more popularized in global literature and media conversations. This analytical deep dive gets to the heart of how I approach media study.
Along the way, I highlight a band from Belfast, Northern Ireland, Strange New Places, who released an EP this past October, and I briefly discuss #WetsuwetenStrong, recent settler colonial mistreatment of Indigenous rights and sovereignty, and misrepresentation of Indigenous people and current politics as visible in media.
Here’s the pilot episode! This episode’s main focus briefly discusses the ideology of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) concept as it pertains to the mandate of cultural heritage archiving and preservation methods through the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In my discussion I survey the history and scope of UNESCO and the push toward ICH after the 2003 Convention, and I note the power inequity between nation-state controlled preservation projects and the communities who create the acknowledged cultural heritage.
Along with today’s main focus in Episode 1, I highlight a recent art project of David Chavannes, and echo the voice of climate activist Vanessa Nakate who was mentioned in the news after outcries on social media over her omission from a report on Davos garnered broader attention.
Lixinski, Lucas. 2011. “Selecting Heritage: The Interplay of Art, Politics and Identity.” European Journal of International Law, Volume 22, Issue 1, February. Pages 81–100. (https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chr001)
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If you like what I’m doing with this podcast, and would like access to our Discord community, as well as behind-the-scenes posts, music, reading recommendations and discussions for each episode, and more, please consider supporting this work on Patreon.
I’m well on my way to getting season one going; how exciting! By Friday expect to see the pilot episode both here and on anchor, and if not by Friday then within a short time you should see our podcast visible in your favorite/familiar podcasting platform. Anchor tells me it takes a couple of business days sometimes to show up for new/first episodes.
The first episode of this season will be an exploration of the concept of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) through the lens of representation. I’m beginning here, with cultural heritage, because this area is most closely related to my own research interests over the past few years. I’ve been interested in the gap between where culture is performed and where it is defined, and I think in our present world, media sits in the midst of that gap where it represents the primary mode of control over the articulation of “Culture,” broadly interpreted, and subsequently our (various communities’) connection to it. Whoever controls media is poised to control the apparent boundaries around what “Culture” is and how it is used to articulate identities and then inform social policies. The legacy of cultural heritage, then, becomes the byproduct of how its existence is imagined through media narratives.
A dive into this conversation and more will be part of the first podcast episode of this season. And if you’re interested in joining us on Patreon, you can be a part of the conversation there where you can subscribe to gain access to our discord community. Hope to meet you there!
Hello, and thank you for listening to the Ethnomedialogue podcast. I am excited for our launch in February and am busy pulling together my platform for building and sharing content with you.
