Campfire culture and computer culture: Museums of the present

In Australia indigenous peoples have never had a treaty with the dominant cultures; and their on-going marginalisation is some testimony to this. However, they have not languished entirely in a policy free environment: media is one area where some policy advances have been made; but media policy development has experienced a number of problems. It has tended to be monolithic in a situation demanding multi and complex treatments. And funding, as always, never seems sufficient to meet those multi and complex needs. This paper examines a small remote community on the island of Milingimbi off the northern coast of Arnhem Land in Australia's far north. People in East Arnhem Land refer to themselves collectively as Yolngu. This community is not typical of many documented cases of media relations between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples; however, the fact that it tends to overturn much of the conventional scholarship surrounding indigenous peoples and the media, helps shed new light on the inadequacy of not only monolithic media policy, but the inadequacy of media-only approaches to policy. Arguably, the significance of the media in Milingimbi is part of a 'triangulated' relationship between indigenous and dominant cultures. That triangulation also involves appropriate forms of government and education, which coupled with appropriate media appear to offer new ways of seeing self-government alongside relative cultural and economic autonomy.

PRODUÇÃO DE SENTIDOS NA INFÂNCIA: MEDIAÇÕES NA RECEPÇÃO DA SÉRIE DE ANIMAÇÃO DOUG FUNNIE

Esta pesquisa propõe uma reflexão a respeito dos processos de recepção de produtos culturais por parte do telespectador infantil. A problematização está em investigar, valendo-se dos referenciais teóricos das mediações comunicativas da cultura e do enfoque integral da audiência, como as crianças com idade entre 7 e 12 anos interagem com as narrativas audiovisuais, especialmente com a série de animação televisiva, para desta perspectiva compreender como se dão a apropriação e a produção de sentidos no cotidiano, tomando-se por base a interpretação do desenho animado Doug Funnie. O estudo emprega como metodologia a revisão de literatura combinada ao grupo de discussão norteado pelo modelo teórico-metodológico da mediação múltipla formulado por Guillermo Orozco Gómez, com base no paradigma das mediações de Jesús Martín-Barbero. A pesquisa de recepção, realizada em ambiente escolar, constatou que a comunicação midiática é de natureza dialógica e implica em reconhecimento e projeção do interlocutor no universo da ficção, assim, a produção de sentidos em relação ao desenho animado não está contida no audiovisual, mas no contexto sociocultural no qual interlocutores relacionam-se entre si e com os meios. E desta interação emergem a compreensão e a recriação dos produtos culturais, sinalizando que as interpretações do telespectador infantil revelam a sua maneira de ver o mundo.

The social construction of sleep and work in the British print news media

This article presents a sociological study of sleep issues in the British print news media, with particular focus on the relationship between sleep, work and the changing demands of ‘flexible capitalism’. Drawing on over 1000 newspaper articles from 1984 to 2005, we explore how and why sleep is framed or constructed in terms of continuity and change (in British working life and work cultures) and, equally, viewed as a neglected component of our social lives which is too easily sacrificed to the demands of the 24/7 society, long hours culture and the struggle to create a harmonious work-life balance. This is particularly the case for certain British work cultures in which sleep has conflicting and contrasting associations. Finally, we reflect on the broader class-based discourses and debates that arise from certain workers having their sleep patterns increasingly scrutinized and regulated, and the role of the media in any ensuing sleep/work ‘crisis’.