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SoSe 14: Media Practices in Transformation: (De)Gendering Social and Political Movement in Quotidian Cultures

Susanne Foellmer, Eun-Jeung Lee, Margreth Lünenborg

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Prof. Dr. Margreth Lünenborg, Institute for Media and Communication Studies
Prof. Dr. Eung-Jeung Lee, Institute of Korean Studies
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Susanne Foellmer, Institute for Theatre Studies

Political action is constituted by very specific media practices. This holds especially true for societies that undergo transformation processes. Flash Mobs choreograph synchronous "Counter-Movements", which are learnt in advance via social media channels, such as YouTube, and which are afterwards spread globally via that same channel. Regional political transformation processes, such as the so-called "Arab Spring", or local protests, like the Taksim Square occupation in Istanbul, are facilitated, produced and distributed or carried by digital media. Media are not structuring social order as organizations or institutions though; they gain their particular relevance as quotidian practices.
The main aim of this interdisciplinary lecture is to analyze these mediatized quotidian practices in political conflict and transformation processes. Invited international and local scholars from various disciplines in the field of social sciences as well as cultural and area studies are also dealing with more "silent" forms of the above mentioned movements and actions - based on the notion that they, too, influence a given social order via mediatized ways of expression. Here, one example would be the protest performance of "duran adam"(standing man) on Taksim Square, as an actively passive way of taking a "stand" against political assembly bans.
The focus on media practices allows for an analysis of quotidian processes of the construction of meaning with and through forms of mediatized action. Strategies of "un/doing" and the changing of a political order in tangible mediatized practices and protest cultures are being considered. A special focus is put on the construction, irritation or rejection of gendered structures (doing and/or undoing gender) in transformation processes.
Different research perspectives are being discussed along key concepts such as "media as practice", "performative strategies", "participation" and "agency". Combining all of these, the lecture provides important insights into a vibrant, transdisciplinary and international field of research. All lectures are given in English. close