Session 5: Dissent, Popular
History and Media Images
Chair: Edith Sheffer
Joss Hands
- Living with E-utopia: Camus, Habermas and the Politics of Virtual
Dissent
Department of Communication Studies, Anglia Polytechnic University,
Cambridge, CB1 1PT
The discourse surrounding the Internet as a political
and public communication tool has often been constructed in a utopian
framework, as has been explored by theorists such as, among others,
Michael Benedikt (1992). The utopian perspective has, in recent times,
been subject to criticism and a ‘coming down to earth’ as
the Net has been subjected to more empirical modes of study. I will
argue, however, that we should retain a place for utopian discourse,
but in a tempered mode, returning to a conception of utopia closer to
that outlined by Albert Camus in his essay ‘Neither Victim Nor
Executioner’ (1945), wherein we consider a ‘relative’
utopia our more modest aim.
This kind of thinking implies we need to think of the Net as a forum
of revolt, but not revolution, where the more extreme visions of a ‘post-human’
universe can be reviewed and reconstructed, wherein mutual recognition
takes precedence over transcendence. I argue that this entails the requirement
to ask normative questions regarding how we should be constructing,
and coexisting in, cyberspace.
Such a view, while having a conception of revolt in common with Camus,
is legitimated via Habermas’ conception of communicative action.
However, we need to think of the Internet in more fluid terms, to take
account of recent conceptions of civic society and its heterogeneous
identities and interests. Rather than being theorised as something that
is either transcendent or purely practical, the Internet should be seen
as interwoven with the lifeworld, thus there is a duty to address it
as existing in the social domain of ‘Our World’, and therefore
it should be subject to questions of rightness, and its potential as
‘relative’ utopia explored.
Emine Oncular
- Challenging Nationalist Discourse through Popular History
Dept. of Sociology, Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey
History as a discipline has been intimately connected
with the rise of the nation-state. It has often been used as a means
to legitimize the state’s hegemony as well as to create a feeling
of solidarity among fellow citizens by making references to a shared
past. As Anderson demonstrated in his well-known work, this specific
formulation of nationalist history formed the basis of “imagined
communities”.
This was the case in the newly formed Republic of Turkey and the nationalist
historiography was rarely challenged until 1980s. Access to history
was limited to school textbooks and some academic studies. These paid
little attention to the Ottoman past as a way to downplay the continuities
with a multi-ethnic empire. The Central Asian heritage was emphasized
instead as a means to confirm the “Turkishness” of the population.
Therefore, the minorities were absent in this historiography.
However, recently the discussions about the past have moved to another
sphere. There has been a proliferation of historical novels and films.
The Ottoman heritage is being re-discovered accompanied by the commodification
of historical artifacts. Different groups come up with different narrativizations,
each one embedded in different power configurations.
This new sphere enables the representation of some traumatic events
and alternative narratives, which were absent from the official historical
narrative. One of these events was the Capital Levy of 1942-1944, which
aimed at taxing the non-Muslim bourgeoisie. It was brought to the attention
of the public by a novel written by a member of the national assembly
in 1990, followed by the filming of the novel in 1999. The film Salkim
Haiimin Taneleri, received a wide array of reactions, which increased
as a result of the screening of the film on the national channel, TRT.
The paper focuses on the film as well as its coverage in the media.
It outlines the changes in the discursive space that made the creation
of these cultural products possible. It also concentrates on the differences
between different types of media, that is academic historical works
and popular historical films highlighting the different types of remembering
they propose.
Maria Way - Politics,
the Papacy and the Media
University of Westminster, School of Communication and Creative Industries,
Northwick Park, Harrow, Middlesex. HA1 3TP.
The Catholic Church is by its nature catholic –
its religious intent seeks to cover every facet of everyday life. In
recent years the Church has spoken out on many of the subjects listed
in the interest areas of this conference.
John Paul II has become not only a religious but also a media star.
Despite his evident ill health he has continued to appear in public,
traveling the world to places unthought of by previous pontiffs. His
media presence and his continual pleas for peace have brought him into
the political arena in a new way. As leader of a fifth of the world’s
people, he is the head of a considerable power block. His use of the
media has brought him and the Church he represents, to the attention
of many outside the Church. Some of these people have in the past been
disaffected by the Church, but have developed a new respect for its
present leader.
What is the policy behind this media presence – if indeed there
is one? How has this presence been achieved? Has there really been a
political effect? This paper seeks to answer these questions by using
both written and interview material as well as material from archive
film.