"Superheld*innen sind in der Krise: Gut und Böse, Richtig und Falsch sind nach starken sozialen und politischen Umbrüchen längst nicht mehr klar und eindeutig. Für das Genre ein eklatantes Problem. Religion und Glaube könnten hier Orientierung bieten, verlieren aber - so der gängige Vorwurf -
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ihrerseits immer stärker an Bedeutung in einer säkularen Welt. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes bieten einen ersten Zugang zu diesem Phänomen und kommen zu dem erstaunlichen Befund, dass religiöse Motivik dagegen ungebrochene Hochkonjunktur in der superheroischen Popkultur feiert. Figuren, Themen, Ikonographie, Symbole: Das religiöse Spielfeld des Superheroismus ist mannigfaltig." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"This book documents the journalistic career of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Known as the Mahatma and the Father of India, Gandhi was also a journalist. However, he was a not a journalist in the same vein as those working for the New York Times or the BBC. Rather, Gandhi was what is called an advocacy journa
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list; that is, his journalism served various political, social, and cultural causes—most importantly, in the long run, the Indian independence movement. Among the other key causes were equality, human rights, Muslim-Hindu relations, vegetarianism, chastity, poverty, and hygiene. The chapters in this book were written by authors who attended a conference on Gandhi and media at the University of St. Andrews on the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birthday, in October 2019. It relies on careful analysis of his newspapers, produced in both South Africa and India, including Indian Opinion, Young India, the Gujarati newspaper Navajivan, and three versions of Harijan, which were in English, Gujarati, and Hindi. The authors also place Gandhi’s version of journalism in a historical context of small, family-operated weekly newspapers that were commonplace in the nineteenth century. Finally, the book looks at other media tools Gandhi used to transmit his messages to the public, including his recorded voice for gramophone." (Publisher description)
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"The book is divided into five sections that examine philosophical principles for reporting on poverty, the history and nature of poverty coverage, problematic representations of people experiencing poverty, poverty coverage as part of reporting on public policy, and positive possibilities for pover
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ty coverage. Each section provides an introduction to the topic, as well as a broad selection of essays illuminating key issues and a Q&A with a relevant journalist. Topics covered include news coverage of corporate philanthropy, structural bias in reporting, representations of the working poor, the moral demands of vulnerability and agency, community empowerment, and citizen media. The book's broad focus considers media and poverty at both the local and global levels with contributors from sixteen countries." (Publisher description)
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"Indian Film Stars offers original insights and important reappraisals of film stardom in India from the early talkie era of the 1930s to the contemporary period of global blockbusters. The collection represents a substantial intervention to our understanding of the development of film star cultures
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in India during the 20th and 21st centuries. The contributors seek to inspire and inform further inquiries into the histories of film stardom-the industrial construction and promotion of star personalities, the actual labouring and imagined lifestyles of professional stars, the stars' relationship to specific aesthetic cinematic conventions (such as frontality and song-dance) and production technologies (such as the play-back system and post-synchronization), and audiences' investment in and devotion to specific star bodies-across the country's multiple centres of film production and across the overlapping (and increasingly international) zones of the films' distribution and reception. The star images, star bodies and star careers discussed are examined in relation to a wide range of issues, including the negotiation and contestation of tradition and modernity, the embodiment and articulation of both Indian and non-Indian values and vogues; the representation of gender and sexuality, of race and ethnicity, and of cosmopolitan mobility and transnational migration; innovations and conventions in performance style; the construction and transformation of public persona; the star's association with film studios and the mainstream media; the star's relationship with historical, political and cultural change and memory; and the star's meaning and value for specific (including marginalised) sectors of the audience." (Publisher description)
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"This study focuses on the meanings fans ascribe to the death of fictional characters. Previous research on this topic has been predominantly quantitative in nature, concerned with correlations between the consumption of fictional narratives and people’s coping mechanisms and attitudes. In contras
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t this paper provides a contextualized account of how the mourning of fictional characters works in practice by revealing the underlying meaning making process of this kind of grief and exploring how this is related to people’s everyday lives. By analysing 15 in-depth interviews, this article concludes that these respondents actively utilise fictional narratives of death for reflecting on personal loss; contemplating unexperienced situations and feelings, and more generally, coping with the prospect of death." (Abstract)
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"This book analyses representations of sustainable everyday life across advertising, eco-reality television, newspapers, magazines and social media. It foregrounds the discursive and networked basis of sustainability and demonstrates how such media representations connect the home and local communit
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y to broader political, social and economic contexts. The book shows how green lifestyle media negotiate issues of sustainability in varying ways, reproducing the logic of existing consumer society while also sometimes providing projections of a more environmentally friendly existence. In this way, the book argues that everyday lifestyles are not an irredeemable problem for environmentalism but an important site of environmental politics." (Publisher description)
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"Celebrities champion global development, bringing public visibility to poverty while spotlighting neoliberal strategies as heroic adventures. The wealthy few are applauded for their noble gestures toward helping the projected grateful beneficiaries. These narratives of individual sacrifice and bene
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fit draw attention away from more complex and contextual issues of inequity and injustice. Issues of global development are of serious concern, with an increasing gap between the wealthy and the poor, impending environmental consequences to human industry, and enduring concerns with human rights. In efforts toward resolution, global development schemes require massive financial capital, steered toward strategic social change, applauded by audiences of celebrities glamourizing development processes. Following a brief articulation of global development as an industry, I turn to the roles of celebrities within this landscape, considering their characterization in narratives that position sanctified heroes as rescuing romanticized victims at the mercy of depoliticized villains. I conclude with concerns over the implications for engagement in global development." (Page 128)
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"Offering a rare insight into the world of celebrity and media in China and beyond, Celebrity Culture and the Entertainment Industry in Asia deconstructs the dynamics of “stardom” and celebrity endorsement in East Asia, and examines its impact on marketing communications and media. Through first
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-hand interviews with celebrities and entertainment industry practitioners, the book discusses the social, cultural and economic influences of celebrity through topics such as self-identity, celebrity-driven consumer behaviour, gender and race stereotypes, idol worship, etc. Interviews with celebrities such as Kai-Wah Kwok, Bob Lam, Denise Ho, Hilary Tsui and Francis Mak present the reader with insider accounts of celebrity formation, management and marketing in Hong Kong and Mainland China, as well as South Korea and Taiwan." (Publisher description)
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"Taking the participation in social and humanitarian campaigns of TV host and social entrepreneur Luciano Huck as a case in point, this chapter investigates how new models of celebrity civic engagement are becoming increasingly popular in Brazil. Huck belongs to a growing group of Brazilian celebrit
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ies who combine the support for social causes with private economic interests. Just like Angelina Jolie, Bono Vox, and George Clooney, Huck is frequently promoting humanitarian and environmental campaigns aiming at some of the most challenging problems facing society. The eradication of hunger in poor regions, support for actions to protect the environment, and the lessening of natural disasters are some of the most recurrent examples of civic engagement by celebrities. However, for Huck, these issues should be tackled with the assistance of the private sector. He is a champion of social entrepreneurship. His profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are frequently used to give visibility to companies that partner with his philanthropic projects." (Page 397)
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"'Half the Sky' is an ambitious humanitarian documentary about the global crises in gender discrimination. Based on Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's book (Kristof and WuDunn 2010), the nearly four-hour documentary visits six countries to explore six issues: gender-based violence in Sierra Leone,
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sex trafficking in Cambodia, education in Vietnam, female genital mutilation in Somaliland, intergenerational prostitution in India, and economic empowerment in Kenya. Heather McIntosh explores the role of celebrity in telling these stories. Six American actresses, each of whom visits a country, meet local activists and survivors, and leam about the situation. Drawing on scholarship about documentary representation and celebrity, McIntosh engages critical perspectives that charge that the appearance of notable personalities simplifies complex issues, and overshadows survivors' voices. She evaluates the success of 'Half the Sky' and the film's attempt to cast celebrities as moral agents helping viewers emotionally connect to the issues and the people involved. Ultimately, she questions the film's ability to overcome the tensions between suffering and poverty, and glamour and Western privilege." (Introduction to part 7, page 380-381)
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"This book examines what the diverse roster of celebrity humanitarians are actually doing in and across North and South contexts. Celebrity humanitarianism is an effective lens for viewing the multiple and diverse relationships that constitute the links between North and South. New empirical finding
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s on celebrity humanitarianism on the ground in Thailand, Malawi, Bangladesh, South Africa, China, Haiti, Congo, US, Denmark and Australia illustrate the impact of celebrity humanitarianism in the Global South and celebritization, participation and democratization in the donor North. By investigating one of the most mediatized and distant representations of humanitarianism (the celebrity intervention) from a perspective of contextualization, the book underscores the importance of context in international development." (Publisher description)
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"Collectively known as Hallyu, Korean music, television programs, films, online games, and comics enjoy global popularity, thanks to new communication technologies. In recent years, Korean popular culture has also become the subject of academic inquiry. Whereas the Hallyu's impact on Korea's nationa
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l image and domestic economy, as well as on transnational cultural flows, have received much scholarly attention, there has been little discussion of the role of social media in Hallyu's propagation. Contributors to Hallyu 2.0: The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Media explore the ways in which Korean popular cultural products are shared by audiences around the globe; how they generate new fans, markets, and consumers through social media networks; and how scholars can analyze, interpret, and envision the future of this unprecedented cultural phenomenon." (Publisher description)
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"How effective are celebrities, not just in helping to draw attention to distant suffering, but in actually regulating spectators’ mediated experiences of the lives of distant strangers? What function does the perceived authenticity of a celebrity play in their role as mediator? This article seeks
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to address such questions by analysing the results of an audience study involving two phases of focus groups separated by a two-month diary study. The results show that celebrities certainly help to shape our mediated experiences of distant suffering – but not always in the ways and to the extent we might expect. What is clear is that celebrities are generally ineffective in cultivating a cosmopolitan engagement with distant suffering." (Abstract)
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"[This book] examines the work of celebrity advocacy and lobbying in international development. Its purpose is to understand the alliances resulting, their history, consequences, wider contexts and implications. It argues that celebrity advocacy signals a new aspect of elite rule. For populist celeb
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rity advocacy can mark, ironically, a disengagement between the public and politics, and particularly the public and civil society. Recognising this poses new challenges, but also presents new opportunities, for the development movement." (Publisher description)
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"Anfang Mai 2012 wurde Vladimir Putin erneut ins Präsidentenamt eingeführt. Die pompöse Zeremonie unterschied sich nur graduell von seinem ersten Einzug in den Kreml im Jahr 2000. Man glaubt ihn inzwischen zu kennen. Doch Putin ist ein Verwandlungskünstler. Die mediale Inszenierung als omnipoten
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ter Herrscher, Feldherr, guter Zar und Retter seines Volkes verwendet nationale Traditionen aus vorrevolutionärer Zeit. Rückgriffe auf die internationale massenmediale Ästhetik sowie populäre Stereotypen versetzen Putin in die Rolle eines modernen Helden, Sexsymbols, Medien- und Popstars. Die symbolische Politik unter Putin ist im Zeitalter des Politainment angekommen." (Abstract)
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"This issue of Australian Religion Studies Review examines the intersection of religion and celebrity, both major discourses in the modern world. The six articles examine the imbrication of celebrity with: three traditional religions, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism; the new religion of Candomblé;
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and contemporary spiritual trends such as spiritual tourism, secular equivalents of religion like the Olympic Games, and the veneration of sports stars by fans. The study of the impact of celebrity on religion is still in its infancy, and the contributions to this special issue of Australian Religion Studies Review demonstrate both the rich results that such studies can yield, and the range and diversity of subjects that would repay future research." (Page 227)
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