Here for the Taking? References to Proverbs in Newspaper Texts
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Media & Folklore Contemporary Folklore IV 1 2 Publication of the Folk Belief Department of the Estonian Literary Museum, ELM Scholarly Press Media & Folklore Contemporary Folklore IV Edited by Mare Kõiva Tartu 2009 3 Editor Mare Kõiva Language editor Harri Mürk Layout Liisa Vesik Design Andres Kuperjanov Editorial Board: Larisa Fialkova (University of Haifa, Israel) Maria Yelenevskaya (Israel Institute of Technology, Israel) Diane Goldstein (Memorial University of Newfoundland Canada) Irina Sedakova (Russian Academy of Sciences) Eda Kalmre (Estonian Literary Museum) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be repro- duced, stored in retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the permission of the copyright holder. The publication of this book was supported by: ESF grant 6824, project SF0030181s08 Estonian Cultural Endowment ISBN 978-9949-446-53-7 ISSN 1406-3778 © ELM Scholarly Press, Authors Front Cover designed by Andres Kuperjanov 4 Contents Introduction 7 ELECTRONIC MEDIA Sabine Wienker-Piepho 13 Das Handy – oder: vom erzählerischen Umgang mit dem Mobiltelefon Helmut Fischer 39 Magazingeschichten. Erzählen in berichtend-kommentierenden Rundfunksendungen Anu Vissel 61 Media as a Mediator of Games and the Source of New Ones Mare Kõiva, Liisa Vesik 97 Contemporary Folklore, Internet and Communities at the beginning of the 21st Century INTERNET Aado Lintrop 121 Shamanism and the Internet Maris Kuperjanov 143 Means of Online Communication in the 1990s Sander Vesik 152 Folklore on the Internet: About the Internet (and a Bit on Computers) Mare Kõiva 162 Online Medicine. Communication and Narratives 5 PRESS Maarja Lõhmus 185 Mediamyths: the Struggle for Influence over Society through Journalism Reet Hiiemäe 195 Violence in Mass Media: Stereotypes, Symbols, Reality Ingrid Rüütel 205 Truth and Ethics in Visual Anthropology Fionnuala Carson Williams 216 Proverbial Expressions, the Local Press and the Current “Troubles” in Northern Ireland Risto Järv 239 Aren’t Proverbs there for the Taking? References to Proverbs in Newspaper Texts CATASTROPHES Gillian Bennett & Anne Rowbottom 271 “Born a Lady, Married a Prince, Died a Saint”: The Deification of Diana in the Press and Popular Opinion in Britain Eda Kalmre 288 Legends Connected with the Sinking of the Ferry Estonia on September 28, 1994 Marju Kõivupuu 313 Roadside Cemeteries ORAL & WRITTEN Taive Särg 347 Covers and Foklore. Contra’s Songs Tiiu Jaago 390 Information transmission on the border of ingroup and outgroup groups Opposition – integration 6 Introduction This collection of studies on contemporary folklore and its rela- tions to media, internet communities and their folklore make up an important milestone of folklore research. The first print of the book you are holding in your hands was published in a very small run in 2002, in the middle of economic difficulties and that is why we decided to publish a second, improved collection of the studies. Contemporary Folklore 4 is also dedicated to the memory of Harry William Mürk (8 June 1954 – 24 February 2009) and Anu Vissel (16 December 1952 – 6 September 2005). As a linguist who had studied language and literature at the universities of Helsinki and Toronto and defended PhD on Esto- nian morphology at the Indiana University in 1991, Harry Mürk understood the nature and dangers of language segregation. During his scholarly and teaching career he published a hand- book of Estonian language in the Uralic and Altaic series at the Indiana University in 1997, and worked as professor and teacher of Estonian language and literature at the University of Toronto, later as teacher in the school. His ever increasing work load made Harry Mürk use his spare time for work, and his unex- pected death left many unfinished manuscripts lying on his table. Harry’s contribution to mediating Estonian culture was incred- ible. He translated fiction, the Estonian epic Kalevipoeg, folk songs, and choir songs by Veljo Tormis, also scholarly texts, com- piled the monumental text anthology of Estonian Kalavala-met- ric songs Taevased kosilased. It is only short list of his everyday duties. Since the collection action in 1992, school lore and children’s folklore became Anu Vissel’s primary research interests. For more than a decade, she as ethnomusicologist observed the trans- formation of traditions on the isolated Kihnu island and the Setu 7 region. The focus of her research was on the renewing of game tradition and musical culture, including children’s song reper- toire. Studying contemporary folklore in Estonia has been closely related to collection initiatives (1992 – pupil folklore in Estonia and Finland, 1993 – Estonian Russian school folklore, 1993 – Estonian student folklore) and research projects but first and foremost with the researchers’ own interest in cultural and soci- etal change. This was what led to the 2007 collection initiative targeting Estonian schoolchildren with a questionnaire adapted from the 1992 one. The task force included initiators of the Esto- nian-Finnish 1992 collection Mare Kõiva, Astrid Tuisk, research- ers of contemporary folklore Risto Järv, Piret Voolaid and co- ordinator Ave Tupits. The actions of collecting contemporary folklore were preceded and followed by seminars and conferences on the subject: 1991 – anecdotes, spiritism in schoollore, scare stories, games, children’s songs, etc., 1992 – Estonian school folklore just collected, 1993 – Russian Estonian school folklore, 1994, 1997 – media influences on folklore, 2007 Kiidi seminar on school folklore and the 2008 winter folklore conference panels – concentrating on the mate- rial gathered in the 2007 initiative. Compared to the school folk- lore collected in 1992, there had been profound changes in the whole mosaic of youth traditions, both in the genres and topics, certainly related to the transformed social cultural setting. The seminars analysed the renewed genres and topics, offering first in-depth analysis of internet folklore. Attention was also paid to youth folklore phenomena that had previously received little attention: versebooks, anecdotes, chain letters, gestures, hor- ror stories. Accepting change takes a while in the academic research dis- course. This is well illustrated by the 1990s habit of considering the flourishing new folklore subgenres like the visual droodles or the word games bordering on linguistics and gaming as part of the periphery of riddles. Internet communities were a brand new phenomenon, and from the point of view of classical folk- lore, the very periphery of peripheries. Collecting internet folk- lore, observation of internet communities became actual only in late 1990s and resulted in databases, working papers, articles and monographs. 8 Conference papers and articles outlined in addition to social and political influences also the constant continuing impact that media has on the folklore process, but also the trends of merg- ing phenomena. In many areas, the question of authorship or, in other words, the role that the personal and the individual in reinterpretation and representation of folklore, not to mention its creation. Besides providing feedback for the society and studying the transformation of traditions in the changing society, the inquiry into contemporary folklore rejuvenated Estonian folkloristics, emphasizing new approaches, metamorphosis of folklore genres and the issues of transplantation. The latter is largely charac- teristic of internet folklore. Popular text anthologies and readers compiled by Eda Kalmre, Piret Voolaid, Astrid Tuisk, Anneli Baran were met with great reader interest. The same can be said about the series Tänapäeva folkloorist (1995-) and Contemporary Folklore (1996-) that the signed initiated and has edited. In 1993, after the collection cam- paign for school lore from Estonian Russians, Anu Vissel and Mare Kõiva published and edited a collection of school lore with parallel Estonian and Russian texts. This publication (Koolipärimus ‘School Lore’) was the first in the Pro folkloristica publication series. Mare Kõiva 9 10 ELECTRONIC MEDIA 11 12 Das Handy – oder: vom erzählerischen Umgang mit dem Mobiltelephon Sabine Wienker-Piepho Das kulturwissenschaftliche Denken muß sich den Folgelasten der Modernisierung durch Naturwissenschaft und Technik stellen. Hel- ge Gerndt 1997. Umberto Eco hatte schon 1992 die Besitzer von Mobiltelephonen in verschiedene Gruppen eingeteilt; einerseits die Zwanghaften, die ständig die Sicherheit brauchen, mit dem Arzt oder einem Notdienst in Kontakt treten zu können; andererseits diejeni- gen, die – beruflich bedingt – immer erreichbar sein müssen – beispielsweise Feuerwehrmänner, Schiedsrichter, Hausmeister oder Präsidenten. Drittens schließlich die Ehebrecher. Für alle drei Kategorien solle man Verständnis haben, forderte Eco, ins- besondere für die Ehebrecher, da sie zumeist äußerst diskret vorgingen. Keinen Respekt konnte Eco hingegen für Handy-Be- nutzer aufbringen, die sich aufgrund innerer Leere und Schwatz- haftigkeit nie dem Drang zur Interaktion entziehen können oder ständig öffentlich zeigen müssen, wie begehrt sie sind (Eco 1993: 143). Das Handy als Prothese des beziehungsgestörten Men- schen – den “Handy-Geschichten” zufolge, um die es in meinem Beitrag gehen soll – macht gerade diese Benutzergruppe heut- zutage den Großteil der Mobiltelephonierer aus. Wandel und Kontinuität. Als Anfang der neunziger Jahre die ersten Handys in Deutschland den Markt zu erobern began- nen, kursierte eine Variante über einen neuen