The Question of Cinema: Myth, Prophecy and Technology
This essay uses the method of Tensegrity – a means of dynamic methodological triangulation that allows for open threads and poetic interventions.
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This essay uses the method of Tensegrity – a means of dynamic methodological triangulation that allows for open threads and poetic interventions.
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The article categorizes several types of media bullshit, based on three aspects that are embedded in the very definition of “media” and create the contemporary media environment – namely media as a technical device, media as a type of connection (hierarchical or not) and media as a mediator. The functional conception of the media as meaningful to society, enshrined in its very definition, allows one to show what is not pure or what violates public order, that is, media bullshit. The analysis shows three divisions in the contemporary media environment as key elements in the production of media bullshit: inclusion-exclusion (in relation to the definition of the media as a technical device); information-communication (in relation to the media as a type of connection); truth-manipulation (in relation to the media as a mediator).
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Based on an in-depth ethnographic survey of a major heritage digitization project, this text critically examines the recent changes in the notion of heritage enhancement and deflates the promise of digitization as a vector for the long-term preservation of humanity’s heritage. In particular, it examines how the technological enhancement of heritage carries with it transformations in the content of heritage and its status, founding digitized heritage as a raw material for innovation and research, the conservation of which no longer appears to be a priority. This transformation is taking place on a heritage scene that is undergoing major changes, particularly as a result of the spread of the Google model (and its unparalleled economic success) in a version to be applied to heritage corpora, also characterized by the slogan “enhance your data!”. But with the paradigm of techno-cultural enhancement, is it always the heritage that is enhanced? Between valuing heritage and mobilizing heritage as an asset, have we measured the implications of what is presented in the form of an enhancement imperative on the destiny of our heritage?
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The advent and development of kitsch is genetically related to the specific sociocultural context of 19th-century second half, when art became an autonomous and independent reality. It can no more rely on mythology, religion, philosophy, and politics, and pretends to be only and solely a ‘pure art’. Art narrows, and in the vacuum opened, the new aesthetic phenomenon of kitsch ensconces. Kitsch has become an intrinsic, aesthetically immanent element of the system of art as a totality. An infinite internal transition between these two so cognate and so different, opposite spheres has emerged. The dialectics of these relations shows that kitsch is not only a waste of art.
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Objective: The aim of the study was to show that during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, enterprises took action in the field of corporate social responsibility. Research Design & Methods: The data used in this research was collected by analysing the content of posts published on brand profiles on Facebook from March to May 2020 and analysing the data. Findings: The unexpected pandemic required organisations to take specific measures related to corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, the author emphasises the importance of Facebook in brand communication with recipients and classifies CSR activities carried out by enterprises operating in various industries that jointly pursued one goal – counteracting the effects of the pandemic. These were such activities as donating funds and basic products, supporting the social campaign #zostanwdomu, producing protective masks, creating new products to support the fight against the pandemic and taking additional preventive actions. Enterprises informed recipients about the initiatives they were taking by publishing posts on their Facebook profiles. Implications / Recommendations: The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected both the economic activity of many countries and the daily functioning of society, which limited contact among people and increased communications via digital channels such as social media. The changes resulting from the pandemic also make an essential contribution to the development of CSR by presenting how unforeseen circumstances may compel organisations to take specific measures to create a positive image and support society. Contribution: The presentation of research on the CSR measures taken by enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a new phenomenon, the COVID-19 pandemic requires wider analysis. This paper helps reduce the cognitive gap.
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As a result of intercultural differences, a manager has to be educated to adapt to any possible culture-based situations. The faculties of economic types have to take into account the requirements of the present-day multicultural business markets. The paper studied the learning of professional English of the first-year students at master’s level of studies at the Faculty of Management of the University of Prešov in Prešov from the point of view of the relationship between cultural knowledge and language skills by analysing self-evaluation data and answers to the three questions concerning various aspects of intercultural competence. The relationship between the students’ evaluation of professional English skills and their intercultural competence was not proved. Nevertheless, more than 70% of them believe that the knowledge of English-speaking countries’ culture is a part of English language learning.
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State represents a social phenomenon which is constantly changing – just like all political actors. The direction of that evolution is determined by the development and current state of the art in technological domain. That explains how the rise of social media and new ICTs has shaped the contemporary political communication. This paper sheds light on the manner in which digital tools are exploited in an unpredictable social ambience which is characterized by numerous political crises. Special attention has been given to the phenomenon of digital astroturfing and political disinformation trends in Venezuela and Brazil. We have found that the dynamic technological development combined with the use of political bots has been creating the potential for fake news, thus impacting election processes and endangering democracy. Therefore, these phenomena need further scientific examination.
More...Review of the monograph Networks of Outrage and Hope – Social Movements in the Internet Age by Manuel Castells, translated by V. Savić and D. Nikolić, Belgrade: Službeni glasnik, 2018.
This paper reviews Castells’s book Networks of Outrage and Hope – Social Movements in the Internet Age which reaffirms the power of new social movements, pointing to their promotion in virtual space and concluding, on the basis of it, about their spontaneity, nonviolence and democracy as inherent characteristics, which can be problematized.
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This article presents the analysis of the titles in the news rubric of the popular scienceFrench magazine "Science et Vie", with the aim of identifying the evolution of the editorial strategy as for ensuring the readers’ loyalty and the magazine’s sustainability. The corpus considered is composed of two groups of items published almost twenty years apart. The relevant criteria for the study were both of grammatical and discursive nature and they were applied symmetrically to the two parts of the corpus. We were thus able to understand the changes in the relationship the magazine builds with the public. While in the first period of the publication the discourse tended to awaken the readers’ curiosity to discover the articles by using elliptical titles, two decades after the trends favour as much transparency as possible in order to allow the readers the liberty of deciding about the content they wish or not to read.
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Due to the fact that extraverted and introverted personalities are rather different, especially in the context of foreign language learning, teachers and learners often believe that these two personality types have different learning habits and require different learning environments. Moreover, teachers and learners often believe that extraverts are more successful at foreign language learning because they easily communicate in the foreign language and overcome their anxiety without much difficulty. For that reason we aim to determine whether there is a difference between extraverted and introverted students in terms of their foreign language proficiency and in order to establish that we rely on the EPQR-S to determine the students’ personality type and the final grade from the previous semester, the grade from the previous English test and the score from the Language and Skills Test to determine the participants’ foreign language proficiency. The participants who took part in this research were N=60 first and second grade students from a medical high school in Novi Sad aged 15 to 17. The results from this research were analyzed quantitatively and, based on the results, we can conclude that introverts are slightly more proficient than extraverted students, but taking into consideration the manner of assessment of English language proficiency, this result must be taken with caution and serves as an indicator of deeper issues that point to the need for a relatively individualized classroom approach in which teachers pay attention to their students’ personality and modify their approach to learning and assessment accordingly.
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The aim of the paper is to present the latest proposals within the framework of studies on receptive multilingualism. It contains a more detailed discussion of the concept of lingua receptiva, i.e. multilingual receptive communication based on (related) native languages of its participants, both in a representational aspect – in relation to actual multilingual practices, and in a configurational aspect – in relation to other categories in the conceptual grid of the research discipline. The conclusion points out that the co-occurrence of lingua receptiva and lingua franca in international communication in Europe seems to be an existing yet insufficiently recognised linguistic reality.
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The aim of this paper is to examine the monograph titled Thinking in the Network (2018), written by Miroslav Marcelli. The monograph is a contribution to a better understanding of the phenomenon of collective intelligence that is formed under the influence of new digital media, and one that could help us solve national or global problems. Marcelli emphasizes that collective intelligence needs to be cultivated. The author agrees and adds that it may be a new evolution of humanity, because the cognitive abilities have to adapt to collective thinking under the influence of digital media and communication in the cyberspace.
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The rise of Canadian Studies in Romania, particularly in the academia, as well as their recent (relative) decline, is presented with emphasis on the last twenty-five years. Individual interest and enthusiasm as well as the foundation of CEACS contributed to the Canadian Studies “boom” in 2000-2012, when Canadian Studies Centers were founded in several important Romanian universities, the number of Canadian Studies classes at BA and MA levels increased, large research projects were completed, PhD theses were initiated and quite a few defended.
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The new Law on Higher Education and Science, referred to as the “Constitution for Science” or the “Law 2.0,” has thoroughly reshaped research activities and academic education in Poland, and Latin American Studies—which gained a well-established position since the transformation of the 1980s and 1990s—is no exception. However, it would appear that the introduced changes may have a negative, rather than positive impact. The following article sets out to outline the current situation of Latin American Studies in Poland in the context of the relations between science and politics under the circumstances of the new legislation.
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This article outlines the history of the study of Canada in Slovakia. It explores early writings on Canada and attempts to identify pioneers of Canadian Studies as well as milestones in its development and institutionalization, while also claiming that Canadian Studies remains a marginal academic discipline in Slovakia; indeed, its very existence is dependent on the enthusiasm of a small community of scholars. The final part of the article presents the community, their research interests, activities, and motivations, and attempts to pinpoint the impact of the Canadian federal government’s decision to withdraw its support from funding Canadian Studies abroad.
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The article presents the development and current state of American Studies in Poland as a discipline, starting with its historic and political background, through institutional foundations, to current research and teaching, especially from the social scientific perspective. The article argues that American Studies went from virtual absence in Stalinist Poland to post-1989 rapid expansion and continues to attract students despite the lack of institutional and disciplinary independence. Even though it is mostly affiliated to English programs, it continues to go outside the boundaries of the traditional approaches of history and literature to include cultural studies, political science, sociology, communication, and law.
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The paper presents research on the correspondence of the theoretical definition and the practical understanding and application by Bulgarian candidates for political posts in the elections hold in 2014-2019 of the concept “positive election campaign”. The questions are: does the meaning that the candidates attach to the term “positive campaign” correspond to its scientifically determined theoretical definition and how do the concept and its application correlate? The hypothesis states that (1) the phrase “positive campaign” is a key statement in the rhetoric of candidates; (2) the more conquered a country turns out to be, the more often the candidates for power build their pre-election political statements on the concept; (3) most often the election candidates mean a campaign with no compromising materials or hate speech, held in a spirit of good tone and ethics, promising more effective governance and a better future when they use the concept “positive campaign”; (4) the theoretical definition of the concept needs to be further developed and conceptualized within the paradigm of positivism. The hypotheses are tested by a media monitoring which identified 130 media publications covering candidates’ statements with the phrase “positive campaign” and content analyses.
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The Internet and social networks have become a shelter for the media, as paper once was for books and newspapers; today, satellites provide radio and television with endless possibilities for distribution. Digitalization is the new means of information and, perhaps, though we have not yet understood this, the modern instrument of knowledge and culture. The new space-time continuum of the media could not exist without values such as freedom of speech and human rights. Human experience of the media – ranging from the "Gutenberg galaxy" to the "universe of the Internet" – teaches us that these values are not given once and for all, even though everything has become digital and multimediatic.
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The article explores Michel Foucault's ideas on the phenomenon of parrhesiа and its role in telling and defending the truth. An attempt is made to show that, according to Foucault, sincere speech, as an expression of subjective truth, is a kind of moral position with regard to the truth, without which communication, or the full exercise of power in society, would be impossible. This also applies to the modern communication situation, in which the various procedures for establishing the truth or authenticity of the facts should not be absolute and should not replace the free choice and moral position in the professional morality of mass communication specialists.
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With the development of public relations and technology, the question arises more and more often whether the media, which provide the most dynamic opportunity for communication between state bodies and citizens, have not replaced the formally established three authorities that form the basis of any democratic society. The metaphor “Fourth Estate” most clearly shows the need for independent control, on behalf of the public, over the other three powers – the judicial, legislative and executive. Thus, it is important to note that information campaigns designed to manipulate public opinion with false or misleading social media posts have become a standard political practice.The media are called upon to be an objective corrective and an expression of the public interest, even if this may bring about political change. An emblematic example of this is the research and revelations of two Washington Post journalists (Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein), who provoked the Watergate scandal and led to US President Nixon's resignation in 1974.Today, the Fourth Estate has more power than ever to be a mediator possessing access to the authorities and the people it must serve. An example of this are the recent US presidential elections. But the Fourth Estate is also an indicator of truth in today's digital society, where news spreads in seconds and the social media raise the question as to whether it is possible to control information without affecting its truthfulness and reliability. The question is, are the media and technological giants not actually the new rulers and the foremost power ?!
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