Nordicom Information 2010(2-3)
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Foreword The media and communication research associations of the Nordic countries in cooperation with Nordicom have held conferences every second year since 1973. These Nordic conferences have contributed greatly to the development of media and communication research in the Nordic countries. The 19th conference in the series was held in Karlstad, Sweden, 13th-15th August 2009. Host for the con- ference was the Association for Swedish Media and Communication Research (FSMK). About 265 scholars from Denmark (37), Finland (43), Iceland (2), Norway (53) and Sweden (114) gathered to discuss current research and findings. In addition, some participants came from further afield, from the Baltic States, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, South Africa and the USA. The conference proceedings included plenary sessions with keynote speakers and thematic seminars in different working groups. In addition participants enjoyed a number of social gatherings and cultural events. The theme of the plenary ses- sions this year was Body, Soul and Society. This special issue of Nordicom Review contains all the lectures held in plenary sessions. As usual, the main business of the conference took place in the working group sessions. More than 175 research papers were presented in 12 working groups: Environment, Science and Risk Communication; Journalism Studies; Media and Communication History; Media, Culture and Society; Media, Globalization and Social Change; Media Literacy and Media Education; Media Organizations, Policy and Economy; Media, Technology and Aesthetics; Organization, Communication and Society; Political Communication; Theory, Philosophy and Ethics of Com- munication; and Theme Division: Body Soul and Society. Responsibility for arranging the conferences is divided into two parts. More com- prehensive questions, such as the theme, keynote speakers, working groups and fees are the responsibility of a Nordic Planning Committee, whose members are appointed by the national media and communication research associations and Nordicom. Members of the Committee that planned the conference were Lars Holmgaard Christensen, SMID (Denmark); Sinikka Torkola and Juha Koivisto, TOY (Finland); Þorbjörn Broddason (University of Iceland); Kristin Skare Orgeret and Audun Engelstad, NML (Norway); André Jansson, FSMK (Sweden); and Ulla Carlsson, Nordicom. 5 A Local Planning Committee at Karlstad University was responsible for the arrang- ements and details of the conference: André Jansson (Chair), Miyase Christensen, Lars Högberg, Helena Persson, Malin Svenningsson Elm and Jakob Svensson (conference general). The next Nordic Conference on Media and Communication Research is to be held in Akureyri, Iceland, 11-13 August 2011. Göteborg in May 2010 Ulla Carlsson Director Nordicom 6 Body, Soul and Society Rethinking Media and Communication Ontologies The 19th Nordic Conference on Media and Communication Research Miyase Christensen & André Jansson It is a common discernment that modern Western societies entail a problematic division between the conceptual realms of “body” and “soul”, and that the ideal of rational thinking and progress (the mind) has come to dominate both. It is also a commonplace argument that Western modernity – in its disciplination, individualization and commodification of body (and soul) – differs sharply from both traditional societies and Eastern philosophies. A brief look at the past few centuries of Western thinking, however, reveals obvious fields of tension within the various veins of Western social theory and their conceptions of modernity. Efforts towards understanding modernity were always accompanied by inqui- sitions into the forces of rationality and discipline, on the one hand, and enchantment and hedonism, on the other. Earlier social theorists conceived differently of the individual and society, and the social versus spiritual realms against the backdrop of modernity, produ- cing competing visions. Where Marx saw a capitalist society and grounds for revolution, Durkheim (following Comte) saw an industrial society and the need for evolution, and Weber a paradox of rationalism that deeply marked modernity, which ultimately produ- ced a disenchanted culture. Questions of body and soul, in all their articulations, have been crucial to both social scientific and humanistic analysis, and continue to be integral to numerous current debates – not least in media and communication studies – and to normative visions of what constitutes the “good life” and “good society”. Ontological understandings of Body, Soul, Society and related concepts are also linked, and increasingly more directly, to the status of media and communication in society. Parallel to this, as media and communication studies evolve in their increasing interdisciplinarity, a holistic approach to identifying and expanding upon the enduring and emerging patterns of such conceptual, theoretical formations becomes necessary. Various landmarks in the social scientific and humanistic roots of the field provide entry points for such deliberation: from functionalist sociology to the collapse of arts and aesthetics into critical theory, to the more autonomous accounts of the “cultural” and the “aesthetic” in post-structuralist analysis; from the Romantics’ sublime and the banal to “new media” aesthetics of remediated visuality; and, from the mind-centred conceptions of the triad of human agency-social life-modernity in Freudian and Lacanian theory to the body-oriented psychology of Reich, to postmodern, gender and queer theoretical accounts of the self and society in a state of ambivalence and dislocation. The development and appropriation of media technologies, ideologies, and cultural forms (re)produce and respond to these fundamental notions – as “conceptions of re- 7 ality”. In particular, political and moral debates regarding the “fears” and “wonders” of new media vis-à-vis lifestyle habits tend to highlight society’s basic (competing) assumptions concerning the material and mental/spiritual nature of human ontology. Added to these are the growing centrality of risk communication and environmental sustainability issues in media and communication studies, and the emphasis placed on effective communication methods for social change. The objective of the conference theme for NordMedia 2009 was to scrutinize the triadic interplay between Body, Soul and Society in terms of how they have been, and are currently, understood, implied and implemented in media and communication studies and to what ends. The approach was twofold, dealing, on the one hand, with how Body, Soul and Society have been applied as concepts of “reality”, and, on the other, with how they have (re)produced certain formations of knowledge. How do these concepts, in their broadest sense, produce certain ways of thinking in media and communication studies? How is the thinking around these categories bound up with (inter)disciplinary fields of power in terms of scholarly traditions and paradigms? A reflexive analysis of the different conceptions of these and a wide range of related notions throughout the history of media and communication studies would also offer an important key to our understanding of the development of certain fields and paradigms. While each concept attains a certain autonomous status, and may therefore be as- sociated with different kinds of scholarly work, the goal of the theme was above all to consider Body, Soul and Society as an ontological ensemble. Through the conceptual locus of Body, Soul and Society, the conference was geared towards ontological debates of broader concern than what might be achieved through “intra-disciplinary” concepts such as media, communication, audience, convergence, etc. This means that the theme also assessed where and how media and communication studies are linked to surround- ing fields and disciplines, as well as how contemporary transformations of media and communication research are related to historical debates and concepts. In order to bring about this double dialogue, the theme was also operationalized through a re-assessment of classical scholarly debates, which have problematized the Body-Soul-Society inter- play in various ways. 8 PLENARY I. Where is Liberation in Contemporary Media Culture? Mission Impossible? Neoliberal Subjects and Empowerment Mikko Lehtonen My contribution today has two immediate contexts. First, in an ongoing multidisci- plinary research project “The Power of Culture in Producing Common Sense (POW- CULT)”, funded by the Academy of Finland (2007-2010), I have for some time now tried to comprehend the mechanisms of contemporary power in late-modern societies. Second, I have become loosely involved in a new green-red Finnish social movement that unites civil activists, politicians from social democratic, leftist and green parties, researchers and others who are against neo-liberalism. The movement uses for itself the title “Freedom to choose otherwise”. In both the POWCULT research project and in this emergent political movement, I have frequently wondered about the paradox of contemporary Finnish politics that can be formulated in the following way: If people in all opinion polls, at every turn, indicate that they support anti-neo-liberal objectives, why do they equally persistently, in elections, cast their votes for those who implement neo-liberal policies? So: Where is the liberation in contemporary media culture? The traditional emancipa- tion-oriented answer to this question would emphasize that dominant media