WHAT PARENTS MEAN BY A “GOOD CHILD”

MAKEOVER TELEVISION AND THE BEAUTY MYTH

The media have an important role in communicating cultural values and ideas, but they also affect the outlining and defining the concepts of beauty. Therefore, the media representation processes are key to forming cultural “norms” of a beautiful female body, while consumption oriented society finds esthetic surgery a simpler and faster way of democratizing and achieving this ideal. As a mixture of the mentioned motives, the makeover television is an example of media content whose analysis can uncover the meanings and affirmation mechanisms of the contemporary beauty myth – an idea suggested by Naomi Wolf. These TV shows can be viewed as particular media rituals, initiating into the myth and legitimizing its social role. Reality makeover TV show Moje novo ja, aired on Prva television, is analysed to uncover the key moments of media representation of current idea(l)s of a desired woman`s beauty, the consequences of such ideas and the social power relations which the myth itself portrays.

LOW WAGES AND HIGH TECHNOLOGY – JOURNALISTS AND JOURNALISM IN SERBIA

This paper discusses major findings of the research project “Profession at the Crossroads – Journalism at the Threshold of the Information Society” conducted by the Faculty of Political Sciences’ Center for Media and Media Research from July 2010 till June 2011. The aim of the project was to examine social, economic and technological qualities of the journalistic community in Serbia and its capacity to respond to challenges facing the profession regarding global media changes and domestic transitional processes. Research results indicate that journalism in Serbia is in a state of limbo, and caught between delayed transition and information society very slowly mobilizes resources to respond to the forthcoming challenges. 

LOW WAGES AND HIGH TECHNOLOGY – JOURNALISTS AND JOURNALISM IN SERBIA

This paper discusses major findings of the research project “Profession at a Crossroads – Journalism at the Threshold of the Information Society” conducted by the Faculty of Political Sciences, Center for Media and Media Research, from July 2010 to June 2011. The aim of the project was to examine social, economic and technological qualities of the journalist community in Serbia and its capacity to respond to challenges the profession is faced with regarding global media changes and domestic transitional processes. Research results indicate that journalism in Serbia is in a state of limbo and caught between delayed transition and the information society, and that it very slowly mobilizes resources to respond to the forthcoming challenges.

LOWENTHAL’S APPROACH TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LITERATURE

IN MEMORIAM: HERBERT MARCUSE

INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION IN CULTURE

REVITALIZATION OF IBSEN’S “PEER GYNT” IN OSLO TODAY: INTERTEXTUALITY IN A SCENE

The text explores possibilities of revitalization and translation of Henrik Ibsen’s play into an open form of performance. On the example of Peer Gynt, first perfomed on September 17, 2009 at the Oslo Nye Centralteater, common grounds of the 19th century drama and contemporary cultural context are considered. Ibsen’s drama Peer Gynt, directed by Svein Sturla Hungnes is, according to critics, staged as ”a modern, urban version”. The analysis singles out the key intertextual elements of a new reading and performing Ibsen in the context of media culture. Relying on Roland Barthes’s theoretic views from the essay “The Death of the Author”, our text focuses on stage/performance and viewer/participant communication.

HEDDA GABLER: THE PIANO AS A DRAMATICAL TOOL

In Hedda Gabler, as in A Doll House, Ibsen uses the piano not merely as part of the set decoration. The protagonist, Hedda, is strongly attached to it, and the piano music plays an important part in the structure of the play. Throughout the drama, Ibsen is constantly reminding the reader of the piano’s presence or absence. Although the piano, and its music, have very important function in the construction of narratives, peripeteia and in the composition of some other Ibsen’s dramas, in this particular drama, this instrument becomes the very emblem of the protagonist and the metaphor for her languishing misplacement. The culturally ingrained metaphoric of the piano is a means by which Ibsen, among other things, emphasizes relations between the different social classes of his characters. The piano is a symbol of, and a part in Hedda’s attempt at perpetuation of her Gabler identity. The piano can be seen as Hedda’s metaphoric twin-figure since a strong identifying bond is established between the protagonist and her piano; secondly, the metaphoric of the music Hedda plays on her piano can be taken as the dramatist’s auditory comment on the protagonist’s emotional state; lastly, the piano melody Hedda plays in the last scene can be interpreted as a particular “swan-song”, pointing to a possible interpretation of Hedda as an essentially poetic character. The focus of this work is, thus, on the auditory layer of the drama, and on the many metaphors offered by the inclusion of the piano as an element of the dramatic theatrical set. From this perspective, the analysis of the Ibsen’s text emphasizes an important function of the auditory elements included in a dramatic work, also indicating new interdisciplinary possibilities in literary and musicological analyses.