Browsing RIMAD Research Institute for Media, Art and Design - to April 2016 by Title
Now showing items 1-20 of 253
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Alfred Hitchcock and the monstrous gazeThe films of the British-born director Alfred Hitchcock may be seen today as launching a radical and seminal exploration of many of the central existential and psychological preoccupations that came to dominate European cultural philosophy and avant-garde cinema in the second half of the twentieth century. Although often remembered (for the films he made in the United States)as a commercially successful Hollywood director, Hitchcock began his career making films in Britain and Germany,and later found his artistic genius first recognized by such French cinephiles as André Bazin, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut.
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The Alhondiga project: glocalising culture for the communityPositioned as a local, community alternative to the Guggenheim Museum, the Alhondiga cultural centre is one of the many projects of urban regeneration through culture in the city of Bilbao, Northern Spain. It is a multipurpose leisure and arts centre extending over 43,000 square meters, built in the early XXth century as a wine warehouse and redesigned recently by Philip Starck. While the Guggenheim Museum has maintained its international outlook and connotations, oriented towards cultural tourism and being filled primarily by tourists visiting the city, the Alhondiga project is a usable, open space used primarily by the local community, offering an experience that straddles the local and the global, the traditional and the contemporary, the everyday and the cutting edge achieved through a mix of material space design and cultural programming. The presentation will analyse how elements of material and immaterial culture blend in order to foster education, leisure and citizenship agendas in a community which in the past was culturally inward looking. It will evaluate the contrasting understandings of culture and its consumers that emerge from the venue and its programme and the attempt to combine the local and the global both in content and in terms of audience appeal and engagement. It will do so through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the different activities and events, both regular and occasional, over a period of two years, and what they reveal about how community inclusivity and engagement are targeted through cultural programming.
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The American FriendAnnotations on film Der Amerikanische Freund (The American Friend, 1977) by Wim Wenders
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Are we all online content creators now? Web 2.0 and digital dividesDespite considerable interest in online content creation there has been comparatively little academic analysis of the distribution of such practices, both globally and among social groups within countries. Drawing on theoretical frameworks used in digital divide studies, I outline differences in motivation, access, skills, and usage that appear to underlie and perpetuate differences in online content creation practices between social groups. This paper brings together existing studies and new analyses of existing survey datasets. Together they suggest online content creators tend to be from relatively privileged groups and the content of online services based on their contributions may be biased towards what is most interesting or relevant to them. Some implications of these findings for policymakers and researchers are considered.
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Barriers to dance training for young people with disabilitiesDance is a viable and enjoyable activity – and potential career – for young people with disabilities, yet they face several barriers to participation and training. The aim of this article, by Imogen J. Aujla of the University of Bedfordshire and Emma Redding of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, is to review the literature on barriers to dance training for young disabled people and to put forward practical recommendations for overcoming these challenges. The main barriers identified were aesthetic, attitudinal, training-related and logistical in nature, with further barriers related to physical access and a lack of knowledge or available information about opportunities. One of the key recommendations for overcoming these barriers is to build an effective network between special and mainstream schools, dance studios, youth dance groups and professional integrated dance companies in order to encourage dance participation at a range of levels and support young disabled people throughout their dance journeys.
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Biblical proximity and women: the image of Arabs in Victorian works of religious natureAbstract The pro-suffrage campaign to elevate the Oriental female did not give emphasis to Arab women; however, they were vividly presented in religious literature and romances of a religious nature. The inferior position and the victimisation of Arab women, attributed to Islam, delivered a political and a religious message that helped steer the Victorian reader’s opinion towards a desired effect. The paper will focus on the image of the Arab woman in some of these publications to highlight that the use of the biblical element of the Middle East was employed to reinforce Christianity and combat Ottomans. The image of the victimised Arab woman also prepared the public for a future military involvement in the Middle East. The paper suggests that the Victorian depiction of the Arab female may well be the precursor of present-day use of Islam-phobic slogans that trigger sorrow easily transformed into anger at the men, culture and the religion that victimise women.
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The book as a dynamic system for the commodification of ideas and cultural expressionsToday, the book is challenged by the Internet as a source of information, and by other media as a vehicle for national culture, and yet it retains its privileged place as a valued and venerated vehicle for literary culture. Through an exploration of contemporary changes in publishing set against a historical understanding of the conceptual origins of copyright, I propose a redefinition of the book. I argue that the book is a dynamic system for the commodification of ideas and cultural expressions. As a system rather than a material object the book packages, stores, verifies, gatekeeps, permits trade by allowing transference of ownership, and verifies by documenting previous ownership of texts on which its ideas are built. Through this system creative, artistic, innovative, and cutting edge scientific ideas reach an audience. This is where its economic value and cultural worth lies.
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Br(e)aking the news: journalism, politics and new mediaWhat is the breaking news in the world today? How did you find out this news? How do you know it is true? Was it reported ethically? What checks and balances are being put on the news media? The answers to these questions reflect the themes of this book. The chapters are by experienced journalists, academics and practitioners in the field. They unravel and clearly present the recent and on-going developments in journalism and the press around the globe, including the US, Europe, Asia and Africa. Chapters deal with the phone hacking and data thefts in the UK that provoked a major inquiry into press ethics and standards. Twitter is examined and found to be a valuable tool for reporters in the Arab world and research shows how, in Australia, readers use Twitter to pass along news topics. Chapters also explore the use of the mobile phone to access news in sub-Saharan Nigeria, the role of media magnates in presenting political views in Europe, and Wikipedia’s representation of conflict. This collection of fourteen chapters by leading authors examines journalism as practised today and what we might expect from it in the future.