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LIBRARIANS IN NIGERIA
/in Themes /by Kcs21blAAMONTHLY WOMEN MAGAZINES AND STEREOTYPES – WOMAN AS AN AESTHETIC OBJECT
/in Ethics of Media /by Kcs21blAAMedia representation is a process used not only for exchanging of specific meanings and values inside a culture, but also for generating them. My intention here was to found what kinds of woman representation models are supported in Serbian monthly magazines for women and to discuss relations between those representations, stereotypes, and actual questions about media ethics.
The analysis of content indicated that a beauty myth is a dominant axiology for content constitution in four analyzed magazines – Lepota i zdravlje, Joy, Beauty Expert and Top zdravlje. The content of these magazines suggests that women are most interested in topics about fashion, make-up, cosmetic treatments, beauty and carrier, and the role of beauty in relations with men. The representation of woman is not that much reduced on representational figures (housewife, mother, wife, model, super star) as it is on specific model of behavior primarily connected with woman’s body and engagement of all woman’s capabilities in reaching the specific beauty standards.
The must ’be pretty’ which these magazines impose on woman exists as an up-to-date version of the stereotype once characteristic for traditional, patriarchal society – men look and women look good. The function of woman is only aesthetic – she appears as the object of other’s enjoyment in her beauty. That way, the stereotype representation of woman as aesthetic object of man’s pleasure is confirmed. The readers of these magazines should be passive, inferior and incompetent to put forward any other skills except their beauty.
The nature of representations of woman in these four monthly magazines in fact exists as a consequence of putting into effect the consumerism strategies for consumption increase and profit acquiring by the cosmetic and fashion companies. The mechanic of market not only offers products for satisfying consumers’ needs. It also produces the consumers’ need for goods and necessity of this need as real providing the continuity of consumerism.
THE MEASURE OF CULTURE IN CULTURAL SECTIONS
/in (Lack Of) Culture /by Kcs21blAAWe live in a time when our lives are saturated with information. We daily receive numerous messages through various media outlets. For example, in the US, during one year, about 200 000 books are published, approximately 70 million hours of programs are broadcast by radio stations and about 58 million hours of television programs are produced. “From the day of your birth until today more information was produced than during all recorded history before you, while half the total number of all scientists in history lives and produces information today.” Every year we publish more books. If you decided to read everything that has been published in one year, you would have to read one book every three minutes, which is about five hundred books a day. This, of course, only refers to the latest world production, and not the classics. Question is how many of the newly published books are read, how and how much the books and culture in general are covered in commentaries, how well the journalists are trained and if they are at all capable of selecting, clarifying and structuring such a horrific amount of information for us at a time of world crisis which has devastated Serbia as well in material, cultural and also media-related sense. A year ago results were published in Serbia of a study conducted by master student of the Faculty of political sciences in Belgrade who investigated the treatment of the book in Serbian media. These results were far from encouraging – apart from Radio Belgrade 2 and special weekend newspaper additions dedicated to book reviews, the book is generally neglected in the Serbian printed media, while the book reports themselves lack the necessary serious approach and deeper pondering. Focus of this paper is monitoring and analysis of cultural contributions in three daily newspapers, the Politika, the Večernje novosti and the Danas over a period 29.09.2012 – 2.10.2012. Its purpose was to show the content of these cultural sections, to make a comparative analysis of their content and quality of content, as well as to pinpoint the basic topics covered and pursue the question if the printed media create contents that raise public attention. The analysis had an empirical and conceptual approach, and covered quantity and quality baselines.
FEAR OF BARBARIANS
/in Reviews /by Kcs21blAAUSING WIKIPEDIA IN RESEARCH
/in Themes /by Kcs21blAAWikipedia as an encyclopaedia and a social network engaged in the development of modern information technology is a phenomenon that causes many debates and controversies. As an international community committed to the idea of expanding knowledge through the new media, Wikipedia has epistemological, political, social and economic consequences that are important to the modern higher education and research. Due to insufficient research of this issue in our region, this paper in the first part addresses the dimension of Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia, a technology and a social network, with emphasis on the relationship to the structure and status of knowledge, higher education institutions and processes of knowledge production and distribution. The second part deals with the critics of Wikipedia for its implications to the status and structure of knowledge through reflection of social, economic, political and cultural circumstances in which Wikipedia is created and continues to intercede on a global level. The third part is a presentation of results of an exploratory qualitative research of the use of Wikipedia in researches, conducted with academics from Serbia.
CULTURAL DECENTRALIZATION IN THE SOUTH-EUROPEAN CONTEXT
/in Cultural Policy /by Kcs21blAAThe process of decentralization is one of of the most sensitive processes within cultural policy. Some positive experiences inheritated from the previous periods are not regarded important or relevant for present day constitution of decentralized units. Consequently, they are designed according to present day political interests and priorities. According to the Croatian experiences from the last twenty years, number of regional units and especially those of municipalities and cities is too numerous and is not too favourable for cultural development. Though the country has approved the set of documents on decentralization, the former is a so called „paper decentralization“, because documents are not implementeted in practice.
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