Pub Date : 2021-05-07DOI: 10.1285/I22840753N19P249
Heraldo Aparecido Silva
This article aims to analyse the superhero subgenre in comic books and webcomics. First, the study focuses on the characteristics of hero, superhero and antihero categories. Then we briefly describe some contemporary aspect of the history of the stories in superhero comics to propose the inclusion of two new sub-categories: the over-hero and the poser-hero. The theoretical foundation is based on authors such as: Moya (1977; 1994; 2003), Eco (1993), Mix (1993), Beirce (1993), Bloom (2002; 2003), McLauglin (2005), Knowles (2008), Irwin (2009), Mazur; Danner (2014), among others. The literature specializing in comic books and philosophical perspectives functions as analytical and theoretical support for the interpretation of themes taken from the superhero universe.With the advent of computer graphics and the internet, comic books have conquered new formats, new technologies and new audiences from a democratized distribution. In addition, two factors are important to understand the relevance of webcomics to the history of comics. First, as comics in print are scanned, the comics/webcomics distinction is not exclusive. In this text, we discuss about heroes and superheroes that can be found and read in both printed and digital formats. Second, webcomics have enabled many artists to achieve more visibility for their work through social media. From this perspective, we argue that the notion of webcomics evolve from the notion of comics. In the field of studies and research on sequential art, pop culture and other media the superhero subgenre is widespread. However, in the context of philosophical theorization, for a long time, the productions were limited to the perspective of superheroes from impassable conceptual and methodological approaches. From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, the analyses of comic books and, particularly, about the superhero subgenre suffered from the same kind of modeling approach that in many ways led to the same result. This is because, whether critical reading is favorable or unfavorable to superheroism, none of the cited theoretical-methodological contributions gave theoretical primacy to the sequential art, being merely relegated to the condition of object of study. Our proposal here implies subverting this scenario from the proposition of reading comics and webcomics as philosophy and as poetic theory. From this perspective, we will widely use arguments, contexts, and influences from comic book characters and sagas to review, deflect, and redirect some elements of the comic itself. In other words, we will draw our arguments indistinctly from philosophy or literature and comics and webcomics, without establishing any sort of hierarchy between them, in order to propose that the genre of superheroes itself evolved, and, besides heroes, superheroes and antiheroes, we now also have over-heroes and poser-heroes.
{"title":"Comics and webcomics: super-heroes, over-heroes and poser-heroes","authors":"Heraldo Aparecido Silva","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N19P249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N19P249","url":null,"abstract":"This article aims to analyse the superhero subgenre in comic books and webcomics. First, the study focuses on the characteristics of hero, superhero and antihero categories. Then we briefly describe some contemporary aspect of the history of the stories in superhero comics to propose the inclusion of two new sub-categories: the over-hero and the poser-hero. The theoretical foundation is based on authors such as: Moya (1977; 1994; 2003), Eco (1993), Mix (1993), Beirce (1993), Bloom (2002; 2003), McLauglin (2005), Knowles (2008), Irwin (2009), Mazur; Danner (2014), among others. The literature specializing in comic books and philosophical perspectives functions as analytical and theoretical support for the interpretation of themes taken from the superhero universe.With the advent of computer graphics and the internet, comic books have conquered new formats, new technologies and new audiences from a democratized distribution. In addition, two factors are important to understand the relevance of webcomics to the history of comics. First, as comics in print are scanned, the comics/webcomics distinction is not exclusive. In this text, we discuss about heroes and superheroes that can be found and read in both printed and digital formats. Second, webcomics have enabled many artists to achieve more visibility for their work through social media. From this perspective, we argue that the notion of webcomics evolve from the notion of comics. In the field of studies and research on sequential art, pop culture and other media the superhero subgenre is widespread. However, in the context of philosophical theorization, for a long time, the productions were limited to the perspective of superheroes from impassable conceptual and methodological approaches. From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, the analyses of comic books and, particularly, about the superhero subgenre suffered from the same kind of modeling approach that in many ways led to the same result. This is because, whether critical reading is favorable or unfavorable to superheroism, none of the cited theoretical-methodological contributions gave theoretical primacy to the sequential art, being merely relegated to the condition of object of study. Our proposal here implies subverting this scenario from the proposition of reading comics and webcomics as philosophy and as poetic theory. From this perspective, we will widely use arguments, contexts, and influences from comic book characters and sagas to review, deflect, and redirect some elements of the comic itself. In other words, we will draw our arguments indistinctly from philosophy or literature and comics and webcomics, without establishing any sort of hierarchy between them, in order to propose that the genre of superheroes itself evolved, and, besides heroes, superheroes and antiheroes, we now also have over-heroes and poser-heroes.","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2021 1","pages":"249-262"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45149426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The research path I am presenting here focuses on an analysis of the imagery of the "Performance Society". This phrase is to be meant as the overall (re)-configuration of contemporary society. A new form of reality, in which the relationship between the individual and society is (re)-thought in market terms, according to a corporate management approach. A generative form of a new anthropology and of a new idea of subjectivity, of performative type. In this essay, the performative subject is investigated resorting to a phenomenological point of view; hence highlighting as "having to be performative" is, first and foremost, a norm (and a set of typified meanings) increasingly taken for granted by millions of individuals in the world. In this study, I have analysed some of the most relevant international publications focusing on self-management, namely that set of widely spread formulae which address the need for constant improvement that social actors experience in their daily "performance". Moving from this analysis, I have tried to understand how the concept of performative subject is meant and represented, hereby contributing to produce – in the global imagery – more and more typical forms of subjectivity.
{"title":"L'immaginario della prestazione.Percorsi di ricerca sulle nuove forme di soggettività = The imagery of performance. Research paths on new forms of subjectivity","authors":"Valentina Cremonesini","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N19P31","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N19P31","url":null,"abstract":"The research path I am presenting here focuses on an analysis of the imagery of the \"Performance Society\". This phrase is to be meant as the overall (re)-configuration of contemporary society. A new form of reality, in which the relationship between the individual and society is (re)-thought in market terms, according to a corporate management approach. A generative form of a new anthropology and of a new idea of subjectivity, of performative type. In this essay, the performative subject is investigated resorting to a phenomenological point of view; hence highlighting as \"having to be performative\" is, first and foremost, a norm (and a set of typified meanings) increasingly taken for granted by millions of individuals in the world. In this study, I have analysed some of the most relevant international publications focusing on self-management, namely that set of widely spread formulae which address the need for constant improvement that social actors experience in their daily \"performance\". Moving from this analysis, I have tried to understand how the concept of performative subject is meant and represented, hereby contributing to produce – in the global imagery – more and more typical forms of subjectivity.","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2021 1","pages":"31-54"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48810842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-07DOI: 10.1285/I22840753N19P181
M. Binotto, M. Bruno
Over the years many researchers have investigated the public debate on migrations, providing a restricted panorama drawn by some consolidated frames, a repertoire of recurring argument, images and iconic representations. This contribution will report on three prevailing public definitions of immigration, adding to these representations a fundamental aspect to understand its strength and effectiveness. In fact, when reconstructing the definitions of the situation, we will combine the metaphorical formulas that are used by speakers with the set of symbolic references that allow us to connect their explanations to narratives, mythologies and images rooted in our culture as well as in the Italian collective imagination. Following the example of Gamson's work, some examples of satirical cartoons and memes are presented together with the definition. The aim is to exemplify some strategies of exploration of the theme and, above all, the strength of the framing leading to a synthetic and visual representation of a wider and more complex narrative that can however, be easily recalled and exposed in a few strokes and images. The analysis of the imaginary is essential to understand how each frame can work, to build representations that are both concrete and rich, plausible and full of references to symbols, myths, "cultural resonances". In so doing, the frame is built as common sense by contributing to the production of an effective and, almost literally, hegemonic communication.
{"title":"Confini e nemici. Immaginario e frame delle migrazioni nel discorso pubblico italiano = Borders and Enemies. Imaginary and frame of migrations in Italian public debate","authors":"M. Binotto, M. Bruno","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N19P181","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N19P181","url":null,"abstract":"Over the years many researchers have investigated the public debate on migrations, providing a restricted panorama drawn by some consolidated frames, a repertoire of recurring argument, images and iconic representations. This contribution will report on three prevailing public definitions of immigration, adding to these representations a fundamental aspect to understand its strength and effectiveness. In fact, when reconstructing the definitions of the situation, we will combine the metaphorical formulas that are used by speakers with the set of symbolic references that allow us to connect their explanations to narratives, mythologies and images rooted in our culture as well as in the Italian collective imagination. Following the example of Gamson's work, some examples of satirical cartoons and memes are presented together with the definition. The aim is to exemplify some strategies of exploration of the theme and, above all, the strength of the framing leading to a synthetic and visual representation of a wider and more complex narrative that can however, be easily recalled and exposed in a few strokes and images. The analysis of the imaginary is essential to understand how each frame can work, to build representations that are both concrete and rich, plausible and full of references to symbols, myths, \"cultural resonances\". In so doing, the frame is built as common sense by contributing to the production of an effective and, almost literally, hegemonic communication.","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2021 1","pages":"181-206"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47545632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Over the last forty years, by incarnating the very essence of an increasingly widespread and pervasive symbolic power, communication has acquired an unprecedented centrality. Additionally, over the same period there has been an exponential multiplication of interpretations, readings, studies and research that have affected public and academic debate. Dystopias and fears, fuelled by the historical-political events of the first half of the 20th century and then reinforced in the 1970s by the hypothetical return to powerful media, were first flanked and then hybridised by new conceptions and utopian visions, sometimes simplistic and even populist. This certainly represents a more articulated and complex Weltanschauung, capable of uncovering an evolved imaginary, rich in contradictions due to the many roles and multiple values and functions (even vicarious) acquired by communication itself. In the light of the above premises, this paper aims to suggest a reflection regarding the way some interpretative categories and key concepts of communication, capable of crystallising its specific aspects, have contributed over the last few decades to re-construct its current imaginary. In particular, we seek to analyse the dynamic figuration in which images, meanings and metaphors are stratified and confused, referable to the impact of media on everyday life, to the flourishing of cultural industries, to the gradual domestication of technologies, to the surfacing of a connective and collective intelligence and to a proper utopia of communication. Such imaginary has been marked, in more recent years, by the affirmation of a convergence that also comes to be cultural, as well as by new collective obsessions, by forms of control, homologation, and surveillance.
{"title":"Schermo, habitat, piattaforma. Metafore dell'immaginario della comunicazione = Screen, habitat, platform. Metaphors of the imaginary of communication","authors":"Giovanni Ciofalo, Silvia Leonzi","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N19P7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N19P7","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last forty years, by incarnating the very essence of an increasingly widespread and pervasive symbolic power, communication has acquired an unprecedented centrality. Additionally, over the same period there has been an exponential multiplication of interpretations, readings, studies and research that have affected public and academic debate. Dystopias and fears, fuelled by the historical-political events of the first half of the 20th century and then reinforced in the 1970s by the hypothetical return to powerful media, were first flanked and then hybridised by new conceptions and utopian visions, sometimes simplistic and even populist. This certainly represents a more articulated and complex Weltanschauung, capable of uncovering an evolved imaginary, rich in contradictions due to the many roles and multiple values and functions (even vicarious) acquired by communication itself. In the light of the above premises, this paper aims to suggest a reflection regarding the way some interpretative categories and key concepts of communication, capable of crystallising its specific aspects, have contributed over the last few decades to re-construct its current imaginary. In particular, we seek to analyse the dynamic figuration in which images, meanings and metaphors are stratified and confused, referable to the impact of media on everyday life, to the flourishing of cultural industries, to the gradual domestication of technologies, to the surfacing of a connective and collective intelligence and to a proper utopia of communication. Such imaginary has been marked, in more recent years, by the affirmation of a convergence that also comes to be cultural, as well as by new collective obsessions, by forms of control, homologation, and surveillance.","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2021 1","pages":"7-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46377385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Over the last twenty years, profound transformations have affected public sector communication, changing and redefining its practices and tools, while influencing its research boundaries and trajectories. Communication function has shown innovative traits linked to the impact of Internet and social media, but it has also revealed its fragility when facing growing political interferences and resistances from organizational bureaucracies. The Covid-19 pandemic has represented a turning point for public sector communication. The latter has acquired new visibility in this emergency situation, and it has been forced to redefine consolidated communication models. In this scenario characterized by a general distrust toward institutions, public sector communication must recover credibility, guarantee transparency, correctness and timeliness in the dissemination of information. Starting from these considerations, this study on government communication in the context of Covid-19 investigates two aspects: the possibility that the emergency situation represents an opportunity to relaunch public sector communication as a service function, with particular regard to its digital dimensions; the reconstruction of the narration of the pandemic through government communication campaigns in the context of traditional and social media, highlighting contents styles and languages. Results underline the informative and service function of institutional communication, revealing in some phases innovations in languages and strategies. The alignment and synchronicity between different institutional voices and platforms, and the presence of an effective coordination, emerge during the lockdown while they become weaker in the following phase. This article suggests investing in permanent research on public communication to foster a more sophisticated use of campaigns and social media so as to nurture a constructive dialogue with citizens.
{"title":"#DistantiMaUniti: la comunicazione pubblica tra innovazioni e fragilità alla ricerca di una ridefinizione = #DistantButUnited. Searching for a redefinition: public sector communication between innovations and fragility","authors":"F. Faccioli, Lucia D'ambrosi, G. Ducci, A. Lovari","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N17P27","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N17P27","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last twenty years, profound transformations have affected public sector communication, changing and redefining its practices and tools, while influencing its research boundaries and trajectories. Communication function has shown innovative traits linked to the impact of Internet and social media, but it has also revealed its fragility when facing growing political interferences and resistances from organizational bureaucracies. The Covid-19 pandemic has represented a turning point for public sector communication. The latter has acquired new visibility in this emergency situation, and it has been forced to redefine consolidated communication models. In this scenario characterized by a general distrust toward institutions, public sector communication must recover credibility, guarantee transparency, correctness and timeliness in the dissemination of information. Starting from these considerations, this study on government communication in the context of Covid-19 investigates two aspects: the possibility that the emergency situation represents an opportunity to relaunch public sector communication as a service function, with particular regard to its digital dimensions; the reconstruction of the narration of the pandemic through government communication campaigns in the context of traditional and social media, highlighting contents styles and languages. Results underline the informative and service function of institutional communication, revealing in some phases innovations in languages and strategies. The alignment and synchronicity between different institutional voices and platforms, and the presence of an effective coordination, emerge during the lockdown while they become weaker in the following phase. This article suggests investing in permanent research on public communication to foster a more sophisticated use of campaigns and social media so as to nurture a constructive dialogue with citizens.","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2020 1","pages":"27-72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42603856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-14DOI: 10.1285/I22840753N17P157
Fabio Tarzia, E. Ilardi, A. Ceccherelli
Over the recent years, the exploration of the notion of 'social imagination' has been carried out by searching for the essence, for that archetypal collective deposits that are positioned along a line that goes from Jung to Bachelard to Durand. As a result, research has usually relied on the idea of a universal "imagination", which derives from disciplines such as – among others – psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience. And yet, due to the development of these studies, scholars have discussed the sociologists' task, questioning whether they have to search for the essential core of the symbolic system or to identify the particular historical and cultural meaning that this absolute system takes on from time to time. This paper intends to inspect the appropriateness of talking about the study of the "imaginations" rather than that of the "imagination". At first, we illustrate the causes of the historical-geographical differentiation of imaginaries. Then, we enquire into the role of the ideological structure and of the social, spatial, religious and economic contexts as preconditions for the construction of different and therefore specific archetypes. The investigation is performed by considering the American imagination system in contrast to the Catholic-European one. In particular, two main factors are taken into account: the re-functionalisation of Lotman's archetypal structure, i.e., the relationship between the space of consciousness and the outer space, which is expressed in the myth of the hero's return home; and the re-functionalisation of the archetype of the hero in the conception of the American superhero
{"title":"Immaginario o immaginari? Europa e America a confronto. Due casi: il ritorno dell'eroe e la figura del Supereroe = Imagination or imaginations? Europe and America in comparison. Two cases: the return of the hero and the Superhero figure","authors":"Fabio Tarzia, E. Ilardi, A. Ceccherelli","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N17P157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N17P157","url":null,"abstract":"Over the recent years, the exploration of the notion of 'social imagination' has been carried out by searching for the essence, for that archetypal collective deposits that are positioned along a line that goes from Jung to Bachelard to Durand. As a result, research has usually relied on the idea of a universal \"imagination\", which derives from disciplines such as – among others – psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience. And yet, due to the development of these studies, scholars have discussed the sociologists' task, questioning whether they have to search for the essential core of the symbolic system or to identify the particular historical and cultural meaning that this absolute system takes on from time to time. This paper intends to inspect the appropriateness of talking about the study of the \"imaginations\" rather than that of the \"imagination\". At first, we illustrate the causes of the historical-geographical differentiation of imaginaries. Then, we enquire into the role of the ideological structure and of the social, spatial, religious and economic contexts as preconditions for the construction of different and therefore specific archetypes. The investigation is performed by considering the American imagination system in contrast to the Catholic-European one. In particular, two main factors are taken into account: the re-functionalisation of Lotman's archetypal structure, i.e., the relationship between the space of consciousness and the outer space, which is expressed in the myth of the hero's return home; and the re-functionalisation of the archetype of the hero in the conception of the American superhero","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2020 1","pages":"157-180"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48956337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-14DOI: 10.1285/I22840753N17P211
Laura Appignanesi, Michele Paladini
Starting from the material turn of cultural sociology, this paper focuses on the constructivist value of Cultural Heritage. The concept of iconic power is reinforced through a new interpretation of the artworks, within a theoretical framework that sees communication as the basic unit for the social system construction. In particular, in this study Cultural Heritage is considered not merely as artistic and historical objects, or as a tourist attraction, or a simple symbolic icon, but as a mass medium. In the short term, artworks can become a means of communication for political goals, whereas in the long term they may serve as a means of communication of social identity. To demonstrate this thesis, this article deals with a significant case study: the gilt bronzes from Cartoceto di Pergola. Their vicissitudes cover two thousand years but can be summarized as production, destruction by invaders, discovery, restoration, and the current administrative dispute. Each of these events, through comparative analysis and inductive demonstration, allows us to generalize our reflections to all of Cultural Heritage, to provide a synthesis between the traditional structuralist focus on discursive codes and the material turn of the cultural sociology
{"title":"Cultural Heritage as a mass medium: The cold case of the gilt bronzes","authors":"Laura Appignanesi, Michele Paladini","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N17P211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N17P211","url":null,"abstract":"Starting from the material turn of cultural sociology, this paper focuses on the constructivist value of Cultural Heritage. The concept of iconic power is reinforced through a new interpretation of the artworks, within a theoretical framework that sees communication as the basic unit for the social system construction. In particular, in this study Cultural Heritage is considered not merely as artistic and historical objects, or as a tourist attraction, or a simple symbolic icon, but as a mass medium. In the short term, artworks can become a means of communication for political goals, whereas in the long term they may serve as a means of communication of social identity. To demonstrate this thesis, this article deals with a significant case study: the gilt bronzes from Cartoceto di Pergola. Their vicissitudes cover two thousand years but can be summarized as production, destruction by invaders, discovery, restoration, and the current administrative dispute. Each of these events, through comparative analysis and inductive demonstration, allows us to generalize our reflections to all of Cultural Heritage, to provide a synthesis between the traditional structuralist focus on discursive codes and the material turn of the cultural sociology","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2020 1","pages":"211-238"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43145218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Football is usually presented as a spectacle that is characterized by a marked commercial aspect and concern for the definition of athletes' performance. In contrast, this sport's industrial organization is leading to the orientation towards measurability and pervasive quantification. Under this light, big data usage helps the media and the football industry to improve the processes of storytelling and interpretation of the context surrounding soccer games by foregrounding analyses and considerations of players' health and efficiency. This paper explores the effects of the application of big data analytics on the redefinition of the narrative techniques for the description of the world of football. In particular, our attention focuses on the uses of data and statistics as appropriate strategies to narrate the matches and entertain the audience by foregrounding specific aspects such as: (i) the control of athletes' health and physical conditions; (ii) the evaluation of sports performance at the time of selecting adequate tactics or the players that teams are supposed to buy; (iii) the perception of advantageous market orientations. What emerges, in fact, is a paradigmatic change of knowledge that goes beyond the field of sport and sports communication, as is revealed by the creation of risks that are connected with an excess of intrusiveness of data, as well as with the subtle, although tenacious, insinuation about their neutrality.
{"title":"La nuove trame del calcio. I big data tra racconto, performance, previsione e valutazione in ambito calcistico = The redefinition of soccer plots. Big data application in football's narratives, performance, prediction, and evaluation","authors":"Luca Bifulco, Stefano Bory","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N17P73","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N17P73","url":null,"abstract":"Football is usually presented as a spectacle that is characterized by a marked commercial aspect and concern for the definition of athletes' performance. In contrast, this sport's industrial organization is leading to the orientation towards measurability and pervasive quantification. Under this light, big data usage helps the media and the football industry to improve the processes of storytelling and interpretation of the context surrounding soccer games by foregrounding analyses and considerations of players' health and efficiency. This paper explores the effects of the application of big data analytics on the redefinition of the narrative techniques for the description of the world of football. In particular, our attention focuses on the uses of data and statistics as appropriate strategies to narrate the matches and entertain the audience by foregrounding specific aspects such as: (i) the control of athletes' health and physical conditions; (ii) the evaluation of sports performance at the time of selecting adequate tactics or the players that teams are supposed to buy; (iii) the perception of advantageous market orientations. What emerges, in fact, is a paradigmatic change of knowledge that goes beyond the field of sport and sports communication, as is revealed by the creation of risks that are connected with an excess of intrusiveness of data, as well as with the subtle, although tenacious, insinuation about their neutrality.","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2020 1","pages":"73-96"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46671671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper proposes that communication and media studies should refocus on maintenance. Indeed, maintenance theory can help underestimated aspects of communication infrastructures emerge. First, maintenance shows the similarity of communication and transportation infrastructures, which overlap to the extent that the two fields of study can no longer be separated. Second, maintenance shows the persistence of communication infrastructures over time. Infrastructures are seldom replaced, and even more rarely closed down, new communication networks do not replace old ones, but they overlap with them. Consequently, this focus makes clear the need to study communication in longue duree or at least in long-term perspectives. Thirdly, the decision to maintain a communication network or infrastructure is a political one. Communication studies have often focused on political decisions on innovation, while maintenance offers a new way to look at centralization, delegation, sabotage to infrastructures, and the political responsibilities of making communications function. Finally, thanks to maintenance, the material dimension of communication can be more visible. This allows the integration of the new agendas of STS and of media archaeology, with the emergence of topics such as malfunctions or technical jobs, which are often considered out of the scope of communication studies
{"title":"Communication is maintenance: turning the agenda of media and communication studies upside down","authors":"G. Balbi, R. Leggero","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N17P7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N17P7","url":null,"abstract":"This paper proposes that communication and media studies should refocus on maintenance. Indeed, maintenance theory can help underestimated aspects of communication infrastructures emerge. First, maintenance shows the similarity of communication and transportation infrastructures, which overlap to the extent that the two fields of study can no longer be separated. Second, maintenance shows the persistence of communication infrastructures over time. Infrastructures are seldom replaced, and even more rarely closed down, new communication networks do not replace old ones, but they overlap with them. Consequently, this focus makes clear the need to study communication in longue duree or at least in long-term perspectives. Thirdly, the decision to maintain a communication network or infrastructure is a political one. Communication studies have often focused on political decisions on innovation, while maintenance offers a new way to look at centralization, delegation, sabotage to infrastructures, and the political responsibilities of making communications function. Finally, thanks to maintenance, the material dimension of communication can be more visible. This allows the integration of the new agendas of STS and of media archaeology, with the emergence of topics such as malfunctions or technical jobs, which are often considered out of the scope of communication studies","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2020 1","pages":"7-26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45933913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-14DOI: 10.1285/I22840753N17P115
Alessandra Micalizzi
Unlike other social-technological contexts (Boccia Artieri, 2012), video games offer a space where death is frequently present as a narrative theme from the linguistic and practical viewpoints (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, et al. 2015), even though it is deprived of its more dreadful dimension—its permanent trait. In fact, "game over" indicates only the end of a possibility that can be repeated countless times, as players wish. The Last Day of June proposes a story that focuses on the protagonist's loss. A car accident leaves the main character, Carl, in a wheelchair. When the man realizes that his loved one, June, died, the players' target becomes to help him accept his loss – and triumph over it – by modifying the course of events before June's death. This paper proposes a narrative analysis (Fernandez-Vara, 2015), rooted on Gennette's (1980) model, relating story highlights to flashbacks (which we define "generative" in the analysis) to some visual and scenic choices that are associated with the stages of grief and its processing. The aim is to enquire into the pedagogical and cultural values of the case study by means of its association with myths and their main functions. Finally, a qualitative examination of a number of comments from one of the main YouTube channels will support the interpretation of the video game
{"title":"Last day of June: performare il lutto tra pathos ed en-pathos = The last day of June: \"performing\" the mourning between pathos and en-pathos","authors":"Alessandra Micalizzi","doi":"10.1285/I22840753N17P115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1285/I22840753N17P115","url":null,"abstract":"Unlike other social-technological contexts (Boccia Artieri, 2012), video games offer a space where death is frequently present as a narrative theme from the linguistic and practical viewpoints (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, et al. 2015), even though it is deprived of its more dreadful dimension—its permanent trait. In fact, \"game over\" indicates only the end of a possibility that can be repeated countless times, as players wish. The Last Day of June proposes a story that focuses on the protagonist's loss. A car accident leaves the main character, Carl, in a wheelchair. When the man realizes that his loved one, June, died, the players' target becomes to help him accept his loss – and triumph over it – by modifying the course of events before June's death. This paper proposes a narrative analysis (Fernandez-Vara, 2015), rooted on Gennette's (1980) model, relating story highlights to flashbacks (which we define \"generative\" in the analysis) to some visual and scenic choices that are associated with the stages of grief and its processing. The aim is to enquire into the pedagogical and cultural values of the case study by means of its association with myths and their main functions. Finally, a qualitative examination of a number of comments from one of the main YouTube channels will support the interpretation of the video game","PeriodicalId":40441,"journal":{"name":"H-ermes-Journal of Communication","volume":"2020 1","pages":"115-134"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46606337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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